580 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
second half of life in those domains where biological
factors are important.
To prevent this possible misunderstanding, we next
describe why this is not necessarily so, why deficits
in biological status also can be the foundation for prog-
ress, that is, antecedents for positive changes in adaptive
capacity. At least since the publication of “Limits of
Growth” by the Club of Rome, there has been increasing
public awareness that more is not always better and that
progress is possible even in the context of limitations and
constraints. Biocultural co-construction was already in-
troduced as a metascript. Similar perspectives derive
from considerations of the adaptive processes in evolu-
tion as well as from consideration of the function of com-
pensation during ontogenesis (see also P. B. Baltes,
1991, 1997; Brandtstädter, Chapter 10, this Handbook,
this volume; Dixon & Bäckman, 1995; Durham, 1991).
The most radical view of the notion that deficits can
spell progress is contained in the notion of culture as
compensation. That is, the condition of a limitation or a
loss generates new forms of mastery and cultural inno-
vation. As researchers study what is not yet known, cul-
tural attention shifts to those areas where there is an
objective or subjectively perceived lack or a deficit. In
this line of thinking, the human organism is by nature a
“ being of deficits” (Mängelwesen; Gehlen, 1956) and
social culture has developed or emerged in part to deal
specifically with biological deficits.
Memorization strategies, for instance, were devel-
oped in part because human memory is not optimal. To
give another example: The fact that humans are biologi-
cally vulnerable regarding outside temperatures ( lack of
perfect thermo-regulation) is among the reasons for a
highly developed body of knowledge, values, and tech-
nology about textiles and clothing. This applies both to
cultural evolution on the societal level and to individual
ontogenesis. Research on psychological compensation is
a powerful illustration of the idea that deficits can be
catalysts for positive changes in adaptive capacity
(Bäckman & Dixon, 1992; M. M. Baltes & Carstensen,
1996; P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b; Dixon & Bäckman,
1995; Marsiske et al., 1995; Rowe & Kahn, 1987).
A Family of Metatheoretical Propositions about
Life Span Developmental Theory (Level 3)
Because of the complexities associated with life span
ontogenetic processes and the challenge involved in the
articulation of adequate theoretical concepts, there has
been much discussion in life span work about metathe-
ory of development (e.g., P. B. Baltes, 1987; P. B. Baltes
et al., 1980; Labouvie-Vief, 1980, 1982; R. M. Lerner,
1991, 2002; J. R. Nesselroade & Reese, 1973; Overton &
Reese, 1973; Reese, 1994; Riegel, 1976). Included in
this discussion was a continuing dialogue about the
shortcomings of extant conceptions of development as
advanced primarily by child developmentalists (e.g.,
Collins, 1982; Harris, 1957). A family of metatheoretical
propositions intended to characterize the nature of life
span development was one outcome of this extensive dis-
cussion (P. B. Baltes, 1979a, 1987; R. M. Lerner, 1983).
In the following discussion, we attempt to update
this effort at a metatheory of life span development
(Table 11.3). In doing so, we also point out that similar
metatheoretical work exists in other quarters of devel-
opmental theory, particularly in conceptual work
associated with cultural psychology, evolutionary psy-
chology, and systems theory (see also Fischer & Bidell,
Chapter 7; Gottlieb et al., Chapter 5; Thelen & Smith,
Chapter 6, this Handbook, this volume). In the present
context, however, we emphasize the uniqueness of the
positions advanced by life span scholars.
Reformulating the Concept of Development from a
Functionalist Perspective: Development as Change
in Adaptive Capacity
From a life span theory point of view, it was important
to articulate concepts of development that go beyond
unidimensional and unidirectional models that had
flourished in conjunction with the traditional biological
conceptions of growth or physical maturation. In these
traditional conceptions (Harris, 1957; Sowarka &
Baltes, 1986), attributes such as qualitative change, or-
dered sequentiality, irreversibility, and the definition of
an end state played a critical role. Primarily by consid-
ering ontogenetic development from a functionalist per-
spective (Dixon & Baltes, 1986), the traditional
conception of development was challenged.
Development as Selection and Selective Adapta-
tion (Optimization). The traditional concept of
development emphasizes a general and universal devel-
opment of an entity geared toward a higher level of func-
tioning which, in addition, continuously incorporates
most if not all previously developed capacities (Harris,
1957; R. M. Lerner, 1983, 2002; H. Werner, 1948). His-
torically, this view of ontogenetic development has been
pictured as the unfolding and emergence of an entity,
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis 581

TABLE 11.3 Family of Theoretical Propositions Characteristic of Life Span Developmental Psychology
Life span development: Ontogenetic development is a lifelong process that is co-constructed by biology and culture. No age period holds
supremacy in regulating the nature of development.
Life span changes in the dynamic between biology and culture: With age and certainly after adulthood, there is a growing gap between
biological potential and individual-cultural goals. This gap is fundamental to ontogenesis as the biological architecture of life is incomplete
and inevitably results in loss of adaptive functioning and eventually death.
Life span changes in allocation of resources to distinct functions of development:growth versus maintenance versus regulation of loss:
Ontogenetic development on a systemic level involves the coordinated and competitive allocation of resources in three distinct functions:
(1) growth, (2) maintenance including recovery (resilience), and (3) regulation of loss. Life span developmental changes in the profile of
functional allocation involve a shift from the allocation of resources for growth (more typical of childhood) toward an increasingly larger and
larger share allocated to maintenance and management of loss.
Development as selection (specialization) and selective optimization in adaptive capacity: Development is inherently a process of selection
and selective adaptation. Selection is due to biological, psychological, cultural, and environmental factors. Developmental advances are due
to processes of optimization. Because development is selective and age-associated changes in potential, compensation is also part of the
developmental agenda.
Development as gain/loss dynamic: In ontogenetic development, there is no gain without loss, and no loss without gain. Selection and selective
adaptation are space-, context-, and time-bound. Thus, selection and selective adaptation imply not only advances in adaptive capacity but also
losses in adaptivity for alternative pathways and adaptive challenges. A multidimensional, multidirectional, and multifunctional conception of
development results from such a perspective.
Plasticity: Much intraindividual plasticity (within-person variability) is found in psychological development. The key developmental agenda is
the search for the range of plasticity and its age-associated changes and constraints.
Ontogenetic and historical contextualism as paradigm: In principle, the biological and cultural architecture of human development is
incomplete and subject to continuous change with biological and cultural factors, conditions, and co-constructing and modifying each other.
Thus, ontogenetic development varies markedly by historical-cultural conditions. The mechanisms involved can be characterized as principles
associated with biocultural contextualism. As an illustration, development can be understood as the outcome of the interactions (dialectics)
between three systems of biological and environmental inf luences: (1) normative age-graded,
(2) normative history-graded, and (3) nonnormative (idiosyncratic). Each of these sources evinces individual differences and, in addition, is
subject to continuous change.
Toward a general and functionalist theory of development: The ef fective coordination of selection, optimization, and compensation: On a
general and functionalist level of analysis, successful development, defined as the (subjective and objective) maximization of gains and
minimization of losses, can be conceived of as resulting from collaborative interplay among three components: (1) selection, (2) optimization,
and (3) compensation. The ontogenetic pressure for this dynamic increases with age, as the relative incompleteness of the biology- and culture-
based architecture of human development becomes more pronounced.
Updated from “Erfolgreiches Altern als Ausdruck von Verhaltenskompetenz und Umweltqualität ” (pp. 353–377), by M. M. Baltes, in Der Men-
sch im Zusammenspiel von Anlage und Umwelt, C. Niemitz (Ed.), 1987, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany: Suhrkamp; see also P. B. Baltes, 1987,
1997, and P. B. Baltes et al., 2006.

primarily formed from sources within that entity and by
mechanisms of transformation or stage-like progression.
Such a unidirectional, growth-like view of human de-
velopment appeared contradictory to many findings in
life span psychology, which included negative transfer
from earlier development to later developmental out-
comes, differences in rates, age-onsets, and age-offsets
of developmental trajectories, multidirectional patterns
of age-related change, as well as discontinuities in pre-
diction. Figure 11.3 represents an early representation of
this differentiated view of development elicited by life
span thinking and findings, which posed a challenge to
traditional conceptions of development as unilinear and
holistic growth (see also Labouvie-Vief, 1980, 1982).
Historically, one approach to this gap between theory
and findings was to explore the usefulness of the distinc-
tion between development and aging (Birren, 1964).
Life span theorists, at least within psychology, opted for
a different strategy (P. B. Baltes, 1987). They attempted
to either modulate the traditional definitional approach
to development or to offer conceptions that highlighted
the view that ontogenetic development was not identical
with the notion of holistic and unidirectional growth.
In these efforts, life span scholars shared the goal of re-
formulating the concept of development, although they
differed in the degree of radicality and in specifics.
Labouvie-Vief (1980, 1982; see also Pascual-Leone,
1983; Riegel, 1976), for instance, introduced new forms
(stages) of systemic functioning for the period of adult-
hood, based on conceptions of development as adaptive
transformation and structural reorganization, thereby
opening a new vista on Neo-Piagetian constructivism.
In our work (e.g., P. B. Baltes, 1983, 1987; P. B. Baltes
et al., 1980), but also that of others such as Brandt-
städter, Featherman, and Lerner (Brandtstädter, 1984;
Featherman & Lerner, 1985; Featherman, Smith, &
582 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Behavior-Change Process
Ontogenetic Time
Figure 11.3 Hypothetical examples of life span developmen-
tal processes. Developmental functions ( behavior-change
processes) differ in onset, duration, termination, and direc-
tionality when charted in the framework of the life course.
Moreover, developmental change is both quantitative and qual-
itative: Not all developmental change is related to chronologi-
cal age, and the initial direction is not always incremental.
Source: From “Plasticity and Variability in Psychological
Aging: Methodological and Theoretical Issues” (pp. 41–66),
by P. B. Baltes and M. M. Baltes, in Determining the Ef fects of
Aging on the Central Nervous System, G. E. Gurski (Ed.), 1980,
Berlin, Germany: Schering.
Peterson, 1990; R. M. Lerner, 1983), we were perhaps
more radical in our departure from extant theoretical
models of development. We attempted to approach the
conceptualization of development by a theoretical
framework of neofunctionalism (Dixon & Baltes, 1986)
and contextualism (R. M. Lerner, 1991; Magnusson,
1996). Within that approach, the nature of adaptive
change with life span development was driven by consid-
eration of a larger set of influences and the kind of chal-
lenges that people face as their lives unfold. In our view,
such a neofunctionalist approach was the most open to a
full consideration of the new facets of ontogenetic
change (such as multidirectionality, multifunctionality,
adaptive specificities, and predictive discontinuity) that
life span researchers were confronted with. At the same
time, this broadened conception of development permit-
ted maintaining traditional growth-like conceptions of
development as a special class of developmental phe-
nomena.
The result was to go beyond the traditional conception
of development as growth and open the concept of devel-
opment to a larger framework of changes. In our own
work, we opted for defining development as selective age-
related change in adaptive capacity. Development as se-
lection and selective adaptation displays many attri-
butes. For instance, it can be active or passive, conscious
or subconscious, internal or external, and continuous or
discontinuous. Moreover, in the long run or in different
circumstances, it can be functional or dysfunctional.
This intellectual movement toward a broadly based
functionalist conception of ontogenesis entailed a num-
ber of features. For instance, to reflect more accurately
their understanding of the empirical evidence about life
span changes, and also drawing from alternative concep-
tions of ontogenesis such as canalization and selective
neuronal growth (Edelman, 1987; Waddington, 1975),
self-organization (Barton, 1994; Maturana & Varela,
1980; Prigogine & Stengers, 1984), as well as expert sys-
tems (Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982; Ericsson & Smith,
1991; Weinert & Perner, 1996), life span researchers
began to emphasize that any process of development is
not foremost the unfolding of an entity. Rather, they fo-
cused on development as ontogenetic selection from a
pool of more or less constrained potentialities and the
subsequent selective optimization of the entered path-
ways including the construction of novel pathways that
were not part of the original system (P. B. Baltes, 1987;
Labouvie-Vief, 1982; Marsiske et al., 1995; Siegler,
1989). As a given pathway of ontogenetic development is
chosen and optimized, others are ignored or suppressed.
In short, some life span theorists ventured a new start
and suggested treating ontogenetic development as a pro-
cess of dynamic and selective adaptation reflecting the
interaction of biological, cultural, and contextual factors
as well as the proactive role of individuals in shaping
their course of development (P. B. Baltes, Reuter-
Lorenz, et al., 2006; Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999).
Thus, with the focus on selection and selective adapta-
tion, life span researchers were able to be more open
about the pathways of lifelong ontogenesis.
Development as a Gain-Loss Dynamic. Not sur-
prisingly, a related change in emphasis advanced in life
span theory and research was on viewing development as
always being constituted by gains and losses (P. B.
Baltes, 1979a, 1987; P. B. Baltes et al., 1980; Brandt-
städter, 1984; Brim, 1992; Labouvie-Vief, 1980, 1982;
J. Smith, 2003). Aside from functionalist arguments,
there were several empirical findings that gave rise to
this focus.
One example important to life span researchers was
the differing life span trajectories proposed and ob-
tained for the fluid mechanics and crystallized prag-
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis
matics of intelligence (P. B. Baltes, 1993; Cattell,
1971; Horn, 1970; Horn & Hofer, 1992; S.-C. Li, Lin-
denberger, et al., 2004; McArdle, Ferrer-Caja, Ham-
agami, & Woodcock, 2002; Schaie, 1996, 2005). Very
much in line with the life span dynamic between biol-
ogy and culture expressed in Figure 11.1 (pp. 575), in-
tellectual abilities that are thought to reflect the
neurobiologically based mechanics of intelligence—
like working memory and fluid intelligence—typically
showed normative (universal) declines in functioning
beginning in middle adulthood. Conversely, intellec-
tual abilities that primarily reflect the culture-based
pragmatics of intelligence—such as professional
knowledge, language competence, and wisdom—may
show stability or even increase into late adulthood. As
to the ontogenesis of intelligence, then, gains and
losses do co-exist.
Thus, as some life span theorists considered substi-
tuting the concept of an age-related selection-based
change in adaptive capacity for the concept of develop-
ment, one of the topics that motivated their agenda was
the importance of viewing as fundamental to any ontoge-
netic change the notion of simultaneous gains and losses
associated with these changes. From a functionalist
point of view (Dixon & Baltes, 1986), it is more or less
understood that changes in adaptive capacity can be pos-
itive or negative, that a given change in developmental
capacity may imply different consequences depending
on the outcome criteria and the adaptive contexts in-
volved. Thus, the radical view was advanced that, con-
trary to traditional conceptions of development, there
was no gain in development without loss, and no loss
without gain (P. B. Baltes, 1987). Life span researchers,
then, conceive of ontogenetic development not as a
monolithic process of progression and growth, but as an
ongoing, changing, and interacting system of gains and
losses in adaptive capacity. Throughout life, develop-
ment always consists of the joint occurrence of gains and
losses, both within and across domains of functioning.
Such an approach does not preclude that on some level of
systemic analysis (i.e., considering the entirety of adap-
tive capacity in a fixed cultural context), ontogenetic
development evinces an overall increase or decrease in
adaptive capacity.
To strengthen the general case for reformulating the
concept of development, life span researchers also sug-
gested applying this multifunctional, multidimensional,
and multidirectional view of development to the field of
child development (P. B. Baltes, 1976, 1987; Labouvie-
583
Vief, 1982). Consider as an example the ontogenesis of
language recognition and language acquisition in child-
hood. When one language is acquired as mother tongue,
sound recognition and sound production capacity for
other languages decreases, especially if such second and
third languages are acquired after early childhood (Lev-
elt, 1989).
The study of tasks requiring probability-based imper-
fect rather than logic-based perfect solutions is another
example (P. B. Baltes, 1987). The more advanced the
cognitive status of children (in the sense of capacity for
formal-logical reasoning), the less children are able to re-
spond to cognitive problems that are essentially not per-
fectly solvable and therefore require the use of
maximization rather than optimization strategies. Weir
(1964) conducted an early critical experiment on this
question in the domain of probability-based learning. In
probability learning tasks without perfect solutions, there
is the seemingly paradoxical finding that very young
children outperformed older children and college stu-
dents. Considering adaptive trade-offs between levels
(stages) of cognitive functioning, this finding becomes
meaningful. It is likely that the older children and young
adults achieved lower performance outcomes because
they understood the experimental task as a logical prob-
lem-solving task and, therefore, continued to employ
task-inappropriate but developmentally more “advanced”
cognitive strategies aimed at “perfect ” optimization.
In retrospect, it is perhaps not surprising that the
gain-loss dynamic was identified primarily by life span
researchers as a central topic of ontogenetic analysis. On
the one hand, life span researchers, because of their
concern for long-term processes, were pushed toward
recognizing the varied forms of developmental change
associated with cultural evolution. On the other hand,
on a subjective-phenomenological level, the issue of
gains and losses becomes more conspicuous as one con-
siders adult development and aging. In this phase of life,
declines and losses, especially those due to biological
aging, are difficult to ignore.
Recently, one additional concept has been advanced
to characterize the nature of life span changes in adap-
tive capacity. This concept is equifinality. Equifinality
highlights the fact that the same developmental outcome
can be reached by different means and combination of
means (Kruglanski, 1996). The role of equifinality (a
related notion is the concept of overdetermination) is
perhaps most evident when considering the many ways
by which individuals reach identical level of subjective
584 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
well-being (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b; Brandtstädter
& Greve, 1994; Staudinger et al., 1995). Other examples
come from research on goal attainment conducted in the
framework of action psychology (Brandtstädter, Chapter
10, this Handbook, this volume; Gollwitzer & Bargh,
1996). In this approach, researchers have distinguished
between two general categories of equifinality: equifi-
nality associated with contextual (contingency) match
and equifinality based on substitutability (Kruglanski,
1996). In life span research, notions of equifinality are
important, for instance, when attempting to speak of
general-purpose mechanisms and ways to compensate,
both in the domains of intelligence and personality. The
potential for developmental impact is larger if the re-
sources acquired during ontogenesis in the sense of
equifinality carry a broad scope of generalization and
use in rather different contexts.
A Focus on Plasticity and Age-Associated
Changes in Plasticity
Arguably, plasticity is the concept most emphasized by
life span researchers (P. B. Baltes & Schaie, 1976; P. B.
Baltes & Willis, 1982). Note that plasticity does not
refer to complete or arbitrary malleability of behavior.
Rather, it denotes that behavior is always open and con-
strained at the same time. Hence, the focus on plasticity
highlights the search for the potentialities of develop-
ment including its boundary conditions. This notion of
plasticity also implies that any given developmental out-
come is but one of numerous possible outcomes, and that
the search for the conditions and ranges of ontogenetic
plasticity, including its age-associated changes, is funda-
mental to the study of development. Taken to the ex-
treme, the notion of plasticity can be taken to challenge
the conceptual foundation of any genetically based fixity
in ontogenesis including the notion of an immutable norm
of reaction (see also Gottlieb, 1998). While such vistas
are intellectually stimulating, they are likely overextend-
ing the scope of the empirical evidence as well as the
constraints of evolutionary theory (Hagen & Hammer-
stein, 2005). The very concept of plasticity of biological
plasticity depends on genetically based prerequisites and
related constraints for life and its developmental course.
For several reasons, life span researchers increas-
ingly moved in the direction of making the study of plas-
ticity a cornerstone of their metatheoretical posture and
empirical work. In retrospect, we emphasize three such
reasons. First, as many life span researchers did work in
the field of aging, plasticity-related ideas were invoked
to counteract the prevailing negative stereotype of aging
as a period of universal decline with no opportunity
for positive change (P. B. Baltes, 1987; P. B. Baltes &
Labouvie, 1973; P. B. Baltes & Willis, 1977; Labouvie-
Vief, 1977; S.-C. Li, 2003; Perlmutter, 1988). Thus,
when aging researchers demonstrated in intervention-
oriented research the enhancement possibility of the
aging mind, even in domains such as fluid intelligence
and memory in which decline was the norm, this was
counterintuitive evidence. Such evidence made clear
that aging, as we observe it today, is but one expression
of what is possible in principle. It makes conspicuous
why the intellectual and societal project of constructing
aging is still in the making (P. B. Baltes, 1987, 1997;
Rowe, 1997).
Second, the concept of plasticity accentuated that life
span development does not follow a highly constrained
(fixed) course, especially when culture- and knowledge-
based phenotypic expressions are concerned. Thus, the
focus on plasticity brought into the foreground that “ hu-
mans have a capacity for change across the life span
from birth to death . . . [and that] the consequences of
the events of early childhood are continually trans-
formed by later experiences, making the course of
human development more open than many have be-
lieved” (Brim & Kagan, 1980, p. 1). Such views of life-
long plasticity have become prominent in biological
quarters as well (e.g., Cotman, 1985; Finch & Zelinski,
2005; Kempermann, in press).
Third, the concept of plasticity opens new vistas on
interdisciplinary perspectives. A view, more recently
developed (P. B. Baltes et al., 2006) is that the basic
questions of plasticity can be linked to similar con-
cepts in the social sciences. Thus, the insistence on
lifelong plasticity in human development is also consis-
tent with the argument advanced most prominently by
social scientists that much of what happens in the life
course is a direct reflection of the goals, resources, and
norms of a given society and that societal contexts dif-
fer in the structure, emphases, and sequential ordering
of such factors (Brim & Wheeler, 1966; Mayer, 1990;
Riley, 1987; Settersten, 2005). For this purpose, Figure
11.4 specifies three types of plasticity: neuronal / bod-
ily, behavioral, and societal (see also P. B. Baltes &
Singer, 2001; Baltes, Reuter-Lorenz, & Rösler, 2006; S.-
C. Li, 2003; S.-C. Li & Linderberger, 2002).
Neuronal/ bodily, behavioral, and societal plasticity,
as defined in Figure 11.4, form a frame within which the
contributions to questions of potential and its realiza-
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis
Biocultural Co-Constructivism:
Toward Completing the Unfinished Biocultural Architecture of Aging
Bodily/Neuronal Behavioral
Plasticity Plasticity
Ontogeny/Development
Societal
Plasticity
Figure 11.4 Each of the major scientific disciplines con-
cerned with human development have developed a focus on
plasticity to understand mechanisms and variations in out-
comes: Genetic/neuronal / bodily, behavioral, and societal plas-
ticity are important examples. Research Report of the
Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 2003–2004.
See P. B. Baltes, P. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler, 2006, for fur-
ther elaboration.
tion offered by the various life, behavioral, and social
sciences engaged in the study of human development can
be understood and interrelated. Each of the components
depicted does not operate in isolation. Rather, in the
sense of biocultural constructivism they interact and
modify each other.
Research on neuronal / bodily plasticity uses out-
comes such as neurogenesis, synaptic powering, and
other indicators of brain differentiation to represent in-
dividual brain development and interindividual differ-
ences therein. Work on behavioral plasticity highlights
outcomes on the level of mind and behavior associated
with differing conditions of life experiences, including
cognitive practice. Societal plasticity illustrates varia-
tions at the macrolevel (e.g., resources and norms asso-
ciated with gender, social class, ethnicity, etc.) and the
role of social constraints and opportunities. Relevant
evidence is typically collected by comparative social-
science work on groups or nations rather than individu-
als and on theories of societal influences (e.g., norms,
socialization) that shape developmental trajectories and
their social differentiation. A societal plasticity per-
spective presumes that individuals belonging to differ-
ent groups have similar potentialities which, however,
are realized to different degrees and qualities (see also
Settersten, 2005).
Returning to developmental psychology: As work on
individual behavioral plasticity progressed and showed
large variation in developmental manifestations, the
concept of plasticity became a mental script that sup-
ported the general idea of development as being more
585
open and pluralistic than traditional views of behavioral
development during childhood and beyond seemed to
suggest. Thus, the concept of plasticity highlighted the
metatheoretical posture that any course of development
is but one of a pool of potentialities; that the “nature” of
human development is not fixed; and that (aside from
the fact of finitude) there is no single end state to human
development.
The perhaps most important line of inquiry was the
quest for understanding interindividual differences and
age-related developmental changes in plasticity. While
plasticity as a phenomenon was extended beyond child-
hood, there were theoretical and empirical reasons why
plasticity should not be age-less but changing with age.
Thus, the search for the range of plasticity resulted not
only in evidence for malleability and plasticity; it also
produced new evidence on individual and age-based con-
straints in the range (norm of reaction) of possible devel-
opment (P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1988; Kliegl et al.,
1990; Plomin & Thompson, 1988). In work on cognitive
aging, for instance, the goal was to learn about maxi-
mum potential in different age groups.
This line of inquiry suggested different facets of
behavioral /developmental plasticity. One was the dif-
ferentiation between baseline reserve capacity and de-
velopmental reserve capacity. Baseline reserve capacity
identifies the current level of plasticity available to in-
dividuals. Developmental reserve capacity is aimed
at specifying what is possible in principle if optimizing
interventions are employed to test future ontogenetic
potential. Furthermore, major efforts were made to
specify the kind of methodologies, such as developmen-
tal simulation, testing-the-limits, and cognitive engi-
neering, that lend themselves to a full exploration of
ontogenetic plasticity and its limits (P. B. Baltes, 1987;
P. B. Baltes & Willis, 1982; Kliegl & Baltes, 1987;
Kliegl, Mayr, & Krampe, 1994; Lindenberger & Baltes,
1995b).
Within the frame of sizeable plasticity, then, the ex-
pression of human development is a matter of collabo-
ration and co-construction between different factors
and mechanisms. Indeed, an increasingly more
full-blown constructivist perspective on human poten-
tialities has become a modern theme of developmental
research (Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; P. B. Baltes
et al., 2006; P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2004; Brandtstädter
& Lerner, 1999; S.-C. Li, 2003; S.-C. Li & Linden-
berger, 2002). With a constructivist perspective
one highlights the notion that human development is
586 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
constructed by the interplay of biological, psychologi-
cal, and social forces. Part of this construction relies
on agentic behavior of individuals. Individuals are
contributors to their own development. The result-
ing concept is that of developmental biocultural co-
constructivism (P. B. Baltes, Freund, & Li, 2005;
P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2004; S.-C. Li, 2003). With the
advent of biocultural co-constructivism, the quest for
interdisciplinary collaboration has attained a new
state of urgency. In our view, the life span approach
with its emphasis on viewing the conditions of human
development as historically incomplete and more open
than traditionally assumed has been a major partner in
advancing this intellectual position.
Ontogenetic and Historical Contextualism
as Paradigm
Highlighting the notion of plasticity as a cornerstone
of life span research on human development alludes to
another key feature of life span metatheory, the para-
digm of contextualism. In evolutionary selection theory
and the evolutionary basis of adaptive fitness, the role
of context is paramount. Recently, P. B. Baltes and
Smith (2004) have shown how modern versions of con-
textualism include the perspective of biocultural co-
constructivism to avoid the idea that context is strictly
environmental in origin.
Therefore, as developmental psychologists attempted
to move beyond microgenetic representations of the
learning process as a marker of experience to capture
context as a system of influence, they engaged them-
selves into metatheoretical perspectives on contextual-
ism. Such a contextualist view, rather than a focus on
“mechanist ” or “organismic” models of development
(Overton & Reese, 1973; Reese & Overton, 1970),
evolved with force in the 1970s (Datan & Reese, 1977;
Riegel, 1976), and as already described in the preceding
section, it continues into the present. This approach was
similar to the evolution of ecological-contextualist per-
spectives offered by cultural psychology (Bronfenbren-
ner, 1977; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; Cole, 1996).
According to contextualism and also action theory
(see Brandtstädter, Chapter 10, this Handbook, this vol-
ume), individuals exist in contexts that create both spe-
cial opportunities for, and limitations to, individual
developmental pathways. Delineation of these contexts
in terms of macrostructural features, like social class,
ethnicity, roles, age-based passages and historical peri-
ods, is a major goal for the sociological analysis of the
life course (e.g., Elder, 1994; Elder & Shanahan, Chap-
ter 12, this Handbook, this volume; Heckhausen, 2000;
Kohli & Meyer, 1986; Mayer, 2003; Riley, 1987; Setter-
sten, 2005). In fact, this was a time when sociologists
and developmental psychologists attempted to interre-
late their various endeavors (e.g., Sorensen, Weinert, &
Sherrod, 1986). For life span psychologists, and perhaps
also for child developmentalists (P. B. Baltes, 1979b),
this dialogue opened their vista on the scope, temporal
patterning, and differentiation of biological and social
forces (incidentally much instigated by various commit-
tees on human development arranged by the U.S. Social
Science Research Council).
A Macro-Model of Developmental Influences
During this time of intensive collaboration between
life course sociologists (e.g., Riley et al., 1972) and
life span psychologists, the first author and his
colleagues (P. B. Baltes, Cornelius, & Nesselroade,
1979; P. B. Baltes et al., 1980) proposed a heuristic
model that attempted to integrate biological, sociolog-
ical, and psychological considerations in one frame-
work in order to understand the entire fabric of
development-producing contexts: Three biocultural
components were considered at the foundation of
human ontogeny: Normative age-graded inf luences,
normative history-graded inf luences, and nonnorma-
tive (idiosyncratic) influences. Normative in this
context refers to a high degree of generality. Nonnor-
mative factors highlight the more individualized con-
ditions such as winning in a lottery.
To understand a given life course, and interindividual
differences in life course trajectories, this model sug-
gests that it is necessary to consider the operation and
interaction among these three classes of influences
(Figure 11.5). Note that these sources contribute to sim-
ilarities in development, but also, because they exist in
systematic group variations, for instance by social
class, genetic dispositions, and ethnicity, they also
contribute to systematic interindividual variations and
subgroup-specific patterns of life span development
(P. B. Baltes & Nesselroade, 1984; Dannefer, 1989; Riley
et al., 1972).
Age-graded inf luences are those biological and envi-
ronmental aspects that, because of their dominant
age correlation, shape individuals in relatively norma-
tive ways for all individuals. Consider the temporal
and domain structure of life span developmental tasks
(Havighurst, 1948), the age-based process of physi-
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis
Basic Determinants Influences on Development
Normative
Age-graded
Biological
Interaction
Normative
Interaction History-graded
Environmental
Non-Normative
Ontogenetic Time
Figure 11.5 Representation of the operation of three major
biocultural influence systems on life span development: (1)
normative age-graded, (2) normative history-graded, and (3)
nonnormative life events. These influence systems vary in
their level and interactions for different individuals and for
different behaviors. As a whole, the operation of these sys-
tems produces commonalities and individual differences in
ontogenesis. Source: From “Plasticity and Variability in Psy-
chological Aging: Methodological and Theoretical Issues”
(pp. 41–66), by P. B. Baltes and M. M. Baltes, in Determining
the Ef fects of Aging on the Central Nervous System, G. E.
Gurski (Ed.), 1980, Berlin, Germany: Schering.
cal maturation, or the sequential arrangement of
developmental contexts (family, school, work, etc.) as
examples.
History-graded inf luences are those biological and
environmental aspects that may make ontogenetic
development different across historical cohort and pe-
riods. Consider the historical evolution of the educa-
tional and professional system as an example, or, for a
more punctuated period-specific example, the advent
of a war. Thus, a given ontogeny proceeds at the same
time in the contexts of age-based ontogenetic time as
well as historical cohort time. This position has been
argued most fervently by Matilda Riley (1987). In the
early phases of life span psychology, research on birth-
cohort effects has made the strongest case for consider-
ation of historical contextualism (Elder, 1974, 1990;
J. R. Nesselroade & Baltes, 1974; Schaie, 1965, 1996).
The topic of historical embeddedness, and the extricat-
ing of age-based versus cohort-based differences in on-
togenetic development, was also the foundation for the
formulation of new developmental methodologies such
as cross-sectional and longitudinal sequences (see the
following discussion).
Nonnormative inf luences on development, finally, re-
flect the individual-idiosyncratic biological and envi-
ronmental events that, while not frequent, can have
powerful influences on ontogenetic development (Ban-
587
dura, 1982; Brim & Ryff, 1980). The influence of these
nonnormative events (such as winning a lottery, losing a
leg in an accident) is especially powerful because they
generate conditions that are less predictable, less
amenable to social control and support, and therefore
may represent extreme situations of challenge (ap-
proaching testing-of-limits), not unlike the concept of
Grenzsituation introduced by the philosopher Karl
Jaspers (Kruse, 1992; Maercker, 1995).
In life span theory, these three sources of influence
create the contexts within which individuals act, react,
organize their own development, and contribute to the
development of others. None of these patterns of biolog-
ically and environmentally based influences is likely to
operate independently from the other. They are part of
biocultural co-construction with reciprocal and modify-
ing influences. Such a focus on the dynamics of biocul-
tural co-construction also makes explicit the lack of full
predictability of human development as well as the
boundedness that individuals experience as they engage
in the effort to compose and manage their lives (Brandt-
städter, 1984; Brandtstädter & Lerner, 1999; R. M.
Lerner, 1984, 1991). And finally, such a focus on con-
textualism places individual development in the context
of the development of others. It is not surprising, there-
fore, that life span researchers have easily embraced
concepts such as collaborative development, collabora-
tive cognition, or interactive minds (P. B. Baltes &
Staudinger, 1996a; Resnick, Levine, & Teasley, 1991).
However, what remains underdeveloped in life span psy-
chology is the empirical counterpart to this theoretical
position. Only more recently have we witnessed re-
search efforts to include these contextual- and social-in-
teractive approaches in the study of interactive networks
such as communities of learning (Mandl, Gruber, &
Renkl, 1996), life course convoys (Kahn & Antonucci,
1980), mentors (Bloom, 1985), cohort formations
(Riley, 1987), kinship relationships (Hammerstein,
1996), cohort-related changes in education and health
(Schaie, 1996, 2005), the role of neighborhoods, or
changing policies in retirement and elderly care.
Methodological Developments
Life span research opened new territories and because of
the temporal, contextual, and historical complexities in-
volved required much attention to developmental
methodology (P. B. Baltes, Reese, & Nesselroade, 1988;
Cohen & Reese, 1994; Hertzog, 1985; Magnusson,
Bergman, Rudinger, & Törestad, 1991; J. R. Nesselroade
588 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology

& Reese, 1973). In our view, this concern about adequate

methodology was so important to life span researchers
because their orientation toward long-term ontogenetic
processes and linkages and the decomposition of the bio-
cultural dynamic represented an extreme challenge to the
goals and methods of developmental analysis.

From Cross-Sectional to Longitudinal to Sequen-

tial Methodology. A first example is the development
of methods appropriate to the study of age-related
change, interindividual differences in age-related change,
and the role of historical changes in the contexts of de-
velopment. Traditionally, the main designs used in de-
velopmental psychology were the cross-sectional and the
longitudinal method (P. B. Baltes & Nesselroade, 1978,
for historical review). The focus on the interplay between
age-graded, history-graded, and nonnormative factors
suggested, however, that such methods were insufficient
(P. B. Baltes, 1968; N. B. Ryder, 1965; Schaie, 1965).
This challenge to track both historical and individual-
ontogenetic change resulted in the formulation of so-
called sequential methods (P. B. Baltes, 1968; Schaie,
1965, 1996, 2005).
Figure 11.6 depicts the basic arrangement of what
Schaie and Baltes (1975) have come to label as cross-
sectional and longitudinal sequences. Cross-sectional se-
quences consist of successions of cross-sectional
studies; longitudinal sequences of successions of longi-
tudinal studies. When applied in combination, the two
types of sequential designs produce, on a descriptive
level, exhaustive information about age- and cohort-
related change as well as about interindividual differ-
ences in change trajectories. The sequential design also
permits the identification of punctuated historical ef-
fects, so-called period effects. In contrast to cohort
effects, which extend over longer time spans of histori-
cal change (such as effects associated with mass educa-
tion or the introduction of computer technology), the
concept of period effects is typically applied to more
transient historical events and their consequences, such
as a natural catastrophe or a war.
There is much research in human development that
has demonstrated the important role of historical cohort
effects. Schaie (1996, 2005), for instance, has compared
both in cross-sectional and longitudinal sequences the
adult-age development of several birth cohorts from
1956 to the present and presented impressive evidence
that, during middle adulthood, cohort effects can be as
Figure 11.6 Illustration of cross-sectional and longitudi-
nal sequences ( bottom). Source: From “Longitudinal and
Cross-Sectional Sequences in the Study of Age and Genera-
tion Effects” by P. B. Baltes, 1968, Human Development, 11,
pp. 145–171; From “A General Model for the Study of Devel-
opmental Problems” by K. W. Schaie, 1965, Psychological
Bulletin, 64, pp. 92–107.
large as age effects. Schaie’s work has also shown that
the directionality of age and cohort gradients can differ.
Similarly, J. R. Nesselroade and Baltes (1974), in an
early application of longitudinal sequences to the study
of adolescence, presented evidence that personality de-
velopment during adolescence in such measures as
achievement and independence evinced major cohort
differences over time intervals as short as 2 years. Their
interpretation focused on the role of the Vietnam War as
the critical modulator variable and its impact on U.S.
youth culture, including how adolescents changed in
their developmental personality gradients.
Meanwhile, through application of sequential meth-
ods, there is a large body of evidence on cohort effects
available in developmental psychology, but especially in
comparative sociology; evidence that makes explicit one
of the important ingredients to life span theory, namely,
the interplay between individual development and a
changing society (cf. Elder & Shanahan, Chapter 12, this
Handbook, this volume; Settersten, 2005). Also important
in this work is the growing recognition of when cohort ef-
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis
fects are likely to be relevant and when not. For instance,
life span researchers now distinguish between at least
three types of cohort effects requiring different kinds of
interpretative efforts (J. R. Nesselroade & Baltes, 1979):
(1) cohort as a theoretical process denoting historical
change that alters fundamental aspects of human on-
togeny (e.g., changing gender roles); (2) cohort as a di-
mension of quantitative generalization (e.g., higher levels
of cognitive skills due to an increase in education); and
(3) cohort as a transitory disturbance (e.g., fluctuant
changes in attitudes due to singular events as often re-
ported in opinion survey research).
In part as a response to the growing availability of
longitudinal and sequential data sets, methodologists
from different research traditions including life-span
psychology have refined and expanded statistical meth-
ods for the study of interindividual differences in devel-
opmental trajectories (Baltes, Reese, & Nesselroade,
1977; for a recent overview, see Hertzog & Nessel-
roade, 2003). Various longitudinal modeling techniques
such as multilevel modeling, latent growth curve mod-
eling, and latent difference score modeling allow re-
searchers to examine the structure of interindividual
differences in change (e.g., Ghisletta & Lindenberger,
2004). These methods attenuate complications com-
monly associated with change scores such as lack of re-
liability (e.g., Cronbach & Furby, 1970), and some of
them, such as multivariate extensions of the dual
change score model, permit testing of dynamic hy-
potheses linking one aspect of behavior to changes in
another aspect (e.g., McArdle, Hamagami, Meredith, &
Bradway, 2000; for applications to changes in intellec-
tual and sensory functioning, see Ghisletta & Linden-
berger, 2005). A related methodological development
spurred on by life-course sociologists, in particular,
concerns methods to organize and study the temporal
flow, correlates, and consequences of life events. Mod-
els of event-history analysis and associated methods
such as hazard rate analysis are especially important
(Blossfeld, Hamerle, & Mayer, 1991; Blossfeld & Roh-
wer, 2001; Featherman & Lerner, 1985; Greve, Tuma,
& Strang, 2001; Magnusson et al., 1991; Schaie, 1988;
Willett & Singer, 1991). Note, however, that advanced
statistical methods for analyzing multivariate longitu-
dinal change often are based on strong assumptions
such as sample homogeneity, in general, and cross-
sectional / longitudinal convergence, in particular. Also,
the psychometric properties of these methods have not
589
yet been fully explored and understood (Hertzog, Lin-
denberger, Ghisletta, & Oertzen, 2004).
.
The Experimental Simulation of Development.
A further strategy developed primarily by life span re-
searchers is the explicit use of simulation paradigms in
the study of human development. Again, use of such an
approach was enhanced by the fact that life span ontoge-
netic processes are time-extensive and, therefore, diffi-
cult to study without simulation (P. B. Baltes & Goulet,
1971; Lindenberger & Baltes, 1995b).
Table 11.4 summarizes the approach of developmen-
tal simulation. In a general sense, the experimental sim-
ulation approach is a theory-testing device that
arranges for conditions thought to be relevant for the
phenomenon of interest. Thus, experimental develop-
mental simulations simulate or mimic variations that
are thought to exist in real-time and real-world ontogen-
esis. As a research strategy, the design of developmen-
tal simulation consists of a coordinated sequence of
seven steps that, however, do not need to be performed
in the sequence specified. A developmental phenome-
non is considered to be well understood if knowledge
based on all steps is available.
In life span research, such simulations have been used,
for instance, to examine the effects of aging-associated
changes in sensory input. For this purpose, auditory and
visual acuity of adults was reduced to the level of older
TABLE 11.4 The Logic of Experimental Simulation in the
Study of Development: A Coordinated Sequence of Steps
1 Definition and description of target developmental phenomenon
to be studied
2 Postulation of a causal hypothesis or causal structure about
underlying mechanisms and contextual conditions
3 Experimental manipulation of relevant variables in the laboratory
4 Test of experimental data against target phenomenon: isomorphism
check
5 Reexamination of causal hypothesis or causal structure
(confirmation /rejection /modification) and search for
alternative explanations
6 Evaluation of external validity: Descriptive evidence
7 Evaluation of external validity: Interventive evidence
Source: Modified from “ Testing-the-Limits and Experimental Simula-
tion: Two Methods to Explicate the Role of Learning in Development,”
by U. Lindenberger and P. B. Baltes, 1995b, Human Development, 38,
pp. 349–360; and Life-Span Developmental Psychology: Introduction to
Research Methods, by P. B. Baltes, H. W. Reese, and J. R. Nesselroade,
1988, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Reprint of the 1977 edition.
590 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
persons and then tested for cognitive performance
(Dickinson & Rabbitt, 1991; Lindenberger, Scherer, &
Baltes, 2001). Another example is a research program by
Margret Baltes on the many faces of dependency and
autonomy in old age (1988, 1996; M. M. Baltes & Wahl,
1992). In this research program, the key questions were
concerned with the conditions and range of autonomy
and dependence including their multifunctional charac-
teristics and plasticity.
The opening steps (1 to 3 in Table 11.4) of this re-
search on autonomy and dependency in old age
conducted by Margret Baltes and her colleagues
were observations in the living environments of elders
concerning their transactions with others. Negative
aging stereotypes were assumed to play a major role
in the observed age-associated emergence of depend-
ent rather than independent behavior. To examine
this hypothesis, a series of experimental laboratory
studies were conducted to explore the effects of learn-
ing conditions (stimulus control, practice, reinforce-
ment schedules) on self-care behavior in older adults.
This work demonstrated that many aspects of older
adults’ dependent behaviors were found to be re-
versible, supporting the notion that environmental fac-
tors (e.g., behavioral contingencies) exert some
influence on the aging-associated emergence of depen-
dency or loss of autonomy. In subsequent work, re-
flective of steps 4 to 6 in Table 11.4, Margret Baltes
and her colleagues observed the social conditions sur-
rounding the occurrence of self-care in the elderly in
the natural environment. Supportive of their position,
a dependency-support script and an independence-
ignore script were identified. In other words, social
partners of older persons in the context of self-care ex-
hibited a high frequency of behaviors indicative of
support of dependence. Finally, research was con-
ducted to manipulate the relevant causal variables in
the natural environment of older persons. For this pur-
pose, the researchers (see M. M. Baltes, 1996; M. M.
Baltes, Neumann, & Zank, 1994) intervened in the so-
cial environment of older persons in nursing homes.
This was done by training nursing home staff to down-
play the dependence-support script, and to move to-
ward an independence-support script. By and large,
these changes in the natural environment resulted in
the expected outcome. Older persons displayed a
higher level of independence in self-care.
Researchers interested in more narrow age spectrums
use similar strategies of experimental simulation of de-
velopment (Siegler, Chapter 11, this Handbook, Volume
2). However, we claim that life span researchers are par-
ticularly dependent on the creative use of such arrange-
ments; and, moreover, that life span researchers are
especially aware of the many methodological limitations
(such as lack of measurement equivalence, isomorphy,
and external validity) associated with such and with
other age-comparative research. The explicit use of the
term of simulation to denote these limitations under-
scores this awareness.
Testing-the-Limits. An additional example of meth-
odological innovations involves a strategy that life span
researchers have developed to examine the scope and
limits of behavioral plasticity (P. B. Baltes, 1987; Kliegl
& Baltes, 1987), another key aspect of the family of
propositions advanced in life span theory. This method
is similar to efforts in child development to study the
zone of proximal development, for instance, through
methods of microgenetic analysis or cognitive engineer-
ing (Brown, 1982; Kliegl & Baltes, 1987; Kuhn, 1995;
Siegler & Crowley, 1991).
Again, because of the long timeframe of life
span ontogenesis, it is very difficult in life span re-
search to identify the sources and scope of intraindi-
vidual plasticity (malleability) and its age-related
changes. At the same time, one key question for life
span researchers is: What is possible in principle in
human development across the life span? One of the
perennial questions of cognitive aging researchers,
therefore, was whether aging losses in functions reflect
experiential practice deficits with cognitive activities
rather than effects of biological aging (P. B. Baltes &
Labouvie, 1973; Denney, 1984; Salthouse, 1991; Willis
& Baltes, 1980).
The resulting method has been labeled the testing-the-
limits paradigm (Kliegl & Baltes, 1987; Lindenberger &
Baltes, 1995b; Schmidt, 1971). In testing-the-limits re-
search, the goal is to compress time by providing for high
density developmental experiences; and by doing so
to arrange for the best conditions possible and to identify
asymptotes of performance potential (plasticity). These
asymptotes, obtained under putatively optimal condi-
tions of support, are expected to estimate the upper
range of the age-specific developmental potentiality
comparable to the traditional notion of the upper limit of
the “norm of reaction.” The use of testing-the-limits pro-
cedures has generated new insights into what is and what
is not possible in development.
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis
Testing-the-limits research, however, is not only rel-
evant for the study of long-term ontogenetic processes.
It is equally relevant for other important aspects of
developmental research and theory. Two examples il-
lustrate this. The first is the question of sex or gender
differences in cognitive functioning. What would
be most necessary is to depart from simple, noninter-
ventive comparative research and to invest scientific
resources into testing-the-limits work. A testing-the-
limits approach would be based on the premise that the
relevant information is knowledge about differences in
asymptotic (peak) levels of functioning. Small, care-
fully selected samples could be used for this purpose
(e.g., P. B. Baltes & Kliegl, 1992; Kliegl & Baltes,
1987; Lindenberger, Kliegl, & Baltes, 1992). The same
perspective would hold true for another hotly debated
topic; that is, research into genetic differences. Rather
than investing most of the available resources into
largely descriptive behavior-genetics studies, an alter-
native would be to expose smaller samples of partici-
pants to time-compressed experiential interventions
and to search for interindividual differences at the
upper or lower levels of functioning (e.g., S.-C. Li,
Huxhold, & Schmiedek, 2004; Lindenberger &
Oertzen, in press).
An Example of a Systemic and Overall Theory
of Life Span Development: Selective
Optimization with Compensation (Level 4)
Next, we take one further step toward a more psycholog-
ical level of analysis of the nature of life span de-
velopment. For this purpose, we describe a model of
development, selective optimization with compensa-
tion (SOC), which Margret Baltes, Paul Baltes, and
their colleagues have developed over the past decade
(M. M. Baltes, 1987; M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996;
P. B. Baltes, 1987; P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1980, 1990b;
P. B. Baltes, Dittmann-Kohli, & Dixon, 1984; Freund &
Baltes, 2002b; S.-C. Li & Freund, 2005; Marsiske et al.,
1995; Riediger, S.-C. Li, & Lindenberger, in press; see
also Featherman et al., 1990). This model offers a sys-
temic view of human development across the life span
involving many of the features of life span development
presented in the previous sections. Heckhausen and
Schulz (1995; Schulz & Heckhausen, 1996) developed a
similar model. Finally, the notion of vicariance, promi-
nent in francophone differential and developmental psy-
chology (e.g., Lautrey, 2003; cf. Reuchlin, 1978), bears
591
much resemblance to the notion of compensation in SOC
theory.
The SOC model in its generality is still located at a
level of analysis that is distant from specific theory.
Thus, as the model is applied to specific domains of
psychological functioning (such as autonomy or profes-
sional expertise), it requires further specification to be
derived from the knowledge base of the domain of func-
tioning selected for application (e.g., Abraham & Hans-
son, 1995; B. B. Baltes & Heydens-Gahir, 2003; M. M.
Baltes & Lang, 1997; Featherman et al., 1990; Freund
& Baltes, 1998, 2002b; S.-C. Li & Freund, 2005; Mar-
siske et al., 1995). At the same time, however, because
of this generality in formulation, the model of SOC is
rather open as to its deployability and domain-specific
refinement.
In principle, the theory of SOC is considered a
general theory of proactive and adaptive development
(P. B. Baltes, 1997; Li & Freund, 2005). As a general
theory of development, it pursues two objectives: First,
an account of how developmental resources are gener-
ated, and second, how resources once they are devel-
oped are allocated to master the tasks of life including in
situations where resources are insufficient.
Definition of Selection, Optimization,
and Compensation
As mentioned earlier, we proceed from the assumption
that any process of development involves selection and
selective changes in adaptive capacity (P. B. Baltes,
1987; Featherman et al., 1990; Freund & Baltes, 2002b;
Krampe & Baltes, 2003; Marsiske et al., 1995). Selection
from a potential pool of developmental trajectories makes
directionality in development and higher levels of func-
tioning possible. We further assume that for selection to
result in successful development (maximization of gains
while minimizing losses), it needs to work in conjunction
with processes of optimization and compensation.
If approached within an action-theoretical frame-
work, which is only one of the many possible theoreti-
cal frames, the following characterizations of the three
components hold: Selection involves goals or outcomes;
Optimization involves goal-related means to achieve
success (desired outcomes); and Compensation involves
a response to loss in goal-relevant means in order to
maintain success or desired levels of functioning (out-
comes). Table 11.5 summarizes this approach and offers
as illustrations items from a study on proverbs and
items from a self-report measure developed to assess
592 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology

TABLE 11.5 Selection, Optimization, and Compensation: Brief Definitional Frames and Examples from Proverbs and
Questionnaire Items

Role in Sample Proverb Sample Questionnaire Item

Strategy Development
Selection1a Concerns directionality and focus of
developmental outcomes such as goals.
Optimization Concerns the acquisition and
refinement of means and their
coordinaton to achieve goals/outcomes.
Compensation Concerns maintenance of functioning
by substitution of means in situation
of losses of means.
(Freund & Baltes, 2002a)
Jack-of-all-trades, master of none.
Those who follow every path, never
reach any destination.
Between two stools you fall to the
ground.
Practice makes perfect.
If at first you don’t succeed, try,
try, and try again.
Strike the iron when it’s hot.
Those without a horse walk.
There are many hands; what one
cannot do, the other will.
When there’s no wind, grab the oars.
(Freund & Baltes, 2002b)
I always focus on the most important
goal at a given time.
When I think about what I want in life, I
commit myself to one or two important
goals.
To achieve a particular goal, I am willing
to abandon other goals.
I keep working on what I have planned
until I succeed.
I keep trying until I succeed at a goal.
When I want to achieve something, I can
wait for the right moment.
When things don’t work the way they
used to, I look for other ways to achieve
them.
When things aren’t going so well, I accept
help from others.
When things don’t go as well as they
used to, I keep trying other ways until I
can achieve the same result I used to.

a
Two facets of selection are distinguished in SOC theory: (1) elective selection and (2) loss-based selection, which encompasses restructur-
ing of goal hierarchy, reducing the number of goals or various processes such as adjusting the level of aspiration, or developing new possible
goals to match available resources.

the degree to which individuals report to use SOC-
related behaviors. The resulting definitions of selection,
optimization, and compensation may suggest that the
relevant processes are often conscious and intentional.
This is not necessarily so. Each of these elements or
components can be active or passive, internal or exter-
nal, conscious or unconscious.
Six additional characterizations help to place SOC
into a larger perspective. First, we postulate that SOC is
akin to a general-purpose mechanism of development.
If available and well practiced, it will produce higher
functioning in all domains of functioning. Second, we
assume that SOC behaviors are universal processes
generative of development. Third, we assume that SOC
are inherently relativistic in that their phenotypic
expressions depend on person- and context-specific
features. Fourth, SOC in itself is a developmental con-
struct. We assume that its peak expression is in adult-
hood. In childhood and adolescence, the system is
acquired and honed, in old age, individuals work on
maintenance (see Freund & Baltes, 2002b, for data on
age trajectories). Fifth, we acknowledge that the func-
tional utility of SOC is not given but remains a question
of empirical validity. There are contexts where SOC
may not be adaptive. Sixth, the function of the SOC
components such as compensation in a given behavioral
unit are not fixed. Their logical status can change, for
instance, from active to passive. Similarly, a behavior
that originally evolved in the context of a compensation
for a loss may later be activated in a process where it
serves as an optimizing means.
An everyday example may help to clarify the dis-
tinctions, drawn from the context of aging research
that we used in our early efforts at developing the SOC
model (P. B. Baltes, 1984). Into his late 70s and early
80s, the concert pianist Arthur Rubinstein continued
to perform with great success. When asked how he
managed to maintain such a high level of expert piano
playing, he hinted in several interviews at the coordi-
nation of three strategies. First, he mentioned that he
played fewer pieces (selection); second, he indicated
that he now practiced these pieces more often (opti-
mization); and third, he counteracted his loss in me-
chanical speed of playing by producing larger contrasts
 Toward Psychological Theories of Life Span Development: Five Levels of Analysis
in speed so to make the faster pieces appear faster
(compensation).
Selection: Elective and Loss-Based. As noted al-
ready, selection involves directionality, goals, and speci-
fication of outcomes. There are two kinds of selection:
elective selection and loss-based selection. Elective se-
lection involves directionality that is self-initiated and
considered desirable. Its motivational force is agent-
driven. Loss-based selection is the consequence of a loss
in functioning and typically involves making adjust-
ments such as changes in level of aspiration or a change
in goal structures or goal priorities.
Strictly speaking, selection already begins in embry-
onic development with features of the sensory system,
such as differential sensitivity to light and pattern con-
figurations. Neurophysiological processing of informa-
tion represents another fundamental example of
selection and selection-based specialization. Selective
pruning of cells in early biological development is an-
other example. Another concrete illustration of selec-
tion in development can be associated with a concept
from developmental biology: Selection as the “canal-
ized” (Waddington, 1975) realization of a set of
outcomes from the “potentialities of ontogenesis” (plas-
ticity). Another example of selection is the goal system
(ranging from skills to attitudes and values) that defines
the social and personal frames of desirable development.
Selection can also involve the avoidance of specific out-
comes of development such as the undesired self. In fact,
life span development can be seen as involving a system-
atic age-related shift in the relative weight and fre-
quency of approach versus avoidance goals (Freund &
Ebner, 2005).
Optimization. The focus of optimization is on
goal- or outcome-relevant means or resources. Thus,
while selection is a necessary condition for achieving
development (defined as the maximization of gains and
minimization of losses), selection is not a sufficient
condition for development to become manifest.
In addition, conditions and procedural mechanisms of
goal-attainment are required, that is, methods or means
of optimization. Optimization, then, involves processes
aimed at the generation and refinement of means-ends
resources and motivational-goal explication to achieve
development-oriented positive outcomes (goals). For a
psychologist, means include such processes as the learn-
ing of a skill or the acquisition of the motivational abil-
593
ity to persist or delay gratification. In general, the com-
plexity of the system of optimization depends on the
goal or outcome pursuit. If these are complex, optimiza-
tion is not the refinement of a single means. Rather, in
more complex situations, optimization requires a mutu-
ally enhancing coalition of factors, including health, en-
vironmental, and psychological conditions.
As was true for selection, optimization can be active
and passive, conscious and subconscious, internal or ex-
ternal. Moreover, optimization can be domain- and
goal-specific as well as domain- and goal-general. The
most domain-general notion of optimization is the gen-
eration of what in our work we have called developmen-
tal reserve capacity (P. B. Baltes, 1987; Kliegl & Baltes,
1987), or what developmental life scientists might call
general plasticity at the neuronal, behavioral, and social
level. Because of its investability into many activities,
generating a high level of general plasticity is the per-
haps most significant target for successful development.
Compensation. The component process called
compensation involves a functional response to the loss of
goal-relevant means (see also Brandtstädter & Wentura,
1995; Dixon & Bäckman, 1995). This definition of com-
pensation is more specific or restricted than the one
proposed by Bäckman and Dixon (1992)—that is, it re-
stricts compensation to responses to losses of means (re-
sources) once available for goal attainment.
Two main causes give rise to a compensatory situa-
tion (Freund & Baltes, 2002b; Marsiske et al., 1995).
Compensation can be the consequence of the very fact
of selection and optimization. For reasons of limited ca-
pacity of time and effort, selection of and optimization
toward a given goal implies the loss of time and means-
related resources, relevant for the pursuit of other goals.
Development is always a gain-loss dynamic. When an
athlete aims for a high level performance in the shot put,
it is unlikely that comparable high levels of performance
can be achieved in other types of sports such as gymnas-
tics. Another example is negative transfer. The acquisi-
tion of a targeted expert skill system A can result in
negative transfer to another skill system B (Ericsson &
Smith, 1991).
A second category of causes of compensation stems
from negative changes in biological, social, and environ-
mental resources in the conditions that represent
the foundation of resources and their use for develop-
ment (see also Hobfoll, 2001, on resource theory).
Changing from one environment to another may involve a
594 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
loss in environment-based resources (means) or may
make some acquired personal means dysfunctional.
Losses due to the biology of aging are perhaps the best
known age-associated negative changes in resources.
With aging, there is a reduction in the rate and scope of
plasticity (Cotman, 1985; Finch & Zelinski, 2005; S.-C.
Li & Freund, 2005; Nelson, 2006; Reuter-Lorenz, 2002).
As a result, the evolution of compensatory responses, in
addition to loss-based selection, is a continuously chang-
ing dynamic of development in the second half of life.
Understanding this changing developmental dynamic
is particularly important regarding the conceptual dis-
tinctiveness of optimization and compensation (Mar-
siske et al., 1995). At the point of origin, for instance,
some behavior may have been compensatory (such
as acquiring nonverbal techniques of communication
due to a loss of foreign language proficiency), at later
points in ontogeny or in different contexts these same
compensation-based behavioral means (nonverbal tech-
niques of communication) can be used as a technique of
optimization, such as when improving one’s perfor-
mance as an actor. It is important, therefore, to specify
the context and the developmental space in which a
given behavioral event is considered when deciding
about its category allocation to either selection, opti-
mization, or compensation.
Because the model of SOC does not designate the spe-
cific content and form of desirable developmental out-
comes, it is applicable to a large range of variations in
goals and means of development. In this sense, then, SOC
is at the same time universal and relativistic. Its universal-
ism rests in the argument that any process of development
is expected to involve components of selection, optimiza-
tion, and compensation (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b;
Marsiske et al., 1995). Its relativity lies in the variations
of motivational, social, and intellectual resources, as well
as in the criteria used to define successful development,
which can be multivariate and involve both objective and
subjective indicators (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990a).
In the following two sections, which deal with life
span developmental theory and research in two domains
of functioning, we occasionally return to SOC-related
interpretations. However, our intent is not to elevate that
model or theory to the one overarching model of life
span development. This would be inappropriate. In our
view, the model of selective optimization with compen-
sation is but one of the theoretical efforts that life span
research and theory have spawned. However, we believe
SOC to be a theory that displays much consistency
across levels of analysis and can be usefully linked to
other current theoretical streams in developmental psy-
chology, such as to dynamic systems theory. Krampe
and Baltes (2003) have illustrated in another area, the
field of intelligence, how application of SOC theory
leads to a different conceptualization of the structure
and function of intelligence.
Empirical Evidence on SOC Theory
The articulation and testing of SOC theory is proceed-
ing in a variety of domains. In general, the evidence has
been supportive of the theoretical approach. People who
report the use of SOC-related behaviors show higher
levels of functioning. Moreover, on the behavioral level,
research has shown that individuals manifest behaviors
that are consistent with SOC theory. These outcomes
carry a promissory note.
Age Gradients. Figure 11.7 summarizes evidence on
cross-sectional age gradients. Young, middle-aged, and
older adults answered a self-report instrument to assess
preferred use of SOC strategies. As expected, the peak of
using all SOC components was obtained for adults. In ear-
lier and later phases of life, the SOC system seems less
fully acquired, activated, or coordinated. In young adult-
hood, the task of life planning in a focused and concerted
manner needs practice and refinement (e.g., J. Smith,
1999). Desires and volitions are less orchestrated. Simi-
larly, in aging individuals, they need to master situations
53
Elective
Selection
52
51
Loss-Based
SOC (T-Scores)
50 Selection
49 Optimization
48
47 Compensation
46
45
Young Adults Middle-Age Older Adults
Figure 11.7 Age-group mean differences in four components
of SOC (elective selection, loss-based selection, optimization,
and compensation): Middle-aged adults report the highest and
perhaps most integrated endorsement of SOC. Source: Modi-
fied from “Life-Management Strategies of Selection, Opti-
mization, and Compensation: Measurement by Self-Report and
Construct Validity” by A. M. Freund and P. B. Baltes, 2002b,
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, pp. 642–662.
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
in which they have fewer resources. SOC behaviors them-
selves are effortful and require resources. Therefore, it is
not surprising that older individuals show lesser frequency
of use of optimization and compensation. As shown in
Figure 11.7, the primary focus in older ages is on elective
selection and loss-based selection.
Processes of selection, optimization, and compensa-
tion also are present in mental representations associ-
ated with the management of everyday lives. Freund and
Baltes (2002a) have used proverbs to examine this ques-
tion. They presented life problems to people and asked
which proverb fits this situation best. Adults preferred
proverbs that indicated SOC behaviors. Moreover, the
choice reaction times of the oldest adults, when select-
ing the fitting proverb, was as fast as those of younger
adults. Because reaction speed typically decreases with
age during the age span studied, the finding suggests that
SOC-based mental representations are well exercised.
Management and Mastery of Life Tasks. An-
other area of research is the management of the family
career interface (B. B. Baltes & Heydens-Gahir, 2003;
Wiese, Freund, & Baltes, 2002). Partners who reported
higher use of SOC-related behaviors obtained higher
scores on perceived developmental status in the two do-
mains and higher levels of well-being; cross-sectionally
and longitudinally. Similar findings were obtained with
the task of college study behavior (Wiese & Schmitz,
2002). Regarding tasks of old age, work by Margret
Baltes, Frieder Lang, and their colleagues is relevant
(e.g., Lang, Rieckmann, & Baltes, 2002). They demon-
strated that older individuals, especially when in situa-
tions of high difficulty, benefited from showing
behaviors that were consistent with SOC theory. An-
other topic of life span research concerns the manage-
ment of critical life events including illness. In this line
of inquiry, Gignac, Cott, and Badley (2002) have shown
that older people suffering from osteoarthritis managed
their illness by use of behaviors that are consistent with
selection, optimization, and compensation.
Dual-Task Research and Behavioral Indicators.
An additional area where SOC theory turned out to be
promising is dual-task research. Dual- or multiple-task re-
search explores the degree to which individuals can per-
form several tasks concurrently and whether concurrent
performance of several tasks (such as walking and memo-
rizing) facilitates or interferes. Such multitask situations
are prototypical of the ecology of everyday behavior.
595
Moreover, with age children become better in handling
multiple tasks simultaneously and minimize what is usu-
ally called dual-task costs. With aging, the reverse is true.
Dual-task research is a prime model to study develop-
ment as a system of co-changing and collaborative
processes, and of the process of differential allocation
of resources. Several studies have tested SOC theory
within this model or examined whether the findings are
consistent with predictions from the theory. In a later
section, we will describe these studies in more detail.
Here, suffice it to briefly mention one series of studies.
In our laboratories, we focused on the joined perfor-
mance of motor behavior (such as walking and keeping
one’s motor balance) and various processes of memory
and solving cognitive tasks. Although older adults showed
greater dual-tasks costs, they also exhibited clear prefer-
ence in their task allocation. For instance, they invested a
larger share of their resources into motor behavior ( likely
because falling is a high-risk in aging) and were more
ready to de-invest from the cognitive task. Moreover, on
the behavioral level, older adults were effective in using
compensatory skills to maintain a higher level of perfor-
mance (K. Z. H. Li, Lindenberger, Freund, & Baltes,
2001; Lindenberger, Marsiske, & Baltes, 2000).
These initial self-report and observational as well as
experimental studies lend support to the perspective of
the SOC theory of adaptive development. The pattern of
findings suggests that individuals who select, optimize,
and compensate are better able to generate new develop-
mental resources and through effective allocation more
effective available resources to manage the tasks of life.
Thus, SOC functions like a development-enhancing and
loss-preventing general-purpose mechanism. As a general
theory of adaptive development, it characterizes a system
of strategies that permits individuals to master the gen-
eral tasks of life, including those that result from the
overall life span script outlined earlier when we outlined
a systematic change toward a greater proportion of deal-
ing with losses rather than gains.
FIRST LEVEL 5 EXAMPLE:
INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONING ACROSS
THE LIFE SPAN
In the following two sections, we focus on two broad
areas of human development—intellectual functioning
and personality—to present more specific life span
research and theory. In general, our approach is to
596 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
present this work such that the general theoretical per-
spectives outlined provide an umbrella under which
this research can be positioned and interpreted.
Throughout, we attempt to highlight also the pervasive-
ness of the concept of developmental biocultural co-
constructivism (P. B. Baltes et al., 2006).
The productivity of a life span orientation to develop-
mental change depends critically on articulating the the-
oretical propositions regarding the macroscopic overall
landscape of the entire course of ontogeny with more
microscopic research on specific developmental func-
tions, processes, and age periods. Specifically, the
knowledge bases generated by researchers interested in
different aspects of infancy, childhood, adolescence,
adulthood, and late life need to be combined and com-
pared with each other, and organized by the themes and
propositions that guide the life span approach. The re-
sulting life span integration of perspectives and find-
ings, in turn, is hoped to feed back into the more age-
and process-specific developmental specialties, provid-
ing for larger interpretative frameworks and provoking
the investigation of new or formerly neglected research
questions (Lindenberger, 2001).
The field of intellectual development, that captured
early (Hollingworth, 1927; Sanford, 1902) and continuing
attention in life span psychology (e.g., Craik & Bialystok,
in press) is ideally suited to demonstrate the potential
of this dynamic. Central themes of intellectual develop-
ment such as relative stability (i.e., covariance change
over time), directionality (i.e., mean change over time),
plasticity (i.e., the malleability of mean and covariance
changes), and the role of knowledge-based processes in
cognitive development also have played a prominent role
in life span theorizing, and are well suited to exemplify
the dynamics between specialized research contexts and
overarching conceptions of life span development.
The Biology and Culture of Life Span
Intellectual Development
Our proposed view of the overall landscape of ontogene-
sis as summarized in Figure 11.1 puts constraints on the
possible form and content of theories about life span in-
tellectual development. Foremost, any model or theory
on life span intellectual development needs to recognize
that ontogenesis is a co-construction of two intertwined
streams of inheritance, the biological and the cultural
(Durham, 1991; see also P. B. Baltes et al., 2006; S.-C.
Li, 2003), and needs to provide a framework for the de-
velopmental investigation of these two streams of inher-
itance in different domains, and at different levels of
analysis. Specifically, the model should be consistent
with the three-fold characterization of the life span dy-
namics between biology and culture summarized in Fig-
ure 11.1, and with the family of theoretical propositions
summarized in Table 11.3.
The Two-Component Model of Life Span
Cognition: Mechanics versus Pragmatics
In the past, initiated by one of us (P. B. Baltes, 1987,
1993, 1997) but soon co-developed with others (e.g., P. B.
Baltes et al., 1984; P. B. Baltes, Staudinger, & Linden-
berger, 1999; S.-C. Li, 2002; Lindenberger, 2001), have
proposed a theoretical framework for the study of intel-
lectual development in which two main categories or com-
ponents of intellectual functioning are set apart: The
mechanics and the pragmatics of cognition. Juxtaposing
the two does not imply that they are independent or exclu-
sive; rather, they interact across ontogenetic and microge-
netic time in the production of intelligent behavior. As a
general principle, the cognitive mechanics, because of
their evolutionary base, evolve earlier in human ontogeny,
and are being “invested” into the acquisition of higher and
knowledge-based cognitive functions (for similar assump-
tions in the context of Gf/Gc theory, see Cattell, 1971).
Historically, our views on the overall landscape
of human development were developed in close connec-
tion with the broadening and systematization of the
mechanic-pragmatic distinction (P. B. Baltes, 1987,
1997; P. B. Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 1998;
S.-C. Li, 2003). Specifically, we construe the mechanics
of cognition as an expression of the neurophysiological
architecture of the mind as they evolved during biologi-
cal evolution (cf. Gigerenzer & Todd, 1999) and unfold
during ontogeny (McClelland, 1996; W. Singer, 1995).
In contrast, the pragmatics of cognition are associated
with the bodies of knowledge available from and medi-
ated through culture (see upper portion of Figure 11.8).
The Cognitive Mechanics. The mechanics of cog-
nition are closely linked to biological including neuro-
physiological brain conditions, and the predominant
age-graded ontogenetic pattern is one of maturation,
stability, and aging-induced decline. Especially early
and late in ontogeny, age-based changes in this compo-
nent are assumed to primarily reflect factors closely re-
lated to biological brain status, albeit in fundamentally
different ways (P. B. Baltes, 1997; S.-C. Li, Linden-
berger, et al., 2004; Lindenberger, 2001). Early in on-
togeny (i.e., during embryogenesis, infancy, and early

Basic Information Processing
Mechanics Content-poor
Universal, Biological
Genetically Predisposed
Ackquired Knowledge
Content-rich
Pragmatics Culture-dependent
Experience-based
Pragmatics (Crystallized)
Me
cha
nic
Performance
s (F
lui
d)
ca. 25 Life Course ca. 75 ca. 100
Figure 11.8 Life span research on two components of cog-
nition: (1) fluid mechanics and (2) crystallized pragmatics.
The top section defines the categories; the bottom section
illustrates postulated lifespan trajectories. Source: Modified
based on “Psychological Aspects of Aging: Facts and
Frontiers” (pp. 427–459), by P. B. Baltes and P. Graf, in The
Life-Span Development of Individuals: Behavioural, Neurobio-
logical and Psychosocial Perspectives, D. Magnusson (Ed.),
1996, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press;
From “Major Abilities and Development in the Adult Period”
(pp. 44–99), by J. L. Horn and S. M. Hofer, in Intellectual De-
velopment, R. J. Sternberg & C. A. Berg (Eds.), 1992, New
York: Cambridge University Press.
childhood), age-based changes in the mechanics are as-
sumed to consist, for the most part, in the unfolding and
active construction of more or less domain-specific and
genetically predisposed processing capabilities (Elman
et al., 1996; Wellman, 2003). In contrast, negative
changes in the mechanics of cognition late in life pre-
sumably result from brain-related consequences of less
effective phylogenetic selection pressures operating
during this period (Kirkwood, 2003; Thaler, 2002; see
“ The Mechanics and Pragmatics in Very Old Age”). In
that sense, the life span trajectory of level changes in the
mechanics of cognition can be derived from the life span
changes shown in the left panel of Figure 11.1.
The cognitive mechanics, then, reflect fundamental
organizational properties of the central nervous system
(W. Singer, 1995). In terms of psychological operations,
we assume that the cognitive mechanics are indexed by
the speed, accuracy, and coordination of elementary
First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span 597
processing operations as they can be assessed in tasks
measuring the quality of information input, sensory and
motor memory, discrimination, categorization, and se-
lective attention, as well as reasoning ability in highly
overlearned or novel domains (Craik, 1986; Craik & Bi-
alystok, in press; Craik & Salthouse, 2000; Hommel, Li,
& Li, 2004; Salthouse & Kail, 1983). At the neuronal
level, age-graded anatomical, chemical, and functional
changes in the brain and their complex relations to the
cognitive mechanics are being uncovered with increas-
ing precision and scope (P. B. Baltes et al., in press;
Intelligence Cabeza, Nyberg, & Park, 2004; Craik & Bialystok, in
as Cultural
Knowledge press; Lindenberger, Li, & Bäckman, in press).
The Cognitive Pragmatics. In contrast to the me-
Intelligence chanics, the cognitive pragmatics of the mind reveal the
as Basic
Information power of human agency and culture (Boesch, 1997; Cole,
Processing 1996; Valsiner & Lawrence, 1997; S.-C. Li, 2003;
Shweder, 1991). The cognitive pragmatics also are at the
center of socialization events that follow the principles
of co-construction (P. B. Baltes et al., in press; S.-C. Li,
2003). Some of these events are normative but specific to
certain cultures (e.g., formal schooling), others are more
universal (e.g., mentoring), and still others are idiosyn-
cratic or person-specific (e.g., specialized ecological
and professional knowledge). In any case, the correspon-
ding bodies of knowledge are represented both internally
(e.g., semantic networks) and externally (e.g., books).
The pragmatics of cognition direct the attention of life
span developmentalists toward the increasing importance
of knowledge-based forms of intelligence during on-
togeny (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990a; Ericsson & Smith,
1991; Hambrick & Engle, 2002; Krampe & Baltes, 2003;
Labouvie-Vief, 1982; Rybash, Hoyer, & Roodin, 1986).
Typical examples include reading and writing skills, edu-
cational qualifications, professional skills, and varieties
of everyday problem-solving, but also knowledge about
the self and the meaning and conduct of life (P. B. Baltes
& Staudinger, 2000; Blanchard-Fields, 1996; Bosman &
Charness, 1996; Marsiske et al., 1995; Staudinger et al.,
1995; see “Face and Facets of the Study of Personality
Development across the Life Span”). Such bodies of prag-
matic knowledge are acquired during ontogeny but may
build on evolutionarily prestructured, domain-specific
knowledge (Charness, 2005; Elman et al., 1996;
Tomasello, 1999).
Divergence in Life Span Trajectories between Me-
chanics and Pragmatics. The preceding considera-
tions imply specific predictions regarding the shape of
598 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
ontogenetic trajectories for mechanic and pragmatic as-
pects of intellectual functioning (see lower portion
of Figure 11.8). Specifically, two different sources of in-
fluence are assumed to govern the level of performance
within these two categories: biological-genetic for the
mechanics, and environmental-cultural for the pragmat-
ics. The expected divergence in age trajectories is seen as
a consequence of this difference in composition.
Empirical evidence in support of a two-component
conceptualization of life span cognition comes from a
great variety of different research traditions (see dis-
cussion that follows). Probably the most longstanding
supportive evidence is the difference between main-
tained and vulnerable intellectual abilities (Salthouse,
1991; cf. Jones & Conrad, 1933). Abilities that critically
involve the mechanics, such as reasoning, memory, spa-
tial orientation, and perceptual speed, generally show a
pattern of monotonic and roughly linear decline during
adulthood, with some further acceleration of decline in
very old age. In contrast, more pragmatic abilities, such
as verbal knowledge and certain facets of numerical
ability, remain stable or increase up to the 6th or 7th
decade of life, and only start to evince some decline in
very old age.
Figure 11.9, based on the fifth data collection of the
Seattle Longitudinal Study (Schaie, 1996; see also
Schaie et al., 2005), may serve as an illustration. It dis-
plays cross-sectional adult age gradients based on mul-
tiple indicators for six intellectual abilities (Schaie &
Willis, 1993). Verbal ability and number ability peak
during middle adulthood and show little or no age
decrements before the age of 74, whereas perceptual
speed, inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, and ver-
bal memory show steady monotonic decline. Recent
analyses based on longitudinal as well as longitudinal /
cross-sectional convergence data provide additional and
more direct support for a basic divergence between me-
chanic and pragmatic age gradients in adulthood and
old age (Salthouse, 1991; Schaie, 1996; Schaie, Mait-
land, Willis, & Intieri, 1998; T. Singer, Verhaeghen,
Ghisletta, Lindenberger, & Baltes, 2003).
In a recent cross-sectional study, Shu-Chen Li and col-
leagues (2004) investigated whether dissociations in age
trajectories between mechanic and pragmatic intellectual
abilities across can be observed across the entire life
span, as life span psychology would predict. The authors
administered a psychometric battery comprising fifteen
tests assessing three marker abilities of the fluid mechan-
ics (perceptual speed, reasoning, and fluency) and two
Figure 11.9 Cross-sectional age gradients in six primary
mental abilities (N = 1628). Abilities were assessed with 3 to 4
different tests and are scaled in a T-score metric (i.e., mean =
50, SD = 10). Verbal ability and number ability peak during
middle adulthood and show little or no age decrements before
the age of 74. In contrast, perceptual speed, inductive reason-
ing, spatial orientation, and verbal memory show steady mo-
notonic decline. This differential pattern of prevailing growth,
maintenance, and subsequent loss supports two-component
theories of life span intellectual development such as the dis-
tinction between fluid and crystallized intelligence made by
Cattell (1971) and J. L. Horn (1982) or the juxtaposition of the
mechanics and the pragmatics of cognition proposed by P. B.
Baltes (1987, 1993). Source: From “Age Difference Patterns
of Psychometric Intelligence in Adulthood: Generalizability
within and across Ability Domains,” by K. W. Schaie and S. L.
Willis, 1993, Psychology and Aging, 8, pp. 44–55.
marker abilities of the crystallized pragmatics (verbal
knowledge and fluency) to individuals aged 6 to 89 years.
Participants were classified into six age groups, child-
hood (6 to 11 years), adolescence (12 to 17 years), early
adulthood (18 to 35 years), middle adulthood (26 to 54
years), late adulthood (55 to 69 years), and old age (70 to
89 years). In addition, S.-C. Li et al. (2004) also adminis-
tered basic reaction time tasks to index processing speed
(i.e., a person’s average speed of responding across the
five tasks) and processing robustness (i.e., the inverse of
a person’s average within-task reaction-time fluctuation).
As expected, the life span trajectories of the two infor-
mation processing and the fluid-mechanic composite
stood in contrast to the trajectory of the crystallized-
mechanic composite (see Figure 11.10). Moreover,
within the mechanic domain, the trajectories for the two
 (B) 7

(A) 70 6
65
5 6–11 Years
60 56–69 Years

Eigen Value
55 4 70–89 Years
T-Score

50
3
45
Crystallized Intelligence
40 (Culture/knowledge-based facet) 2
Processing Robustness
35
Processing Speed 1
30 Fluid Intelligence
(Biology/process-based facet)
25 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Age Dimension

(C) 7 (D) 0,8

6 12–17 Years 0,7

Correlation between gf and gc

18–35 Years
0,6
5 36–55 Years
0,5
Eigen Value

4
0,4
3
0,3
2
0,2

1 0,1

0 0
1–

12

18

36

56

70
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
11

–1

–3

–5

–6

–8
7

9
Dimension
Age Group

Figure 11.10 Intellectual abilities across the life span. (A) Cross-sectional age trajectories for crystallized intelligence, pro-
cessing robustness, processing speed, and fluid intelligence. Crystallized intelligence represents the cognitive pragmatics,
whereas processing robustness, processing speed, and fluid intelligence represent the cognitive mechanics. The divergence in
age gradients between pragmatics and mechanics lends support to two-component theories of cognitive development. (B, C) Re-
sults from principal component analyses of 15 intellectual ability tests for each of six age groups. The arrows indicate the esti-
mated number of principal components with eigenvalues greater than unity. (D) Correlations between broad fluid and
crystallized intelligence for the same six age groups. Panels B-D support the hypothesis that the structure of intellectual abili-
ties is less differentiated in childhood and old age than during adolescence and adulthood. Source: From “ Transformations in
the Couplings among Intellectual Abilities and Constituent Cognitive Processes across the Life Span” by S.-C. Li, U. Linden-
berger, B. Hommel, G. Aschersleben, W. Prinz, and P. B. Baltes, 2004, Psychological Science, 15, pp. 155–163.

599
600 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
information-processing composites showed an earlier
cross-sectional life span peak than the trajectory for the
fluid-mechanic component, supporting the contention
that the admixture of pragmatic variance contaminates
standard assessments of broad fluid intelligence.
The Two-Component Model: Relations to
Other Multiple-Component Theories
Arguably, Tetens (1777) provided the earliest compre-
hensive formulation of a two-component model of life
span cognition (Lindenberger & Baltes, 1999); his defi-
nition of absolute and relative capacities closely approx-
imated the definition of the mechanics and pragmatics
of cognition, respectively. The closest relative, both
conceptually and historically, to the two-component
model of life span intellectual development is the theory
of fluid (Gf ) and crystallized (Gc) abilities by Cattell
(1971) and Horn (1982; for comparative discussion, see
P. B. Baltes et al., 1998; Lindenberger, 2001). Other ap-
proaches related to the two-component model include
Ackerman’s (e.g., 1996) process, personality, interests,
and knowledge (PPIK) model, Hebb’s (1949) distinction
between intelligence A (i.e., intellectual power) and in-
telligence B (i.e., intellectual products), the encapsula-
tion model of adult intelligence proposed by Rybash
et al. (1986; Hoyer, 1987), and Sternberg’s (1985) tri-
archic theory of intelligence, especially its developmen-
tal interpretation by Berg and Sternberg (1985a).
Here, the two-component model will be further elabo-
rated in three separate sections: Mechanics, pragmatics,
and their interrelations. The aim of these three sections
is not to be comprehensive, but to further specify the two
components of cognition as well as their interaction.
The Fluid Mechanics of Cognition
We start this section with a life span summary of re-
search on constructs that have been proposed to cause or
mediate age-based changes in the mechanics of cogni-
tion. We then argue that much of the available evidence
about age-based changes in the mechanics derives from
measures that are contaminated by pragmatic influence,
and we underscore the need to arrive at more valid
estimates of individual differences in upper limits of
mechanic functioning. In line with the two-component
model, we predict that age differences in the mechanics
are magnified under purified measurement conditions
and provide an empirical example from adulthood in
support of this prediction.
The Search for Determinants of
Mechanic Development
Despite a large overlap in approaches to the study of in-
tellectual development, there are surprisingly few at-
tempts to pursue the themes of infant and child
development into adulthood and old age, or to identify
thematic and predictive antecedents of adulthood and old
age in childhood (see S.-C. Li, Lindenberger, et al.,
2004). An important exception in this regard concerns
work on age changes in general information-processing
constraints on intellectual functioning across the life
span, or what we would call research on the determinants
of age-based changes in the mechanics of cognition. Re-
searchers both in the fields of child development (Bjork-
lund, 1997; Case, 1992; McCall, 1994; Pascual-Leone,
1983) and cognitive aging (Birren, 1964; Cerella, 1990;
Craik & Byrd, 1982; Hasher & Zacks, 1988; S.-C. Li,
Lindenberger, & Sikström, 2001; Salthouse, 1996) have
been trying to identify developmental determinants or
“developables” (Flavell, 1992) that regulate the rate of
age-based changes in cognitive and intellectual function-
ing. Some scholars have begun to link these two lines of
inquiry by attempting to provide unified accounts of age-
based changes in the structure and/or efficiency of infor-
mation processing (e.g., Craik & Bialystok, 2006;
Hommel, Li, & Li, 2004; S.-C. Li, Lindenberger, et al.,
2004; Salthouse & Kail, 1983; Wellman, 2003).
In many cases, the central goal of these endeavors is
to identify the number (dimensionality), nature, and
causal dynamics of age-graded changes in the mechanics
of cognition. Though this task seems conceptually
straightforward, it is methodologically quite intricate
(P. B. Baltes & Labouvie, 1973; Hertzog, 1985; Hertzog
& Nesselroade, 2003; Lindenberger & Pötter, 1998;
Reinert, Baltes, & Schmidt, 1966). Chronological age
carries a multitude of causal agents with different and
intertwined temporal dynamics and timescales such as
distance from birth, distance from death, distance from
disease inception, but also number of hours of practice
or formal training. For instance, when two variables as-
sumed to index two causal agents follow a similar path
over ontogenetic time, this does not imply that the two
causes are functionally related. Therefore, evidence
about determinants of mechanic development needs to
be evaluated with caution, especially if based on age-
heterogeneous cross-sectional data sets (Lindenberger
& Pötter, 1998).
In the following section, we selectively review re-
search on possible determinants of life span changes in
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
the mechanics of cognition. We start with three con-
structs located at the information-processing level of
analysis, and end with a consideration of select age-
graded changes at the neuronal level. Progress in under-
standing determinants of life span changes in the
mechanics of cognition field will depend on integrating
these two levels of analysis both empirically and con-
ceptually (Buckner, 2004; Craik & Bialystok, in press;
S.-C. Li, in press; S.-C. Li & Lindenberger, 1999; Lin-
denberger, Li, & Bäckman, in press).
At the information-processing level, processing rate
(Cerella, 1990; Salthouse, 1996), working memory
(Baddeley, 2000; Just, Carpenter, & Keller, 1996), and
inhibition (Hasher & Zacks, 1988) have been studied
most extensively. Apparently, functional levels of these
three mechanisms follow the inverse U-shape pattern
predicted by the two-component model for the mechan-
ics of cognition. In principle, then, any combination of
these mechanisms could act as a pacemaker of life span
development in the mechanics of cognition.
Processing Speed. Across a wide variety of cogni-
tive and perceptual tasks, speed of responding increases
dramatically from childhood to early adulthood, and
continuously decreases thereafter. This observation has
led to the processing rate hypothesis of life span cogni-
tive development. Probably, this hypothesis holds a more
central place in cognitive aging research (e.g., Birren,
1964; Cerella, 1990; Salthouse, 1996; Welford, 1984)
than in research on child development (e.g., Hale, 1990;
Kail, 1996). In the case of cognitive aging, the general
slowing-down of cognitive behavior with advancing age
is portrayed as the consequence of a general decrement
in information processing rate. In cross-sectional stud-
ies, psychometrically assessed perceptual speed ac-
counts for most or all negative adult age differences in
other intellectual abilities, even if these other abilities
are assessed under time-relaxed or untimed testing con-
ditions (for a summary, see Verhaeghen & Salthouse,
1997). However, psychometrically assessed perceptual
speed is not a unitary construct or processing primitive
but a factorially complex entity whose composition may
change as a function of age. Also, attempts at identify-
ing neuronal correlates of age-based differences in pro-
cessing speed have yielded mixed results (e.g., Bashore,
Ridderinkhof, & van der Molen, 1997).
Working Memory. Generally, working memory
denotes the ability to preserve information in one or
601
more short-term stores while simultaneously transform-
ing the same or some other information (Baddeley,
2000; Just et al., 1996). Age differences in working
memory have been invoked as a possible cause for intel-
lectual growth during childhood (Case, 1985; Chapman
& Lindenberger, 1992; Halford, 1993; Pascual-Leone,
1970), and for age-based decrements during adulthood
and old age (Craik, 1983; Oberauer & Kliegl, 2001).
With respect to childhood, Neo-Piagetian theorists have
argued that changes in working memory are among the
primary pacemakers of intellectual child development
(e.g., Pascual-Leone, 1970).
Positive age differences during childhood and nega-
tive age differences during adulthood are more pro-
nounced when demands on processing are increased
(Mayr, Kliegl, & Krampe, 1996). Despite this support-
ive evidence, the explanatory power of the working-
memory construct is difficult to judge. For instance,
age-based changes in working memory are often ex-
plained by alluding to changes in processing efficiency
or processing speed (Case, 1985; Salthouse, 1996). An-
other problem concerns our limited knowledge about a
central function of working memory—the (conscious)
control of action and thought. In the most influential
working-memory model (Baddeley, 2000), this task is
assigned to the central executive. Evidence from devel-
opmental psychology (Houdé, 1995; McCall, 1994),
cognitive-experimental and differential psychology
(Engle, Kane, & Tuholski, 1999), and the cognitive neu-
rosciences (Miller & Cohen, 2001) suggests that the
abilities to inhibit actions and thoughts and avoid inter-
ference from competing processing streams are crucial
for the efficient functioning of this component, rather
than working-memory capacity per se.
Inhibition and Interference. During the past
decades, developmentalists from different traditions and
fields of research have intensified their interest in mech-
anisms of inhibition and interference (Bjorklund, 1997;
Engle, Conway, Tuholski, & Shishler, 1995; Hasher &
Zacks, 1988; Houdé, 1995; McCall, 1994). Curvilinear
life span age gradients that resemble those found for
measures of perceptual speed have been obtained with
typical tests of interference proneness such as the
Stroop color-word test, suggesting that children and es-
pecially older adults have greater difficulties in sup-
pressing currently irrelevant action tendencies than
young adults (Dempster, 1992; Hommel et al., 2004;
Mayr, 2001). However, it has proven difficult to separate
602 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
inhibition-based explanations of this phenomenon from
activation-based explanations of selective attention and
working memory capacity (Engle et al., 1995; Hommel
et al., 2004).
Cognitive Neuroscience Approaches to Mechanic
Development: The Sample Case of Prefrontal Cir-
cuitry. The advent of brain imaging methods has al-
lowed researchers to intensify empirical links between
behavioral and neuronal levels of analysis. The concep-
tual and empirical implications of this trend for devel-
opmental psychology are discussed more fully elsewhere
(e.g., P. B. Baltes et al., in press; Cabeza et al., 2004;
Craik & Bialystok, in press; S.-C. Li, 2002; Linden-
berger et al., in press). In the following discussion, we
restrict our presentation to maturational and senescent
changes in prefrontal circuitry. Available evidence sug-
gests that these changes may contribute in important
ways to changes in the cognitive mechanics during child-
hood and old age.
We begin with some evidence on regional brain devel-
opment. In early ontogeny, prefrontal cortex and associ-
ated neural networks undergo profound anatomical,
chemical, and functional changes that extend well into
adolescence. Neural plasticity during corticogenesis
entails the production and experience-dependent elimi-
nation of neuronal connections (Huttenlocher & Dab-
holkar, 1997). During brain development, the zone of
maximum plasticity moves from primary sensory and
motor over secondary association to prefrontal areas
(Chugani, Phelps, & Mazziotta, 1987). Computational
models suggest that later maturing areas require input
from earlier maturing areas to represent higher-order
concepts (Shrager & Johnson, 1996). Arguably, the
gradual and orderly progression of the corticotrophic
wave provides a chronotopic constraint for cerebral cor-
tex organization.
In later adulthood, prefrontal cortex and the function-
ally connected basal ganglia also show greater and earlier
signs of decline than most other areas of the brain. In
a comprehensive review of the neuroanatomical litera-
ture, Raz (2000) reported average linear reductions
in brain weight and volume of about 2% per decade
during adulthood, which were more pronounced for ante-
rior parts of the brain (for longitudinal evidence, see Raz,
Lindenberger, et al., 2005). At the neurochemical level,
changes in the catecholaminergic system, most notably
dopamine, play a prominent role (Bäckman & Farde,
2004). Finally, neurofunctional studies point to profound
age-associated changes in the functional organization of
prefrontal cortex such as a reduction in the asymmetry of
hemispheric activation (e.g., Cabeza, 2002).
The links between behavioral development and re-
gional brain differentiation are only beginning to emerge
(e.g., Lindenberger et al., in press), and the precise rela-
tions between life span changes in prefrontal circuitry
and behavioral changes remain to be uncovered. Func-
tions similar to working memory and typically subsumed
under the heading of “executive functions” or “cognitive
control” appear to be involved (Engle et al., 1999; Kliegl,
Krampe, & Mayr, 2003). Situations deemed to be partic-
ularly dependent on prefrontal circuitry require the co-
ordination of multiple tasks or task components. Typical
examples include the suppression of stimulus-driven ac-
tion tendencies (Metcalfe & Mischel, 1999; Salthouse &
Meinz, 1995), multitasking (Mayr et al., 1996; Salt-
house, Hambrick, Lukas, & Dell, 1996) and response se-
lection under high stimulus ambiguity (Kramer, Hahn,
& Gopher, 1999; Kray & Lindenberger, 2000). Differen-
tial susceptibility to coordinative demands may help to
explain why life span age differences in marker tests of
fluid intelligence such as Raven’s matrices tend to per-
sist when participants are given unlimited amounts of
time to solve the items (cf. the simultaneity mechanism
in Salthouse, 1996).
Future research needs to explicate the link between
life span changes in prefrontal circuitry and the mechan-
ics of cognition with greater precision. Given the funda-
mentally different etiology of changes in prefrontal
circuitry early and late in ontogeny, and given that late-
life changes are taking place in a cognitive system with a
rich and idiosyncratic learning history, any expectation
of a close resemblance between brain-behavior mappings
early and late in life seems unwarranted.
Age-Based Differences in the Mechanics
of Cognition: The Need for Purification
of Measurement
Observed age differences or age changes on intellectual
tasks and tests, as obtained in standard cross-sectional
and real-time longitudinal research, cannot be regarded as
direct and pure reflections of age-based changes in the
mechanics of cognition. Rather, in addition to the me-
chanics, such differences or changes are influenced by a
wealth of additional factors, ranging from pragmatic com-
ponents of cognition (e.g., task-relevant preexperimental
knowledge) to other person characteristics (e.g., test anx-
iety or achievement motivation; cf. Fisk & Warr, 1996). A
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
likely indication for this admixture of pragmatic variance
to supposedly mechanic measures is the secular rise in
performance on typical psychometric marker tests of
fluid intelligence (cf. Flynn, 1987; Schaie et al., 2005). In
our view, it seems an open question whether the preferred
interpretation by Flynn that these historical changes re-
flect changes in fluid intelligence per se is correct. Unless
more pure measures of basic fluid intelligence were in-
cluded, we hold it more likely that these historical
changes are changes in the pragmatics rather than the me-
chanics (see also Schaie et al., 2005).
The need for better estimates of individuals’ perfor-
mance potential in the mechanics of cognition is further
nurtured by the life span proposition that epigenesis is
probabilistic but not random; hence, plasticity is more
or less constrained (P. B. Baltes, 1987; Gottlieb, 1998;
Hagen & Hammerstein, 2005; R. M. Lerner, 1984; see
Table 11.3). If the goal is to separate the possible from
the impossible over age, and to solidify the evidence on
age differences in the mechanics of cognition, the con-
text of measurement needs to be moved toward upper
limits of performance potential. This line of reasoning
resembles claims made by other research traditions,
such as clinical and developmental diagnostics (Carlson,
1994; Guthke & Wiedl, 1996), the differentiation be-
tween performance and competence, gestalt and cultural-
historical theoretical orientations (Vygotsky, 1962;
H. Werner, 1948), and early work on life span differ-
ences in learning (B. Levinson & Reese, 1967). Discrep-
ancies in epistemology and purpose notwithstanding, all
these traditions are inspired by an interest in exploring
individuals’ upper limits of intellectual performance.
Testing the Limits of Age Differences in the
Mechanics of Cognition. Within life span develop-
mental psychology and as alluded to earlier, the testing-
the-limits paradigm has been introduced as a research
strategy to uncover age differences in the upper limits of
mechanic functioning across the life span (P. B. Baltes,
1987; Kliegl & Baltes, 1987; Lindenberger & Baltes,
1995b). The main focus of this paradigm is to arrange
for experimental conditions that produce maximum
(i.e., asymptotic) levels of performance. Thus, similar to
stress tests in biology and medicine (M. M. Baltes,
Kühl, Gutzmann, & Sowarka, 1995; Fries & Crapo,
1981), testing-the-limits aims at the assessment of age
differences in maximum levels of cognitive perfor-
mance by providing large amounts of practice and/or
training combined with systematic variations in task
603
difficulty. Furthermore, and in line with the microge-
netic approach to the study of change (Siegler & Crow-
ley, 1991; Siegler, Chapter 11, this Handbook, this
volume), the testing-the-limits paradigm is based on the
assumption that the study of microgenetic change and
variability may help to identify mechanisms underlying
ontogenetic change (see H. Werner, 1948). Thus, in
addition to the more general goal of measurement pu-
rification, the detailed analysis of time-compressed de-
velopmental change functions is assumed to enhance our
understanding of the mechanisms and the range of
medium- and long-term developmental changes (Hultsch
& MacDonald, 2004; S.-C. Li, Huxhold, et al., 2004;
Lindenberger & von Oertzen, in press).
A Prototypical Example: Adult Age Differences in
Upper Limits of Short-Term Memory (Serial
Word Recall)
Figure 11.11 shows the result of a study involving a total
of 38 sessions of training and practice in the Method of
Loci, a mnemonic technique for the serial recall of word
lists. Two findings from this study are noteworthy. First,
adults in both age groups greatly improved their mem-
ory performance. This finding confirms earlier work on
the continued existence of cognitive plasticity in cogni-
tively healthy (i.e., nondemented) older adults (P. B.
Correct Responses (Maximum = 30)
30
25
20
15
10
5
0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 Final Distribution
of Subjects
Session:
Instruction
Practice
Figure 11.11 Testing-the-limits research, which is aimed
at the identification of asymptotes of performance
potential, suggests the existence of robust age-related losses in
the mechanics of cognition. The example given involves a
memory technique, the Method of Loci. After 38 sessions
of training, most older adults did not reach the level of
performance reached by younger adults after only a few ses-
sions. In the final distribution, no older person was performing
above the mean of the young adults. Adapted from P. B. Baltes
& Kliegl, 1992.
604 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Baltes & Lindenberger, 1988; P. B. Baltes & Willis,
1982; Verhaeghen, Marcoen, & Goossens, 1992). Sec-
ond, practice and training resulted in a close-to-perfect
separation of the two adult age groups, thereby demon-
strating the existence of sizeable negative age differ-
ences at limits of functioning. Even after 38 sessions of
training, the majority of older adults did not reach the
level of performance that young adults had reached after
only a few sessions. Moreover, at the end of the study,
not a single older person functioned above the mean of
the young-adult group. A more recent investigation
has shown that upper limits of performance are further
reduced in very old age (T. Singer, Lindenberger, &
Baltes, 2003).
The findings obtained with the testing-the-limits para-
digm are consistent with our general notion that the me-
chanics of cognition decrease during adulthood and old
age. Given our assumptions regarding life span changes in
adaptive capacity of the mechanics of the mind and the
knowledge-contaminated nature of standard assessments,
we predict that life span peaks in performance levels are
shifted toward younger ages when individuals are given
the opportunity to come close to their upper limits of me-
chanic potential. Results from a recent experimental
study have confirmed these expectations (Brehmer, Li,
Müller, Oertzen, & Lindenberger, 2005).
In addition to encompassing wide age ranges, future
explorations of life span differences in behavioral plas-
ticity may also include functional and anatomical neural
measures to identify life span differences in the relation
between behavioral and neuronal plasticity (for exem-
plary work, see Kramer et al., in press; Nyberg et al.,
2003). Also, the focus on age differences in maximum
level should be complemented by an emphasis on age-
differential changes in variances and covariances with
practice (Hertzog, Cooper, & Fisk, 1996; Labouvie,
Frohring, Baltes, & Goulet, 1973). Specifically, to bet-
ter understand neuronal correlates of age differences in
the acquisition of expertise, it seems productive to study
life span differences in the brain’s adaptation in re-
sponse to intensive training programs.
At present the major conclusion regarding the plastic-
ity of the mechanics across the lifespan is that plasticity
may be substantial in childhood, that it decreases
markedly with age, and that it’s demonstrated plasticity
after middle adulthood is modest at best. This conclu-
sion holds especially, if one defines a high threshold for
assessing whether a given training program resulted in a
true improvement of the mechanics themselves (Baltes
& Lindenberger, 1988). For instance, it is not easy to
argue against alternative interpretations, such as that the
improvement in the cognitive system is due to adding
pragmatic rather than mechanical components to the so-
lution process. We would need more purist measures of
the cognitive mechanics than are currently available.
Moreover, issues of transfer and maintenance are at
stake. If the results were an improvement in the mechan-
ics themselves, the evidence should include the demon-
stration of improvement in learning gains across a wide
range of new tasks, or at least within the “modularity”
class within which the training tasks are putatively lo-
cated. The absence of such evidence my be due to the
fact that many training programs are behavioral in ori-
gin. It will be interesting to see whether biochemical in-
terventions, such as memory pharmaceuticals to
improve the transmission from primary to secondary
memory might be more powerful in improving the cogni-
tive mechanics in a more direct manner. Here, the newly
evolving cooperation between biochemically oriented
neuroscientists and behaviorally-oriented learning psy-
chologists may offer a new window on the plasticity of
the cognitive mechanics during adulthood as well (see
also Goldberg & Weinberger, 2004; Kempermann,
2006).
The Crystallized Pragmatics of Cognition
We now direct our attention to the ontogeny of the cog-
nitive pragmatics, or the cultural and knowledge-rich
dimension of intellectual life span development. First,
we discuss the relation between mechanics and prag-
matics from an evolutionary perspective. Then, we
introduce the distinction between normative and person-
specific forms of pragmatic knowledge, and discuss
stage- and knowledge-oriented approaches. We end this
section with examples from our own research on expert
knowledge about the fundamental pragmatics of life
(wisdom).
Mechanics and Pragmatics in
Evolutionary Perspective
In recent decades, nativist approaches to infant cogni-
tive development have revealed the evolutionary in-
formed nature of the human processing system (e.g.,
Spelke, Vishton, & von Hofsten, 1995). Through innova-
tive advances in experimental methodology, it has be-
come increasingly clear that infants and young children
cannot be considered a cognitive tabula rasa, as extreme
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
interpretations of constructivist (e.g., Piaget,
1967/1971, but see Piaget, 1980, pp. 11–12) or behavior-
ist (e.g., B. F. Skinner, 1966) theorizing may suggest.
Rather, not unlike members of other species, humans
begin their extra-uterine lives with a well-
orchestrated set of domain-specific constraints and ex-
pectations that guide behavior and form the basis for
later acquisitions (Elman et al., 1996; Saffran, Aslin, &
Newport, 1996).
We assume that the pragmatics of cognition, or the
bodies of knowledge provided by culture build on, ex-
tend, and reorganize these prestructured core domains,
both during evolution and during ontogeny (Gigerenzer,
2003; Wellman, 2003). These processes of extension and
transformation eventually give rise to forms of knowl-
edge and behavior that are, in part by virtue of necessity,
compatible with the biological architecture of the mind,
but cannot be characterized as the direct consequence of
evolutionary selection pressures.
The resulting potential of human ontogeny to create
and adapt to the new (Gottlieb, 1998), or the productive
tension between current functions and evolutionary his-
tory, has been referred to as exaptative generalization or
exaptation (Gould & Vrba, 1982). As a mechanism of
biocultural co-construction, exaptation helps to explain
why members of the human species are good at doing
things that were certainly not directly at the focus of
natural selection, such as reading a book or driving a car
(Sherry & Schacter, 1987). Put more generally, exapta-
tion reminds us that the evolution of culture must reflect
some degree of match with, and reciprocal influence on,
evolution-based genetic disposition (Durham, 1991;
Gottlieb et al., Chapter 5, this Handbook, this volume).
For instance, pragmatic knowledge may evolve from
and/or mimic predisposed knowledge in evolutionarily
privileged domains but come with the advantage of being
tuned to the idiosyncratic demands of specific cultures,
biographies, and contexts (Siegler & Crowley, 1994).
Note, however, that culture sometimes appears to
have produced bodies of knowledge that are antithetical,
disconnected, or at least not easily articulated to biolog-
ical predispositions. For instance, Gigerenzer and Todd
(1999) have argued that formal-logical expressions such
as Bayes’ theorem do not take advantage of humans’ pre-
disposition to base judgments about feature conjunction
probabilities on frequency counts. Put differently, math-
ematical formalisms about conditional probabilities do
not build on mechanisms of perception and action that
directly support the detection of conjunctive feature fre-
605
quencies; rather, such formalisms are cultural products
whose acquisition requires specialized instruction. An-
other example from a completely different field is the
need to culturally countershape the manifestation of
evolution-based aggressive and interpersonal power ten-
dencies.
Normative versus Person-Specific
Pragmatic Knowledge
An important, albeit necessarily imperfect, distinction
within the pragmatics of cognition concerns normative
versus person-specific knowledge. Normative bodies of
knowledge are of general value to a given culture. Typi-
cal examples include verbal ability, number proficiency,
and basic general knowledge about the world (e.g.,
Ackerman, Beier, & Bowen, 2000). Individual differ-
ences in these domains are closely linked to years of ed-
ucation and other aspects of social stratification, and
are amenable to psychometric testing (Cattell, 1971). In
contrast, person-specific bodies of knowledge that
branch off from the normative knowledge-acquisition
path are less closely tied to mandatory socialization
events, and result from specific combinations of experi-
ential settings, personality characteristics, motivational
constellations, and cognitive abilities or talent (Mar-
siske et al., 1995). As a consequence, these bodies of
knowledge often escape psychometric operationaliza-
tion, and are more amenable to study within the expert-
ise paradigm (Ericsson & Smith, 1991; Gobet et al.,
2001; Krampe & Baltes, 2003). Therefore, psychometric
research on crystallized abilities needs to be supple-
mented by approaches with a more explicit focus on
knowledge acquisition and utilization to more fully cap-
ture the diversity and specificity of pragmatic knowl-
edge.
For the most part ( but see Brown, 1982; Chi &
Koeske, 1983; Schneider & Bjorklund, 2003; Weinert &
Perner, 1996; Wilkening & Anderson, 1990), develop-
mental research on person-specific bodies of knowledge
has been undertaken with adults. A typical approach has
been to identify the effects of domain-specific knowl-
edge by comparing the performance of experts and
novices both inside and outside their domain of expert-
ise. Examples include the classical domains of expertise
research such as chess (Charness, 1981) and card games
(Bosman & Charness, 1996), but also domains such
as baseball knowledge (Hambrick & Engle, 2002) or
professional expertise (e.g., Salthouse, 2003; for an
overview, see Charness, 2005).
606 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Two main conclusions can be drawn from this re-
search. First, expertise effects, or the consequences of
specific bodies of declarative and procedural knowl-
edge, rarely transcend the boundaries of the target do-
main. Specifically, there is little evidence to suggest
that the mechanics of cognition are transformed by
domain-specific knowledge (Salthouse, 2003). When-
ever there is evidence for effects of a more general kind,
at least after the age periods of childhood and adoles-
cence, transfer of pragmatic knowledge (positive or
negative) appears to be a more plausible explanation
than a basic change in the mechanics. One example
comes from longitudinal work by Kohn and Schooler
(1983; Schooler, Mulatu, & Oates, 1999) on the rela-
tionship between the substantive complexity of work
and ideational flexibility. Kohn and Schooler found that
work complexity predicts increments in ideational flexi-
bility over a period of 10 years, even after controlling
for initial differences in ideational flexibility. A related
finding is the recent observation that social participa-
tion attenuates decline in the cognitive mechanics in old
and very old age (Lövdén, Ghisletta, & Lindenberger,
2005). Note, however, that the interpretation of findings
of this type in terms of experiential factors is compli-
cated through nonrandom placement of individuals into
experiential settings and the fact that the measures of
the cognitive mechanics used include crystallized prag-
matic components (Scarr & McCartney, 1983).
The second major conclusion concerns the power of
pragmatic knowledge to make up for losses in the mechan-
ics within the domain of expertise (Charness, 2005;
Krampe & Baltes, 2003). Here, the results from several
studies suggest that acquired knowledge endows aging in-
dividuals with a form of natural and local (e.g., domain-
bound) ability to withstand or at least attenuate the
consequences of aging-induced losses in the mechanics.
This finding is of central importance for the issue of suc-
cessful intellectual aging, and supports the general life
span theory of selective optimization with compensation
(P. B. Baltes, 1993; Freund & Baltes, 2000; Staudinger
et al., 1995). The postulate of a compensatory relation be-
tween pragmatic knowledge acquisition and mechanic de-
cline receives additional support by attenuated adult age
differences in knowledge-rich domains of everyday rele-
vance. For instance, compared to standard psychometric
or cognitive-experimental assessments, negative adult age
differences tend to be less pronounced or absent in practi-
cal problem solving (Sternberg, Wagner, Williams, &
Hovath, 1995), social intelligence (Blanchard-Fields,
1996), memory in context (Hess & Pullen, 1996), and
interactive-minds cognition (P. B. Baltes & Staudinger,
1996b; Dixon & Gould, 1996; T. Singer et al., 2004;
Staudinger, 1996; Staudinger & Baltes, 1996).
Intellectual Growth during Adulthood: Stage
Conceptions versus Functionalist Approaches
Historically, much of the search for more advanced
forms of reasoning and thought in adulthood originated
from Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (Chap-
man, 1988b; Pascual-Leone, 1983; Piaget, 1970; Riegel,
1976), positing the emergence of one or more postfor-
mal or dialectical stages of cognitive development after
the advent of formal operations. The conceptual de-
scription of these stages often connects personality de-
velopment (e.g., generativity in the Eriksonian sense)
with logical considerations (e.g., awareness and accep-
tance of contradiction). As a consequence of this partic-
ular linkage, the emergence of such stages is assumed to
bring about increments in reflexivity and general aware-
ness for the human condition (see the next section). Evi-
dence in support of such stages is scarce, which is not
surprising given the difficulties in obtaining reliable in-
dicators of stage-like cognitive change (e.g., Molenaar,
1986; L. B. Smith & Thelen, 2003).
Despite his constructivist and dialectical epistemol-
ogy (e.g., Chapman, 1988; Lourenço & Machado, 1996;
Piaget, 1980), Piaget himself was reluctant to posit any
stages beyond formal operations. Instead, he argued on
one occasion (Piaget, 1972) that the notion of horizon-
tal décalage gives sufficient room to adult intellectual
growth and variability within his theory. Specifically,
he expected that late adolescents and adults would ex-
hibit formal-operational reasoning within their areas of
expertise but not necessarily across all possible domains
of knowledge. This view seems consistent with the two-
component model of fluid-crystallized or mechanic-
pragmatic intelligence in that the potential for adult
intellectual growth is linked to factors operating within
rather than across domains (Flavell, 1970; Krampe &
Baltes, 2003).
Nevertheless, the quest for identifying structural
transformations in the organization of thought and ac-
tion in the course of life span development continues to
be of great theoretical appeal (L. B. Smith & Thelen,
2003). To ease the detection of such transformations, if
they exist, it seems advisable to increase the density of
observations within persons, and to use data-analytic
tools as well theoretical approaches that highlight rather
than cover the structural dynamics one seeks to identify
(e.g., Lindenberger & von Oertzen, in press; Molenaar,
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
Huizenga, & Nesselroade, 2003; C. S. Nesselroade &
Schmidt McCollam, 2000). Empirically, the emergence
of automaticity during skill acquisition provides per-
haps the best evidence for structural change (e.g., Ack-
erman & Cianciolo, 2000), albeit of a different kind
than envisioned by structuralist life span theoreticians.
Expanding the Concept of Cognitive Pragmatics:
Wisdom as Expertise in the Fundamental
Pragmatics of Life
Individual differences in intellectual functioning also
reflect and influence individual differences in person-
ality and motivation. In the child development litera-
ture, a good example is school achievement, which is
studied in relation to ability, effort, and other person-
ality characteristics. In life span psychology, such a
view becomes conspicuous when attempting to under-
stand expert levels of intellectual performance, for
instance, by means of models of expertise (Ericsson &
Smith, 1991). Similarly, investment theories of intelli-
gence emphasize that cognition pervades cognitive,
motivational, and emotional aspects of behavior
(Krampe & Baltes, 2003).
To illustrate the point of viewing intelligence in a
larger context of human functioning, we use research
on wisdom (see also P. B. Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004;
Kunzmann & Baltes, 2003a). Wisdom is close to con-
ceptions of intelligence broadly conceived, as it de-
notes a high level of performance in the domain of
practical and social intelligence. At the same time, wis-
dom also is a personality characteristic since its acqui-
sition and expression depends on values and
motivation. For instance, it is part of wisdom-related
knowledge to understand that wisdom is oriented si-
multaneously toward the well-being of oneself and that
of others. This commitment to the common good high-
lights the constituent role of personality and motiva-
tion in wisdom-related thought and behavior. Hence,
we see wisdom as an ideal combination of mind and
virtue (P. B. Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004; P. B. Baltes &
Smith, 1990; P. B. Baltes & Staudinger, 2000). Cogni-
tive, motivational, and emotional attributes need to
converge to produce wisdom as the highest form of
human excellence in mind and character. Thus, strictly
speaking, intelligence is only a part of wisdom, unless
one was to expand the concept of intelligence produc-
tion to cover personality as well (for a further discus-
sion of these issues, see Ardelt, 2004; Aspinwall &
Staudinger, 2003; P. B. Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004;
Krampe & Baltes, 2003; Sternberg, 2004).
607
In the Berlin work on wisdom (e.g., P. B. Baltes &
Kunzmann, 2004; P. B. Baltes & Smith, 1990; P. B.
Baltes & Staudinger, 2000), we treat wisdom as the high-
est form of knowledge and judgment about human excel-
lence involving the meaning and conduct of life.
Specifically, we define wisdom as “an expertise in the
fundamental pragmatics of life permitting exceptional in-
sight and judgment involving complex and uncertain mat-
ters of the human condition including its developmental
and contextual variability, plasticity, and limitations.”
Operationally, this definition corresponds to a family of
five criteria, factual knowledge, procedural knowledge,
contextualism, value relativism, and uncertainty. Clearly,
advances along these dimensions require the joint opera-
tion of cognitive, motivational, and emotional factors.
Thus far, our main methodological strategy in inves-
tigating wisdom as an expertise in the fundamental prag-
matics of life has been to ask persons to think aloud
about difficult life problems such as, “Imagine a 14-
year-old girl who wants to leave home and get married,
what should one think about this?” The think-aloud re-
sponses to such or similar life problems are then evalu-
ated on the five wisdom-related criteria by a trained
rater panel. Figure 11.12 displays the results of one of
these studies (P. B. Baltes, Staudinger, Maercker, &
Smith, 1995). In the figure, an overall wisdom score
Wisdom-Related Score (Maximum = 7)
5
4
Top 20%
3
Wisdom
2 Nominees
Old Clinical
1 Psychologists
Control
Group
0
20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
Participant Age
Figure 11.12 Wisdom-related performance of four different
groups of individuals averaged across two wisdom-related tasks
and five evaluative criteria (factual knowledge, procedural
knowledge, contextualism, relativism, and uncertainty). There
were no age differences in the age range from 25 to 80 years. In
addition, wisdom nominees and clinical psychologists provided
significantly more high-level (top 20%) performances than the
old control group. Max. = maximum. Source: From “People
Nominated as Wise: A Comparative Study of Wisdom-Related
Knowledge,” by P. B. Baltes, U. M. Staudinger, A. Maercker,
and J. Smith, 1995, Psychology and Aging, 10, pp. 155–166.
608 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
based on all five criteria is plotted against age for four
different groups: Wisdom nominees (i.e., distinguished
individuals nominated as being wise in a two-step Del-
phi technique), experienced clinical psychologists, and
two control groups involving adults with comparable ad-
vanced levels of education (young and old).
Two findings are noteworthy. First, there was no in-
dication of a negative age trend in wisdom-related per-
formance when comparing adults of about 25 to 75
years of age. This finding has been replicated in five
other studies (Staudinger, 1999a). Second, older per-
sons with wisdom-facilitative experiences (e.g., older
clinical psychologists and wisdom nominees) con-
tributed a disproportionately large share to the top re-
sponses (see also J. Smith, Staudinger, & Baltes, 1994;
Staudinger, Smith, & Baltes, 1992). Both findings stand
in clear contrast to the negative age gradients observed
for the cognitive mechanics (see Figure 11.10, both
panels), thereby providing further support for the two-
component model.
The findings also underscore that living long (age) in
itself is not a sufficient condition for the development of
wisdom (or for any other form of expertise). Rather, as
suggested by our working model of wisdom ontogeny
(see Figure 11.13), it appears that favorable macro-
structural contexts (e.g., historical period), expertise-
specific factors (e.g., experience and training in the
fundamental pragmatics of life, strive for excellence,
mentorship), and general person factors (e.g., fluid me-
chanics, cognitive style, openness to experience) need to
work in coalition to move people toward wisdom (e.g.,
Staudinger, 1999b). Some of these wisdom-facilitative
factors, such as generativity, are age-associated; how-
ever, there are also wisdom-debilitating influences, such
as rigidity and decrease in the cognitive mechanics, that
might come with age. On average, the net result of age-
related facilitators and debilitators seems to equal out.
Only under favorable conditions, facilitators outweigh
debilitators and permit increase of wisdom-related per-
formance with age.
The theoretical framework of our work on wisdom,
and its close connection with dimensions of personality
and emotionality, has been supported by a variety of
findings (P. B. Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004; P. B. Baltes
& Staudinger, 2000; Kunzmann & Baltes, 2003b). For
instance, in adulthood, personality and cognitive style
measures are more important predictors of wisdom-
related performance than traditional measures of intel-
ligence (Staudinger, Lopez, & Baltes, 1997; Staudinger,
General Person Factors
e.g., Cognitive Mechanics
Mental Health
Cognitive Style Creativity
Openness to Experience Organizing Processes
Life Planning
Life Management
Expertise-specific Factors Life Review
e.g., Experience in Life Matters
Practice in Dealing with
Life Problems
Organized Tutelage Wisdom-related
Mentorship Performance
Motivational Disposition
(e.g., Strive for Basic Criteria
excellence, Factual Knowledge
generativity) Procedural Knowledge
Meta Criteria
Facilitative Experiental Contexts Lifespan Contextualism
Value Relativism
e.g., Age Uncertainty
Education
Providing Mentorship
Profession
Historical Period
Figure 11.13 A research framework describing antecedent
factors and mediating processes for the acquisition and main-
tenance of wisdom-related knowledge and skills across the
life span. The likelihood of attaining expert levels of perfor-
mance in this prototypical domain of the cognitive pragmatics
is assumed to depend on an effective coalition of experiential,
expertise-specific, and general person-related factors (modi-
fied after Baltes & Smith, 1990; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000).
Adapted from “ The Psychology of Wisdom and Its Ontogene-
sis” (pp. 87–120), by P. B. Baltes and J. Smith, 1990, in Wis-
dom: Its Nature, Origins, and Development, R. J. Sternberg
(Ed.), New York: Cambridge University Press; and “Wisdom:
A Metaheuristic to Orchestrate Mind and Virtue Towards Ex-
cellence,” by P. B. Baltes and U. M. Staudinger, 2000, Ameri-
can Psychologist, 55, pp. 122–136.
Maciel, Smith, & Baltes, 1998). In contrast, intelligence
is a more salient predictor in adolescence, when intellec-
tual prerequisites for wisdom-related characteristics
such as the abilities to self-reflect and decenter are un-
dergoing rapid developmental advances (Pasupathi,
Staudinger, & Baltes, 2001). To embed wisdom into a
more holistic context involving personality and the self,
we also examined the correlation between wisdom-
related knowledge and virtue-related outcomes such as
prosocial values and interpersonal conflict-resolution
styles (Kunzmann & Baltes, 2003b; see also Sternberg,
1998). People high on wisdom-related knowledge exhib-
ited a more complex and modulated structure of emo-
tions and preferred conflict resolution strategies that are
based on dialogue rather than power. Of special interest
is that high wisdom-related knowledge correlates nega-
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
tively with the search for personal enjoyment and mate-
rial happiness.
In addition to illustrating how the pragmatics of cogni-
tion are intertwined with other sectors of human develop-
ment, our research on wisdom also illustrates how culture
and culture-based activities shape development during
adulthood. During normal adulthood, the biology of the
body and brain is sufficiently developed and ready for in-
vestment. It is culture-based learning and development
that defines the agenda (see also P. B. Baltes, Freund, &
Li, in press; Lachman, 2001). In this sense, work on
wisdom serves to highlight the relative independence of
the pragmatics of cognition vis à vis the biology-based
mechanics. Within the normal range of adult mechanic
functioning, the mechanics’ contribution to individual
differences on wisdom-related tasks is small, both in
absolute terms and relative to other factors such as per-
sonality and task-relevant life experience. The most im-
portant contributors to wisdom-related performance
during the adult life span tend to be personality character-
istics as measured by the Neuroticism Extraversion Open-
ness Questionnaire (NEO) as well as wisdom-relevant
professional training and the nature of lifetime experi-
ence, rather than psychometrically assessed intelligence
or chronological age. In very old age, however, the me-
chanics of cognition again appear to delimit wisdom-
related performance if they fall below a critical threshold
of functional integrity (P. B. Baltes et al., 1995).
Varieties of Mechanic/ Pragmatic
Interdependence
As has become clear by now, the mechanics and prag-
matics of life span intellectual development are inter-
twined in many ways and at various levels of analysis
(cf. Charness, in press; Salthouse, 2003), both among
each other and with other aspects of behavior. Phyloge-
netically, they are connected in the sense that members
of the human species are biologically predisposed to ac-
quire cultural knowledge (e.g., Plessner, 1965; Wellman,
2003). Ontogenetically, the interdependence also runs
both ways. For instance, the potential to acquire and use
pragmatic knowledge is conditioned by the development
of the mechanics. At the same time, mechanics alone are
of little use for problem solving in highly specialized do-
mains of knowledge; in many cases, domain-specific
knowledge is critical (Gobet et al., 2001).
In the following discussion, we further elucidate dif-
ferent facets of this interdependence. This approach is
609
in line with the view of biocultural co-construction
(P. B. Baltes et al., 2006; S.-C. Li, 2003) mentioned ear-
lier. We then argue, with respect to the overall land-
scape of life span development, or the ontogenetic
dynamics of gains and losses, that the mechanic-prag-
matic interdependence converges on the notion of a com-
pensatory relation between mechanic ef ficiency and
pragmatic knowledge. As SOC theory suggests, this
compensatory relation is reciprocal and part of the en-
tire life course. However, we submit that the role of
compensation increases in importance and culminates
in old age.
The Mechanic-Pragmatic Interdependence:
Evidence at the Cortical Level
An early neurocognitive demonstration for the interde-
pendence between mechanic and pragmatic develop-
ment concerns the increased cortical representation of
the left hand in players of string instruments (Elbert,
Pantev, Wienbruch, Rockstroh, & Taub, 1995; for other
examples, see Draganski et al., 2004; Petersson & Reis,
in press). Compared to normal individuals, areas of the
somatosensory cortex representing the fingers of the
left hand occupy more space in string players. Most
likely, this increase in cortical representation has been
induced by large amounts of goal-directed and deliber-
ate practice (cf. Ericsson, Krampe, & Tesch-Römer,
1993). In line with the notion of a bio-culturally co-
constructed brain (P. B. Baltes et al., in press; S.-C. Li
& Lindenberger, 2002), this research finding illustrates
the potential of individuals to acquire and represent
pragmatic knowledge.
Elbert et al. (1995) also provided evidence in support
of age-graded differences in cortical plasticity. Specifi-
cally, the brain’s physiological aptness to provide more
cortical space for the fingers of the left hand was found
to depend on the chronological age at inception of musi-
cal practice. As this example illustrates, the ability to
acquire pragmatic knowledge (e.g., the potential for de-
velopmental change in the pragmatic component) is con-
ditioned by the age-graded status of the mechanics
(Güntürkün, in press; Kempermann, in press).
The Age of Peak Performance in Complex Skills
The mechanics of cognition not only condition the ac-
quisition but also the expression of pragmatic knowl-
edge, especially at high levels of performance (Bosman
& Charness, 1996; Hambrick & Engle, 2002; Molander
& Bäckman, 1993). A good example is the difference in
610 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
peak age for tournament versus correspondence chess
(Charness, in press). The mean age at which a world
championship is first won is about 46 years of age for
correspondence chess, but about 30 years of age for
tournament chess. In correspondence chess, players are
permitted 3 days to deliberate a move; in tournament
chess, deliberation averages three minutes per move.
Thus, the difference in peak age between the two activi-
ties seems to reflect differences in the relative impor-
tance of cognitive/perceptual speed and knowledge
(e.g., Burns, 2004).
This example points to a general dilemma governing
the relation between the mechanics, the pragmatics, and
age/time. The acquisition of expertise takes time. For
instance, Simon and Chase (1973) argued that 10 years
of deliberate practice are needed to reach excellence in a
particular domain of functioning. For this reason alone,
experts tend to be older than novices (cf. Lehman,
1953). On the other hand, decrements in certain aspects
of the mechanics, such as perceptual speed, can be reli-
ably identified by age 30 (S.-C. Li, Lindenberger, et al.,
2004; Salthouse, 1991). Therefore, differences in peak
age across domains can be seen as ontogenetic compro-
mises between biology and culture, and are probably
good indicators of the relative importance of pragmatic
knowledge and mechanic processing efficiency.
An exclusive focus on ages of peak productivity or
peak achievement would hide essential and unique
features of late-life intellectual growth. For instance,
some exceptional individuals seem to escape mechanic
decline well into the 9th decade of their lives. If these
individuals also happen to be experts in a particular
domain, they can produce outstanding works through-
out their life. One example would be Sophocles
(497–406B.C.), who won his first prize for the best
drama of the year at age 28, wrote over 120 dramas,
and developed a new dramatic style in his 80s. Com-
menting on his own late-life artistic development,
Sophocles said that he finally had liberated himself
from the artificiality of his earlier style, and had found
a language that was the best and the most ethical
(Schadewaldt, 1975, p. 75; for related evidence on clas-
sical composers, see Simonton, 1988, 1989).
A Third Prototypical Example: Speed and
Knowledge in Aging Typists
A good empirical demonstration of the gain / loss
dynamic between the cognitive mechanics and the cogni-
tive pragmatics comes from a study on aging typists
using the so-called molar equivalence/molecular decom-
position approach (Salthouse, 1984). In this paradigm,
adults of different ages are equated in general (e.g.,
molar) task proficiency to investigate whether equal lev-
els of criterion performance are attained through age-
differential profiles of “molecular ” component processes
(Charness, 1989). Thus, age differences at the molecular
level of analysis are seen as a reflection of age-based
changes in the relative contribution of knowledge and
basic processing efficiency to criterion performance.
Salthouse (1984) studied a total of 74 transcription
typists ranging from 19 to 72 years of age. Figure 11.14
displays an interpretation of the main findings of this
study in terms of the two-component model. In this
sample, age and level of typing skill (i.e., net words per
minute) were uncorrelated (e.g., molar equivalence). Age
was negatively related to measures of perceptual /motor
speed (e.g., tapping speed), but positively related to eye-
hand span. In other words, older typists were slower in
tapping speed but looked further ahead in the text to be
typed. These findings are consistent with the interpreta-
tion that aging typists extend their eye-hand span to
counteract the consequences of aging losses in perceptual /
motor speed, and illustrate the compensatory relation-
ship between knowledge and speed.
To the extent that selective attrition does not play a
prominent role, the performance pattern of older typ-
ists may, in part, reflect loss-induced development, or
compensation in the strict sense of the term (P. B.
Baltes & Baltes, 1990b; Dixon & Bäckman, 1995; Salt-
house, 1995). With respect to methods, this example
Slower Reaction Time
Mechanics Biological When Seeing and Typing
Aging
Individual Letters
Pragmatics Knowledge-based Anticipatory Reading
Compensation of the Amount of Text
Figure 11.14 Older typists can maintain a high level of
functioning by reading farther ahead in the text to be typed,
despite a loss in reaction time when typing individual letters.
The example illustrates the compensatory relationship be-
tween the pragmatics and the mechanics of cognition and sug-
gests that selective optimization with compensation may play
an important role in successfully adapting to aging-induced
losses in the mechanics of cognition. Source: From “Effects
of Age and Skill in Typing,” by T. A. Salthouse, 1984, Jour-
nal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, pp. 345–371.
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
demonstrates how the combination of expertise and
information-processing approaches may lead to a better
understanding of the compensatory relation between
acquired bodies of cultural knowledge and basic as-
pects of information processing efficiency (cf. Abra-
ham & Hansson, 1995; Lang et al., 2002).
Malleability (Plasticity) in Intellectual
Functioning across Historical and
Ontogenetic Time
As is true for development in general, life span changes
in intellectual functioning represent the overdetermined
antecedents, correlates, and outcomes of a large variety
of different sources of influence (e.g., mechanics, prag-
matics, motivation, personality, societal opportunity
structures). Therefore, differences in level of intellec-
tual performance reflect, within the age-graded bound-
aries provided by the mechanics, variations in physical
and sociocultural aspects of environmental conditions
(P. B. Baltes et al., in press; Klix, 1993). In the follow-
ing, we report two interrelated lines of research in sup-
port of this contention. The first line of research
addresses environmental change at a large (i.e., histori-
cal) time scale. The second example refers to the mal-
leability of adult-intellectual functioning in the context
of cognitive intervention studies.
Cohort Effects, Period Effects, and
Environmental Change
As expected on the basis of life span contextualism, on-
togenetic processes unfold in a constantly changing so-
cial and cultural environment. As a consequence, age
gradients in intellectual abilities are not fixed but re-
flect history-graded systems of influence, such as en-
during differences between individuals born at different
points in historical time (cohort effects), specific in-
fluences of historical events across chronological age
(period effects), or generalized and enduring shifts in
the environment affecting individuals of all ages and
subsequent cohorts (general environmental change). For
methodological reasons, discriminating among these va-
rieties of environmental change is not easy (P. B. Baltes,
1968; P. B. Baltes et al., 1979; Lövdén, Ghisletta, &
Lindenberger, 2004; Magnusson et al., 1991; Schaie,
1965, 1994, 2005).
A first step to discern effects of large-scale environ-
mental change is to compare the performance of
same-aged individuals across historical time (i.e., time-
lagged comparisons). With some exceptions (e.g., num-
611
ber ability; cf. Schaie, 1989; Schaie et al., 2005), the
general picture resulting from such comparisons is that
higher test scores are obtained at more recent times
(Flynn, 1987; Schaie, 1996). Probably, this historical
increase in test scores across historical time is not due
to changes in the genetic composition of the population
or differential sampling bias, but reflects some general
change (i.e., improvement) in health- and education-
related conditions. The magnitude of these effects can
be quite large. For the U.S. population during the twen-
tieth century, for instance, they sometimes exceeded a
standard deviation within a 30-year range of historical
change (Schaie, 1996). It should be cautioned, however,
that we do not know whether environmental-change
effects of the same order of magnitude would be ob-
served with pure indicators of the mechanics of intelli-
gence. For instance, much of the measures used in the
battery of the Seattle Longitudinal Study (Schaie,
1996) have a strong cultural-knowledge component,
and are more likely to be affected by historical change
and dissipation than other, less knowledge-loaded mea-
sures of brain efficiency. With respect to the Seattle
Longitudinal study (Schaie, 1996), the convergence
between cross-sectional and independent-sample same-
cohort comparisons suggests that the more positive age
gradients found with longitudinal samples may be
partly due to practice effects and selective attrition
(see also Salthouse, 1991). Analyses of longitudinal
data from the Berlin Aging Study (BASE) are fully
consistent with both predictions (Lindenberger, Singer,
& Baltes, 2002; Lövdén, Ghisletta, & Lindenberger,
2004; T. Singer, Verhaeghen, et al., 2003).
Theoretically, the direction and precise magnitude of
historical-change effects is generally of little impor-
tance. From a history-of-science point of view, however,
such effects, and especially their interpretation as
culture-based cohort effects, were instrumental in point-
ing to the substantial malleability (plasticity) of intel-
lectual performance during all periods of the adult life
span (P. B. Baltes, 1973). The resulting growth in
awareness for the existence of life span plasticity even-
tually led to advances in life span theorizing, and to
more controlled investigations into the range of intellec-
tual plasticity and its age-based limits (P. B. Baltes &
Kliegl, 1992; P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1988; P. B.
Baltes & Willis, 1982; T. Singer, Lindenberger, & Baltes,
2003; Willis, 1990). Specifically, multidirectional co-
hort differences in intellectual trajectories may entice
interdisciplinary collaboration with medicine and nutri-
tional sciences, educational neuroscience, and sociology
612 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
to understand their proximal antecedents and conse-
quences (Schaie et al., 2005).
Cognitive Intervention Work: Activation of
Learning Potential among Older Adults
Intervention work (P. B. Baltes & Willis, 1982; Kramer
& Willis, 2002; Willis, 2001) is a more direct (i.e., ex-
perimentally controlled) way to explore the degree
of plasticity in intellectual functioning than cohort-
comparative research. In the field of adult development
and aging, intervention studies have been undertaken to
examine whether age-based decrements in standard
psychometric tests of intellectual functioning are re-
versible, in full or in part, through training and practice
(Willis & Nesselroade, 1990). For the most part, inter-
ventions involved older adults only, and focused on tests
from the broad fluid domain.
The major results of this cognitive intervention work
can be summarized in five points (e.g., P. B. Baltes &
Lindenberger, 1988; Kramer & Willis, 2002): (1) Train-
ing gains in the practiced tests among healthy older
adults are substantial (i.e., they roughly correspond to
the amount of naturally occurring longitudinal decline
between 60 and 80 years of age); (2) transfer, however,
is limited to similar tests of the same ability; (3) train-
ing gains are maintained over lengthy periods of time up
to several years (Neely & Bäckman, 1993; Willis &
Nesselroade, 1990); (4) the factor structure of the abil-
ity space is not altered substantially through training
(Schaie, Willis, Hertzog, & Schulenberg, 1987); and
(5) in persons at risk for Alzheimer’s disease or af-
flicted by other forms of brain pathology, training gains
have been found to be restricted to experimental condi-
tions of high external support (Bäckman, Josephsson,
Herlitz, Stigsdotter, & Viitanen, 1991) or to be nonexis-
tent (M. M. Baltes et al., 1995; M. M. Baltes, Kühl, &
Sowarka, 1992).
These results indicate that the majority of healthy
older adults, including those who display the typical pat-
tern of age-related losses in the mechanics of cognition
(e.g., fluid abilities) under untrained conditions, are able
to greatly improve their performance after a few ses-
sions of task-related training or practice. Thus, among
healthy older adults, the mechanics of cognition are suf-
ficiently preserved to permit the acquisition of task-
relevant declarative and procedural knowledge. How-
ever, there is little evidence to suggest that training
gains generalize to related abilities or to everyday func-
tioning. Moreover, the results of testing-the-limits re-
search presented above clearly indicate that the amount
(scope) of plasticity decreases with advancing age, at
least during adulthood. At limits of mechanic function-
ing, older adults definitely display less potential. To
what degree such cognitive training in older adults
changes the mechanics themselves is unclear but possi-
ble (Kempermann, 2006).
A related line of intervention research has found that
aerobic fitness attenuates age-related decrements in cog-
nitive control (e.g., multitasking) in later adulthood
(Kramer et al., 1999). This finding can be explained in
at least two ways. First, from the perspective of SOC
theory, increasing bodily fitness may reduce older adults’
needs to continuously invest portions of their cognitive
resources into the coordination of their increasingly fal-
lible sensory and motor functions (e.g., Lindenberger
et al., 2000). In other words, training the sensamotor
function required for bodily functioning “ frees” up re-
sources for other cognitive tasks. Second, recent brain-
imaging evidence suggests that aerobic fitness has direct
beneficial effects on prefrontal cortex functioning (Col-
combe et al., 2003), which may enhance performance on
cognitive tasks that put high demands on cognitive con-
trol. Clearly, the two explanations are not mutually ex-
clusive.
Relative Stability in Intellectual Functioning
across the Life Span
The issue of continuity and discontinuity, or stability
and change, has a long tradition within developmental
psychology at large (Kagan, 1980), and life span intel-
lectual development, in particular (P. B. Baltes &
Smith, 2003; Hertzog, 1985; Lövdén & Lindenberger,
2004; McArdle & Epstein, 1987; J. R. Nesselroade,
1991; Schaie, 1965). Different forms of stability, such
as stability in level, rank order, and profiles, have been
set apart (Caspi & Bem, 1990). The main emphasis of
the following life span synopsis of intellectual develop-
ment is on interindividual rank order, or on what Kagan
(1980) has called relative stability, which denotes the
extent to which individual differences during later peri-
ods of ontogeny can be predicted on the basis of individ-
ual differences observed during earlier periods.
In most cases, evidence on the relative stability after
infancy is based on undifferentiated measures of general
intelligence, or IQ tests. We agree with others that an
exclusive focus on these omnibus measures hides essen-
tial features of life span intellectual development and
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
the structure of intelligence (Cattell, 1971; Horn, 1989).
Specifically, such measures can be seen as mixtures of
mechanic and normative-pragmatic components of intel-
lectual functioning that approximate, to varying de-
grees, the centroid of the intellectual ability factor
space (i.e., Spearman’s g). With this qualification in
mind, we restrict the following discussion, with one ex-
ception (i.e., infant development), to undifferentiated or
IQ-like measures of intellectual functioning.
Predicting Childhood Intelligence on the Basis of
Infant Behavior
Until the 1950s, it was generally believed that intelli-
gence was an immutable characteristic of the individual,
which led to the unchallenged assumption that individu-
als maintain their rank order on measures of intellectual
functioning throughout life. Starting in the 1960s, how-
ever, it was found that stability in early mental test per-
formance was low (McCall, 1979). On the basis of this
evidence, it was concluded that standardized tests of in-
fant development do not predict later intelligence at use-
ful levels of prediction until after 18 to 24 months of
age. This majority view of ontogenetic instability of in-
terindividual differences during infancy was again chal-
lenged and ultimately replaced by more recent research
using habituation and recognition-memory paradigms.
In contrast to standardized infant tests of sensorimotor
capacities, these two paradigms were originally based
on operant-conditioning and/or information-processing
perspectives, and refer to infants’ tendency to change
their behaviors as a function of prior exposure to a stim-
ulus (e.g., decrements in attention in the case of habitu-
ation, or novelty preference in the case of recognition
memory). On average, individual differences in habitua-
tion and recognition memory performance between 2
and 8 months were found to be moderately correlated
with standard tests of intelligence such as the Wechsler,
Bayley, or Binet administered between 1 and 8 years
(median correlation, r = .45; after attenuation for unreli-
ability, r = .70; Bornstein, 1989; McCall & Carriger,
1993; for recent evidence, see F. Smith, Fagan, & Ul-
vund, 2002). A more recent meta-analysis has con-
firmed these results (Kavsek, 2004). Behavior-genetic
research suggests that individual differences in at least
some of the measures used for prediction have a genetic
component (Benson, Cherny, Haith, & Fulker, 1993;
Cardon & Fulker, 1991).
Both relative change and relative stability shape
life span intellectual development from its very begin-
613
ning. According to one interpretation (e.g., Bornstein,
1989), infants who habituate more efficiently, and
who tend to look at the novel object, rather than the
old, are better able to inhibit action tendencies associ-
ated with already existing representations (e.g., Dia-
mond, 2002; McCall, 1994). The hypothesis that
inhibition may mediate the predictive link is consis-
tent with neuropsychological investigations of infants’
recognition memory (e.g., Diamond, 2002; Johnson,
Posner, & Rothbart, 1991). It also supports the more
general claim that inhibition ability and novelty pref-
erence are central features of intelligence (Berg &
Sternberg, 1985a).
Relative Interindividual Stability after Infancy
For reasons that are not yet well understood (Cardon &
Fulker, 1991; McCall & Carriger, 1993), the magni-
tude of the correlation between infant measures of ha-
bituation (i.e., 2 to 8 months) and childhood measures
of intelligence (i.e., 1 to 12 years) is temporally stable
or even increasing (Cardon & Fulker, 1991), rather
than decreasing over time. In contrast, relative stability
after infancy is rather well described on the basis of
quasi-simplex assumptions (Humphreys & Davey,
1988; Molenaar, Boomsma, & Dolan, 1991). Thus, ad-
jacent time points in ontogeny tend to be more highly
correlated than more distant time points In addition,
stability coefficients computed over identical lapses
of time show a considerable increase in magnitude
from childhood to adolescence into middle adulthood
and early old age (Hertzog & Schaie, 1986, 1988;
Humphreys & Davey, 1988; for review, see Lövdén &
Lindenberger, 2004).
In agreement with others (e.g., Humphreys & Davey,
1988; Molenaar, Boomsma, & Dolan, 1993), we propose
that these age-based changes in relative interindividual
stability should be interpreted in connection with age-
based changes in level (e.g., Lövdén & Lindenberger,
2004). According to this line of reasoning, interindivid-
ual differences change more rapidly early in develop-
ment because the intellectual repertoire is smaller but
growing faster than at later points during ontogeny,
thereby giving room for larger amounts of new variance
per unit time ( both environmental and genetic). By the
same token, aging-induced losses and age-associated
pathologies (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease) may not only
lead to decrements in level but also to a reshuffling of
individual differences in very old age (Mitrushina &
Satz, 1991; cf. P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2004).
614 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Changes in Heritability across the Life Span
We now turn to the study of age-based changes in the
contribution of genetic and environmental sources of in-
terindividual variability to individual differences in in-
telligence. We start with a consideration of general and
ability-specific effects, and then turn our attention to
life span changes in heritability estimates for general
(i.e., undifferentiated) measures of intelligence across
the life span.
A Note on the Nature of Behavior-Genetic Evidence
Before we summarize the relevant evidence, we will
sketch out our views on the meaning, strength, and limi-
tations of the behavior-genetics approach (P. B. Baltes
et al., 1988). Given the critical debates surrounding the
interpretation of behavior-genetic data (e.g., Bronfen-
brenner & Ceci, 1994; Gottlieb et al., Chapter 5, this
Handbook, this volume; R. M. Lerner, 1995; Molenaar
et al., 2003; Scarr, 1993), such a note may help to avoid
possible misunderstandings. We restrict our comment to
three points that are relevant both for the following sec-
tion on intellectual functioning as well as on personality
and the self. More detailed treatment is provided in P. B.
Baltes et al. (1998).
First, heritability coefficients in human research
(where selective inbreeding and exposure to extreme en-
vironments is limited) are statements about the scope of
interindividual differences more so than statements
about the processes and mechanisms of genetic expres-
sion at the individual and intraindividual level of analy-
sis. In other words, population-based behavior genetics
provides clues about the existence of genetically based
variation in a given population but does not provide di-
rect evidence about gene locations or epigenetic events
producing this variation (for emerging links between
behavior and molecular genetics, for example, Dick &
Rose, 2002; de Geus & Boomsma, 2002).
Second, standard behavior-genetic models do not
provide the best test of the overall role of environmental
forces. The power of such forces is better tested by
studies that examine the role of the impact of environ-
mental factors across the population and across
interindividual differences in genetic make-up. Specif-
ically, high heritability estimates do not preclude the
existence of environmental factors that alter perfor-
mance levels in all individuals of a given sample (for an
experimental demonstration, see Fox, Hershberger, &
Bouchard, 1996).
Third, heritability estimates are fixed-level statistics
(P. B. Baltes et al., 1988; Plomin & Thompson, 1988), in-
dicating what consequences (phenotypic expressions) are
produced under a given and specific set of interindividual
differences in genetic and environmental conditions.
Strong evidence demonstrating the environmental mal-
leability of heritability estimates comes from data on
7-year-old twins participating in the National Collabora-
tive Perinatal Project (Turkheimer, Haley, Waldron,
D’Onofrio, & Gottesman, 2003). A substantial propor-
tion of the twins in this sample were raised in families
living near or below the poverty level. The authors found
that the proportions of IQ variance attributable to genes
and environment varied nonlinearly with socioeconomic
status. In impoverished families, the shared environment
accounted for 60% of the variance in IQ, and the contri-
bution of genes was close to zero. In affluent families, the
result was almost exactly the reverse. Apparently, factors
associated with low socioeconomic status such as depri-
vation from developmental opportunity structures hin-
dered the behavioral expression of genetically based
interindividual differences in intellectual functioning.
Despite these qualifications, behavior-genetic evi-
dence provides important information about sources of
interindividual differences in life span development, es-
pecially if linked to molecular research on specific ge-
netic polymorphisms (Goldberg & Weinberger, 2004), to
intermediate phenotypes at the level of brain organiza-
tion (e.g., Anokhin et al., in press), or both. Such find-
ings, especially if based on longitudinal (e.g., Finkel,
Pedersen, McClearn, Plomin, & Berg, 1996), experi-
mental (e.g., Fox et al., 1996), and cross-cultural (e.g.,
Turkheimer et al., 2003) data, provide estimates of the
degree to which, on a population level of analysis,
interindividual dif ferences in developmental outcomes
are co-determined by interindividual differences in
genetic predispositions and extant environmental varia-
tions. Thus, everything else being equal, high heritabil-
ity estimates of a given behavioral outcome suggest that
interindividual dif ferences in this behavioral outcome
and in this “life space” are strongly genetically deter-
mined than interindividual dif ferences in behavioral out-
comes with low heritability estimates.
Genetic and Environmental Influence over
Ontogenetic Time: Specific and General Effects
Numerous studies have shown that genetic and environ-
mental influences can be operative in the regulation of
individual differences at both ability-specific and more
 First Level 5 Example: Intellectual Functioning across the Life Span
general levels (e.g., Cardon & Fulker, 1994). In longitu-
dinal analyses of hierarchically organized intellectual
abilities obtained from genetically informative data
sets, it is possible to determine the genetic and environ-
mental contributions to stability and change in rank
order and mean level both at the level of specific abili-
ties and at the level of a general factor (e.g., Cardon &
Fulker, 1994). An interesting example for the class of
findings that can be obtained with this method comes
from child cognitive development. Specifically, data
from the Colorado Adoption Project indicate that strong
novel contributions of genetic variance at the level of
general ability emerge at the ages of three and seven but
seem to be absent during the transition from childhood
to adolescence, when genetic variance contributes exclu-
sively to continuity of individual differences.
Estimates of Heritability of Interindividual
Differences across the Life Span
Similar to life span changes in stability, heritability in
intellectual functioning (e.g., the amount of interindi-
vidual variance attributable to genetic differences) in-
creases from about 20% to 50% during childhood and
adolescence to about 80% in early and middle adult-
hood (e.g., McGue, Bouchard, Iacono, & Lykken,
1993). Interestingly, in old age (e.g., beyond age 75),
heritability tends to decrease to values around 60%
(e.g., McClearn et al., 1997). In contrast, shared envi-
ronmental influences on interindividual differences
generally do not persist beyond the period of common
rearing (McGue, Bouchard, et al., 1993). As stated be-
fore, these findings are based on samples representing
the normal range of environments and genes, and can-
not be generalized beyond this normal range (e.g., to
extremes of environmental deprivation or reshuffled
environments). Within this normal range, however, the
life span increase in heritability of interindividual dif-
ferences is consistent with the notion that adolescents
and adults have more of a chance to actively select en-
vironments that match their genes than infants and
children (Scarr & McCartney, 1983).
Based on the preceding summaries, it appears that
relative stability and heritability exhibit similar life
span age gradients (see Plomin & Thompson, 1988).
More multivariate and longitudinal behavior-genetic
evidence is needed to fully understand the covariance
dynamics of this life span parallelism. One possibility
would be that individual differences in intellectual
functioning around middle adulthood are highly stable
615
because the genetic variance component has stabilized
at a high level (e.g., not much new genetic variance is
added over time), and because environments (which, in
part, have been selected on the basis of genetic endow-
ment) also tend to be stable during this period of the
life span. Similarly, the breakdown of well-orches-
trated genome expression in very old age may cause
late-life decrements in level, relative stability, and her-
itability. Note, however, that selective mortality may
counteract the identification of these trends at the pop-
ulation level in very old age (T. Singer, Verhaeghen,
et al., 2003).
The Mechanics and Pragmatics in Very Old Age
So far, our discussion of life span intellectual develop-
ment was organized around topics, rather than age peri-
ods. In this last section, we deviate from this practice by
giving special attention to the life period of very old
age. In our view, this last phase of life merits such atten-
tion because it represents a natural boundary condition
for the validity of the two-component model of intelli-
gence and cognition. Specifically, we expect that an in-
creasing portion of the very old population eventually
attains levels of mechanic functioning that are suffi-
ciently low to impair intellectual functioning in a rela-
tively global manner. A number of recent empirical
cross-sectional and longitudinal observations from the
BASE (P. B. Baltes & Mayer, 1999; P. B. Baltes, Mayer,
Helmchen, & Steinhagen-Thiessen, 1993) support and
qualify this prediction (for a detailed summary, see
Lövdén et al., 2004). Three results from this very old
sample are most pertinent to the two-component model
(P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1997; Lindenberger &
Baltes, 1995a).
Covariance Dedifferentiation
First, ability intercorrelations both between and within
fluid-mechanic and normative-pragmatic domains were
of much higher magnitude in old age than corresponding
ability intercorrelations during middle and early adult-
hood. Based on these data, the amount of covariation
among interindividual differences in intellectual abili-
ties, or the prominence of g, seems to increase in very
old age (P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger, 1997). The idea
that g may vary as a function of age and/or ability level
dates back to Spearman (Deary & Pagliari, 1991), and
has led to the differentiation /dedifferentiation hypothe-
sis of life span intelligence (Garrett, 1946; Lienert &
616 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Crott, 1964; Reinert, 1970). Despite methodological
difficulties in testing this hypothesis (J. R. Nesselroade
& Thompson, 1995), the evidence obtained so far seems
generally supportive (for a summary, see Lövdén & Lin-
denberger, 2004). For instance, Li, Lindenberger, et al.
(2004) performed life span-comparative exploratory
principal component analyses of fifteen intellectual
ability tests. The results of these analyses are shown
in the lower panel of Figure 11.10. In childhood, late
adulthood, and old age, only two components with
eigenvalues greater one were extracted, but in adoles-
cence, young, and middle adulthood, five components
displayed eigenvalues greater than unity. Also, fluid and
crystallized intelligence were more highly correlated in
childhood, late adulthood, and old age than in adoles-
cence, young, and middle adulthood.
From the perspective of the two-component model of
cognitive development, the decrease of ability intercor-
relations during childhood and the increase of intercor-
relations in very old age point to age-based changes (i.e.,
decrements and increments) in the importance of
domain-general processing constraints. Cross-sectional
data from the BASE (P. B. Baltes & Lindenberger,
1997; Lindenberger & Baltes, 1994) suggest that old-age
dedifferentiation transcends the cognitive domain,
and also affects sensory functioning (e.g., Ghisletta &
Lindenberger, 2005) and sensorimotor functioning (e.g.,
balance/gait). In line with these correlational findings,
recent neurocognitive evidence demonstrates that pro-
cessing pathways and brain activation patterns are less
differentiated in older adults than in young adults
(Cabeza et al., 2004; Park et al., 2004).
Directionality Dedifferentiation
The second finding from the BASE concerns the direc-
tionality of the age gradients (Lindenberger & Baltes,
1997). In very old age, differences in the directionality
of cross-sectional age gradients between mechanic and
normative-pragmatic abilities are on the wane. Instead,
gradations of negativity have been observed, with per-
ceptual speed showing the strongest and verbal knowl-
edge the weakest negative age relations.
These cross-sectional observations have been
corroborated and qualified by longitudinal evidence
(T. Singer, Verhaeghen, et al., 2003). Using latent
growth curve modeling (see McArdle, Hamagami, El-
lias, & Robbins, 1991), T. Singer, Verhaeghen, et al.
(2003) compared cross-sectional and longitudinal age
gradients under three different data selection condi-
tions: (1) the cross-sectional / longitudinal conver-
gence age gradients for the T4 longitudinal sample
(n = 132) using all available data points (i.e., T1, T3,
and T4 data); these gradients combine cross-sectional
and longitudinal information over chronological
age ( hence convergence); (2) the cross-sectional
T1 gradient of the T4 longitudinal sample (i.e., the
same sample as before; n = 132); here, the T1 cross-
sectional age gradient was examined for individuals
who survived and participated up to T4; and (3)
the cross-sectional T1 gradient of the original T1 sam-
ple (n = 516). The three age gradients are shown in
Figure 11.15.
With respect to both fluid mechanics and crystal-
lized pragmatics, age-associated decrements in cogni-
tion were less pronounced for the longitudinal sample
at T1 than for the full cross-sectional sample at T1.
Specifically, negative gradients prevailed for all four
abilities in the full T1 sample but verbal knowledge did
not decline significantly in the longitudinal sample.
This pattern of age gradients suggests that decline in
the fluid mechanics is normative and age-based,
whereas decline in verbal knowledge appears to be par-
tially or primarily associated with closeness to death.
The third class of age gradients, the longitudinal con-
vergence gradients for the T4 sample, reinforces this
impression.
Maintenance of Divergence in Explanatory
Correlational Patterns
Given the two preceding findings, one may begin
to wonder whether the distinction between the me-
chanics and the pragmatics of cognition loses all of its
empirical foundation in very old age. Figure 11.16 that
compares the correlational patterns of perceptual
speed, a fluid-mechanic ability, and verbal knowledge,
a normative-pragmatic marker, with variables re-
lated to individual differences in sociostructural-bio-
graphical or biological status suggests that this is not
the case.
Without exception, correlations to indicators of
biological functioning were more pronounced for per-
ceptual speed (e.g., the mechanics) than for verbal
knowledge (e.g., the pragmatics). The reverse was
also true: Correlations to sociostructural-biographical
markers were more pronounced for verbal knowledge
than for perceptual speed. Apparently, then, the me-
chanic-pragmatic distinction does not dissolve com-
pletely in very old age, but is maintained in the guise of
divergent relations to biological and cultural systems of
influence.
 Life Span Intellectual Development: Conclusions 617

Speed Predictor Intelligence Measure

70
60 Visual Acuity
T-Score

50
Auditory Acuity
40
30 Balance/Gait
20
70 80 90 100 110
Age
Years of
Education
Knowledge Occupational
70 Prestige
60
Social Class
T-Score

50
Perceptual Speed (Mechanics)
40 Household Verbal Knowledge (Pragmatics)
Income
30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 55 60
20
70 80 90 100 110 Variance Explained by Predictors (%)
Age
Figure 11.16 The divergent validity of the two-component
model of life span intellectual development continues into very
Memory old age. The figure displays differential correlational links of
70
perceptual speed, a marker of the fluid mechanics, and verbal
60
knowledge, a marker of the crystallized pragmatics, to indicators
T-Score

50 of sociostructural-biographical and biological (e.g., sensory)

40 status. Perceptual speed was more highly correlated with biolog-
30 ical indicators than verbal knowledge, and verbal knowledge was
more highly correlated with sociostructural-biographical indica-
20
70 80 90 100 110 tors than perceptual speed. Thus, despite a general tendency to-
Age ward dedifferentiation due to age-based losses in the mechanics,
the two components of life span cognition continue to show
signs of divergent external validity. Data are taken from the
Fluency
70 Berlin Aging Study (N = 516, age range = 70–103 years).
Source: From “ The Fate of Congition in Very Old Age: Six-
60
Year Longitudinal Findings in the Berlin Aging Study,” by
T-Score

50 T. Singer, P. Verhaeghen, P. Ghisletta, U. Lindenberger, and

40
30
20
70 80 90 100 110
Age
Figure 11.15 Intellectual ability age gradients observed in
the Berlin Aging Study as a function of sample and measure-
ment occasion. Thick solid lines represent cross-sectional /
longitudinal convergence gradients of the longitudinal sample
(n = 132), and encompass measurements from T1, T3, and T4,
which encompass an average longitudinal observation period of
6 years. Thin solid lines represent cross-sectional gradients of
the same longitudinal sample (n = 132), and are based on meas-
urements taken at T1. Finally, dashed lines represent cross-
sectional gradients for the total T1 sample (n = 516). Source:
From “ The Fate of Cognition in Very Old Age: Six-Year Longi-
tudinal Findings in the Berlin Aging Study,” by T. Singer,
P. Verhaeghen, P. Ghisletta, U. Lindenberger, and P. B. Baltes,
2003, Psychology and Aging, 18, pp. 318–331. Copyright ©
2003 by the American Psychological Association. Adapted with
permission.
P. B. Baltes, 2003, Psychology and Aging, 18, pp. 318–331.
LIFE SPAN INTELLECTUAL
DEVELOPMENT: CONCLUSIONS
Based on the foregoing (admittedly selective) review of
research and theory, we would like to propose the fol-
lowing synopsis of the overall ontogenetic landscape of
life span intellectual development.
1. To capture the life span dynamics and biocultural
co-construction between biology and culture in the
domains of intelligence and cognition (P. B. Baltes,
1987, 1997; P. B. Baltes et al., 1998), we contrasted the
mechanics with the pragmatics, and propose a two-
component model of intellectual development. This
model is inspired by the psychometric theory of fluid and
618 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
crystallized intelligence (Cattell, 1971; Horn, 1970,
1989; cf. Tetens, 1777) but calls for a wider range of con-
ceptualization, including evolutionary-psychological,
cognitive-experimental, expertise, and neuroscience ap-
proaches, to arrive at more valid and comprehensive rep-
resentations of life span intellectual development. The
two-component model accurately predicts a relatively
late life span peak followed by maintenance for the
knowledge-saturated cognitive pragmatics, and a much
earlier life span peak followed by monotonic decline for
the cognitive mechanics. It also accurately predicts dif-
ferential ontogenetic sources of explanation.
2. In terms of mechanisms, age-related changes in
information processing rate, working memory capacity,
and the inhibition of irrelevant information are among
the most prominent candidates for the explanation of life
span changes in the mechanics of cognition. At present,
these constructs tend to suffer from a lack of formaliza-
tion, a lack of direct evidence at the physiological level,
and from difficulties in making differential predictions.
Closer links to the cognitive neurosciences, in particular
to chemical, anatomical, and functional life span
changes in prefrontal functions, are expected to foster
further progress in this area of research.
3. Extant measures of mechanic functioning tend to
be contaminated by pragmatic influences. To arrive at
more accurate descriptions of life span gradients in the
mechanics of cognition, and to move toward explanation
in terms of critical components and mechanisms, mea-
surement needs to be purified through the utilization of
methods that are better able to assess individuals’ upper
limits of functioning. As predicted by theory, the use of
such methods (e.g., testing-the-limits) results in cleaner
separations of individuals from different ages than the
use of standard measures (see Figure 11.9).
4. In contrast to the mechanics, the knowledge- and
culture-based pragmatics of cognition offer the poten-
tial for positive change during adulthood and old age.
Within the pragmatic domain, we proposed the distinc-
tion between normative and person-specific bodies
of knowledge. Normative bodies of knowledge are ac-
quired in the context of general socialization events,
such as basic cultural skills and educational curricula,
and in general are well amenable to psychometric test-
ing (e.g., vocabulary tests, aptitude tests). Person-
specific knowledge refers to specialized knowledge
systems that branch off from the normative (average)
path, with professional expertise being the most promi-
nent example studied so far. Our suggestion is, and this
is based on SOC theory, that highest levels of prag-
matic skills in the last third of life carry a strong indi-
vidualized component.
5. The acquisition of expert levels of knowledge dur-
ing adulthood may lead to an increasing fragmentation
of the intellectual system, but it also may offer the oppor-
tunity for acquiring bodies of knowledge with a wide
range of applicability, generality, and integration. Wisdom-
related knowledge, or knowledge about the meaning and
conduct of life, is a prototype. The likelihood of acquir-
ing such domain-general bodies of person-specific
knowledge depends on a special coalition of experiential,
expertise-specific, and person-related factors (Krampe
& Baltes, 2003; Sternberg, 1985).
6. Throughout ontogeny, the pragmatics and me-
chanics of cognition are intertwined. In everyday life,
intellectual functioning and intellectual products repre-
sent joint effects of both. For instance, the emergence
of domains of pragmatic knowledge builds on, and pre-
sumably extends and modifies, evolutionarily predis-
posed core domains. The mechanisms of this pruning of
cultural knowledge onto species-specific architecture
await further study. Another example of pragmatic/me-
chanic interdependence concerns the acquisition and
use of pragmatic knowledge to compensate for me-
chanic decline. In close agreement with our general
conception of the overall landscape of life span devel-
opment, this compensatory function of the pragmatics
increases in importance but loses in efficiency with ad-
vancing age.
7. The study of plasticity (malleability) of intellec-
tual functioning has been a cornerstone of life span re-
search (P. B. Baltes, 1987). Within the limits provided
by the mechanics, which remain to be fully explored, in-
tellectual performance is malleable throughout life. Evi-
dence in support of this contention comes both from the
study of long-term environmental change and from cog-
nitive intervention studies. With some exceptions (e.g.,
dementia of the Alzheimer type), there is room for size-
able plasticity at all ages and for all individuals. How-
ever, plasticity decreases with advancing age, reflecting
losses in the mechanics of cognition. The resulting
bounded openness of life span intellectual development
is consistent with the biocultural contextualist frame-
work of life span psychology.
8. The joint consideration of different strands of
research reveals a striking congruence between three
different life span trajectories: Heritability of interindi-
vidual differences, relative stability, and level changes
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
in the normative pragmatics (e.g., crystallized intelli-
gence). In all three cases, there is an increase from
childhood to middle and late adulthood, coupled with
indications of decline in very old age. This life span
parallelism between the genetic component of interindi-
vidual differences, continuity of interindividual differ-
ences, and general knowledge is consistent with the
notion of gene-environment correlations in behavioral
genetics (Scarr & McCartney, 1983), and the notion of
niche picking in ethology (Dawkins, 1982). Whether one
likes it or not, this parallelism testifies to the existence
of a powerful life span synergism between sociostruc-
tural and genetic interindividual differentiation, at least
within the range of developmental conditions offered by
Western industrialized societies.
SECOND LEVEL 5 EXAMPLE: THE STUDY
OF PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT
ACROSS THE LIFE SPAN
In the following, we illustrate what life span theory
has to offer in organizing and stimulating the study of
personality development. To do so, we first introduce
three approaches that in our view need to be taken into ac-
count when studying personality development: (1) a trait
approach, (2) a self-system approach, and (3) a self-
regulation approach.1 These three approaches are usually
treated in different literatures, and cross-links are still
rare, especially with regard to life span development. In
the following, we consider all three approaches whenever
using the term personality or personality system.
The levels-of-analysis approach introduced in the be-
ginning of the chapter is used as an integrating frame-
work for presenting research from the three approaches.
Thus, theory and evidence available on personality de-
velopment across the life span are used to illustrate the
biology-culture interface and the notion of differential
1
Note that selecting “personality” as the overarching term
does not entail that we attribute greater importance to the trait
approach. In the 1998 edition of the chapter, we had chosen
“self and personality” as a label. This, however, seems im-
practical and is diverting from the goal to integrate the three
approaches. Therefore, we would like to suggest using “per-
sonality” or “personality system” as the overarching term to
denote the field of study comprising all three approaches. This
is also in line with early personality theorists such as Allport
or Murray who certainly did not link their usage of the term
personality exclusively to the trait approach.
619
allocation of resources. Furthermore, three of the life
span propositions introduced earlier that bear special
relevance for personality development across the life
span are discussed in more detail. These three issues are
stability and change in personality development across
the life span, opportunities and constraints of personal-
ity development, and the adaptive potential or reserve
capacity of personality.
Three Approaches to the Study of
Personality Development
Research and theory building in the study of personality
have been quite diverse (e.g., Pervin & John, 1999). Yet,
three longstanding and overarching concerns can be iden-
tified, that is, structure/content, dynamics, and develop-
ment of personality (Funder, 2001). Historically, these
three concerns have been linked with the three approaches
to the study of personality mentioned earlier (Staudinger,
in press).
Under the trait approach to the study of personality,
we subsume efforts to characterize individuals in terms
of fundamental attributes and behavioral dispositions, a
line of research that originated primarily in the psycho-
metric tradition. Research in this area focuses on the
identification of the structure of personality, on in-
terindividual differences, and the extent of longitudinal
stability (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1994; Goldberg, 1993).
The emergence, maintenance, and transformation of
personality structure, and the conditions of constancy
and change in interindividual differences clearly are of
importance for a life span perspective on personality
(Brim & Kagan, 1980). In addition, however, a life span
perspective is aimed at discerning the degree to which
these personality attributes and behavioral dispositions
evince intraindividual change trajectories and intraindi-
vidual plasticity (malleability). Such questions are pur-
sued in the exemplary research programs involving
scholars such as Block (e.g., 1995), Helson (e.g., Helson
& Kwan, 2000), or John Nesselroade (e.g., 2002).
Content and structure have also been of great interest
in a self-system approach to the study of personality. But
the self-system approach has also been very much inter-
ested in understanding the dynamics of personality
(Markus & Wurf, 1987). Under the heading of the
self-system approach, we subsume lines of work that
characterize individuals as multifaceted dynamic struc-
tures of a relatively stable array of self-conceptions
(e.g., Baumeister, 1992; Greenwald & Pratkanis, 1984;
620 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Markus & Wurf, 1987). Self-conceptions are not meant
to encompass any self-referent attitude but rather are
confined to those beliefs or cognitions that constitute
important (fundamental) self-components. Whenever
the social meaning of such self-referent attitudes is in
the foreground, the notion of “identity” rather than self-
concept is used (e.g., Waterman & Archer, 1990). Dif-
ferent situations or contexts activate different subsets of
this composite structure of self-conceptions or self-
schemata. Markus and Wurf (1987) have called this the
working self-concept. This view of the self-system as
both stable and dynamic fits life span conceptions that
emphasize the potential for continuity as well as change
as a characteristic feature of transactional adaptation
during development.
In contrast to the trait approach to personality that
aims at inferring behavioral dispositions “ from the out-
side,” research on self-conceptions is often ( but not
necessarily) related to what J. L. Singer (1984) has
called the study of private experience or private per-
sonality, and Ryff (1984) has labeled as the study of
personality “ from the inside.” Operationally, however,
at least most of the adult research of both traditions,
that is, the trait and the self-system approach, rely on
self-report. Besides the classics such as Erikson (e.g.,
1959) or Bühler (e.g., 1933), research programs around
scholars such as Loevinger (e.g., 1976), D. J. Levinson
(e.g., 1986), Ryff (e.g., 1991), Whitbourne (e.g.,
1987), Dittmann-Kohli (e.g., Dittmann-Kohli, Bode, &
Westerhof, 2001), Diehl (e.g., Diehl, Hastings, & Stan-
ton, 2001), and Herzog and Markus (1999) focus on the
life span development of the self-concept and of its
adaptive qualities.
Focusing on personality dynamics or the processes
underlying microgenetic personality change is yet a
third approach, the study of self-regulatory processes
(Carver & Scheier, 1998). Under the heading of self-
regulatory processes, we subsume all efforts that are
aimed at characterizing the organized abilities and
skills a person brings to bear on monitoring behavior
and experience. With regard to life span development, it
is the regulatory behaviors of promoting growth as well
as those of reaching, maintaining, and regaining psycho-
logical equilibrium including in a context of age-related
loss—in particular one’s sense of coherence, continuity,
and purpose under conditions of microgenetic and onto-
genetic change—that are of particular interest.
A host of constructs discussed in the literature can be
subsumed under this heading, such as self-evaluative
processes, goal-related processes, coping, control beliefs
and self-efficacy, or emotion-regulation. The focus of
such research is on investigating the self-related adaptive
potential and the reserve capacities as well as their limits
in the course of life span development. Because this field
encompasses many different constructs, the group of
scholars engaging in this type of endeavor is quite large
and still growing. Thus, we can only mention a few labo-
ratories in order to illustrate the type of work we include
under the heading of self-regulatory processes from a life
span perspective, such as the ones instigated by Brandt-
städter (e.g., 1998; Brandtstädter & Rothermund, 2003;
Greve & Wentura, 2003), Cantor (e.g., Cantor & Fleeson,
1994), Carstensen (e.g., Carstensen et al., 1999), Filipp
(e.g., 1996), Labouvie-Vief, (e.g., Labouvie-Vief et al.,
2003), Lachman (e.g., Lachman & Weaver, 1998), and
Blanchard-Fields (e.g., 1996). Other examples are the
theory of selective optimization with compensation (e.g.,
P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990a; Freund & Baltes, 2002b)
and the related endeavor by Heckhausen and Schulz
(1995) to construct a life span theory of self-based de-
velopmental control.
A number of recent efforts have been made to inte-
grate these rather disconnected fields of research (e.g.,
Cloninger, 2003; Hooker, 2002; McAdams, 1996; Mc-
Crae et al., 2000). The life span focus in these integra-
tive efforts clearly is on relating structure, content and
process-related dynamics such that both stability and
change characterize personality development during
adulthood (e.g., Roberts & Caspi, 2003; Staudinger &
Pasupathi, 2000). In the following section, we not only
present relevant information, but also attempt to inte-
grate the three approaches to the study of personality
within a life span perspective. As we attempt this inte-
gration, a necessary by-product is that we may occasion-
ally transform the foci that were at the core of the work
of the original proponents.
Key Features of a Life Span Approach to the
Study of Personality Development
We define personality to denote the ways in which
human beings behave/act, experience, believe, and feel
with regard to themselves, others, and the material
world. With regard to the sources and outcomes of
human development, personality has multiple causes
and functions (cf. principles of multicausality and mul-
tifunctionality). First, personality develops, that is, it is
the outcome of developmental processes. Different path-
ways can lead to similar if not the same outcome. Sec-
ond, personality also operates as an antecedent for
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
developmental processes and co-regulates outcomes.
And finally, personality is the correlate of other devel-
opmental processes.
Taking a life span view implies (a) that we are con-
cerned with the commonalities across individuals in how
personality develops. This is reflected in developmental
models like the one presented by Erikson (e.g., 1959)
but also in theories about the driving forces and the
mechanisms of personality development (e.g., Bandura,
1984; R. W. White, 1959). At the same time, as life span
developmentalists we are interested in ( b) the interindi-
vidual dif ferences in personality development. For in-
stance, do developmental trajectories become less and
less similar as transactions between a given personality
make-up and particular environmental conditions accu-
mulate across the life span? Finally, we want to learn
about (c) the intraindividual variability or plasticity in
the ways an individual behaves/acts, experiences, be-
lieves, and feels about him / herself, others, and the
material world. Is it possible, for example, that an ex-
traverted person under certain circumstances behaves
more like an introvert? In extreme cases this plasticity
can also result in system lability and lack of coherence.
Do these plasticity-related phenomena increase or de-
crease with age, or do they remain unchanged?
These three questions of commonalities, interindividual
differences, and of intraindividual variability (plasticity)
can be pursued within a structural and a process-oriented
approach to the study of personality and its development.
Under the heading of form or structure, it is primarily the
classic personality dispositions and the self-conceptions,
schemata, or images that are considered. Under the head-
ing of process research, self-regulatory mechanisms are
most prominent. At least five categories can be distin-
guished within that category: emotion regulation, control
beliefs, coping, self-evaluation, and the goal system (goal
seeking, goal pursuit, goal restructuring).
Finally, all three facets of structure, process, and
function can be approached from a componential (mul-
tivariate) and a holistic (ipsative) view. The componen-
tial approach is illustrated by evidence on the Big Five
personality factors (e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1994; Gold-
berg, 1993). Block’s ipsative approach to personality
assessment (e.g., Block, 1995) is an inspiring example
of the holistic approach as is the conceptual and empir-
ical work by Magnusson (e.g., Magnusson & Mahoney,
2003). Taking a typological approach to the study of
personality development, for instance, by using cluster
analysis can also be subsumed under that rubric (e.g.,
P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2003). Like Magnusson, John
621
Nesselroade, and others, we suggest that life span work
on personality development profits from integrating a
componential and a holistic approach.
The Search for General-Purpose Mechanisms in
the Area of Personality Development
Throughout this chapter, we have emphasized the signif-
icance in life span work of the search for the conditions
of successful (adaptive) development. From the field of
cognitive psychology, we have taken the idea of general-
purpose mechanisms. Thus, we ask whether in the field
of personality as well it is possible to articulate general-
purpose mechanisms. With general-purpose mecha-
nisms, we mean (internal and external) resources and
capacities that individuals employ to master develop-
mental challenges in a variety of contexts and at differ-
ent stages of developmental time. General-purpose
mechanisms in the field of personality might help the
individual to organize and coordinate the ways in which
he or she behaves, experiences, believes, and feels with
regard to him / herself, others, and the material world
such that the goal of maximizing gains and of minimiz-
ing losses is approached. In our own work, the theory of
selective optimization with compensation (e.g., P. B.
Baltes, 1997) is one such general-purpose mechanism;
located at a high level of aggregation.
There seems to be a foundation of research on which
to build when exploring the notion of general-purpose
mechanisms. Empirical evidence, especially when focus-
ing on longitudinal studies that search for predictors of
adaptive developmental outcomes, has identified a num-
ber of candidate concepts. Impulse control or ego control,
perceived control, delay of gratification and ego re-
silience/flexibility, for instance, suggest to us that they
might possess the characteristics of such general-purpose
mechanisms in the personality domain (e.g., Bandura,
1993; Block, 1993; Caspi, 1998; Masten, 2001; Mischel,
Shoda, & Rodriguez, 1989; Rutter & Rutter, 1993; E. E.
Werner, 1995). As is true in cognitive psychology, such
general-purpose mechanisms will not function by them-
selves. Rather, they are part of a system of personality
characteristics and self-regulatory mechanisms that are
functional or adaptive only under specific circumstances.
One reason why we chose to explore the power
of the notion of general-purpose mechanisms is the
relative openness of human development (Maciel,
Heckhausen, & Baltes, 1994). From a life span point
of view, there is no single endpoint of development of
any facet of self and personality. The challenge is to
coordinate resources under varying conditions. Thus,
622 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
there seems to be theoretical and empirical grounds
for the assumption that personality functioning is effi-
cacious if (a) many different ways of being are avail-
able (e.g., being internally as well as externally
controlled, being optimistic as well as pessimistic,
being introverted as well as extraverted) and if ( b)
adaptive algorithms that monitor the dialectic between
such supposedly antagonistic states are accessible
(e.g., Blanchard-Fields & Norris, 1994; Colvin &
Block, 1994; Staudinger, 1999b). By means of such al-
gorithms the most functional personality characteris-
tic for a given time, place, and circumstance is
exhibited. This restates in different terms what has
been characterized as a wise person (e.g., Staudinger,
1999a; Sternberg, 1998). The approach is also similar
to the notion of fluid intelligence in the domain of in-
tellectual functioning (see previous discussion). It is a
special characteristic of that category of the intellect
that in the sense of a general-purpose mechanism it
can be applied to (invested into) a large variety of cog-
nition problems (Cattell, 1971).
The Executive Function of Personality
Life span theory further suggests a systemic view on psy-
chological phenomena. This systemic view has at least
two consequences for the way we think about personality
(Staudinger, 1999b). First, we believe that the different
components of personality, introduced earlier, together
form the personality system. Dynamic systems theory
postulates that, by means of recursive interactions, such
components form the basis of self-organization as well as
the emergence and stabilization of new forms (e.g., Ford
& Lerner, 1992; Thelen & Smith, 1998). Second, the sys-
temic view directs our attention also to the cross-link-
ages between personality and other subsystems of the
developing individual, such as physiological and cogni-
tive functioning (e.g., Mischel, 2004; Pervin, 2001). As
mentioned already, it seems that personality has some-
thing like an orchestrating or executive function with re-
gard to these other systems and the developmental
changes occurring in these systems (e.g., Erikson, 1959;
Waterman & Archer, 1990). Besides the (dynamics) sys-
tems approach to the study of personality, the psychology
of action has been suggested as a unifying framework for
the microgenetic study of the interplay of cognition,
emotion, and motivation (Gollwitzer & Bargh, 1996).
The extension of action psychology to issues of life span
development has begun to be explored (e.g., Brandt-
städter, 1998; Brandtstädter & Rothermund, 2003).
There is first evidence accruing that the developmental
model of selective optimization with compensation, in-
troduced previously, also holds promise in this respect
(e.g., Freund & Baltes, 2002b).
Third, and finally, personality develops to serve a
self-reflective function. Personality reflects and evalu-
ates developmental changes in the other subsystems and
tries to integrate them. This integrative and adaptive
function of personality is also mirrored in the fact that
subjective measures of adaptation such as subjective
well-being or happiness are even used as measures of
self (e.g., Bengtson, Reedy, & Gordon, 1985). Self-
reflection is pivotal with regard to evaluating one’s
standing in the developmental matrix of possible life
goals and outcomes (e.g., Staudinger, 2001).
Providing Links from Infancy to Old Age
A further issue with regard to a life span perspective on
the study of personality development concerns encom-
passing the ontogenetic course from infancy to old age.
Empirically and theoretically, this distance may often
still appear as a gap. Infancy and childhood research on
the one hand and adulthood and old-age research on the
other typically proceed independently from each other
with little overlap in concepts, methodology, and conse-
quently empirical data basis. Although much progress
has been made, especially by longitudinal researchers
whose participants have grown into adulthood (Pulkki-
nen & Caspi, 2002), the caveats expressed in the past
continue to exist: For example: Which measures are age-
invariant? How to capture explanatory continuity when
combined with descriptive discontinuity?
Bridging this gap and establishing connections indeed
is not easy (e.g., Brim & Kagan, 1980). It seems necessary
to identify constructs that have been used to describe per-
sonality development across the life span or have at least
shown predictive relationships. This concerns the ques-
tion of homotypic and heterotypic continuity, a terminol-
ogy introduced by Kagan and Moss (1962), or of Block’s
notion of temporal coherence (e.g., Block, 1993). The no-
tion of heterotypic continuity implies that the phenotypic
behavior might change between childhood and adulthood,
but that specific behaviors in childhood might still be con-
ceptually consistent with adult behaviors. Phenotypically
different but conceptually related responses might be de-
rivatives of earlier behavior (e.g., Moss & Sussman,
1980). R. G. Ryder (1967), for example, found that child-
hood task persistence was related to adult achievement
orientation.
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
There are a number of interesting candidates that serve
as examples of constructs that span a lifetime, such as at-
tachment style, control beliefs, the self-concept, or tem-
perament. For temperamental features, for instance,
extensive longitudinal evidence is available that has
demonstrated quite strong predictive links between tem-
perament in early infancy and personality in adulthood
and even old age. In this work, five temperamental fea-
tures are distinguished, activity level, positive affect,
negative affect, avoidance/approach, persistence. Longi-
tudinal relations show that, for instance, activity level is
related to extraversion and lower levels of conscientious-
ness or negative affectivity predicts neuroticism and
lower levels of agreeableness (e.g., Caspi, 1998; Friedman
et al., 1995; Kagan & Snidman, 1991; J. V. Lerner &
Lerner, 1983). These kinds of predictive relationships,
however, should not be interpreted as a deterministic ar-
gument. Rather, work by Chess and Thomas (1984) and
J. V. Lerner and Lerner (1983) demonstrated that depend-
ing on the “goodness-of-fit” between the child’s tempera-
ment and expectations of the environment, temperamental
constellations can be aggravated or alleviated.
Recently, there has been notable progress in identi-
fying some of the mechanisms that might link infant
temperament and adult personality and that might en-
able a joint organization of concepts of temperament
and personality (e.g., Strelau & Angleitner, 1991;
Zuckerman, 1995). Zuckerman (1995), for example,
has proposed what he calls the turtle model of person-
ality. In this model, personality traits at the top are
linked to genetics at the bottom through (from top
down) social behavior, conditioning, physiology, bio-
chemistry, and finally neurology. This model is not
meant to be reductionistic; it is necessary to study each
level of analysis with its own intellectual agenda to
gain a complete understanding. As Zuckerman (1995,
p. 331) puts it, “We do not inherit temperamental pat-
terns as such. What is inherited are chemical templates
that produce and regulate proteins involved in building
the structure of nervous systems and the neurotrans-
mitters, enzymes, and hormones that regulate them. We
are born with differences in reactivities of brain struc-
ture and differences in regulators.” Very much in line
with our systemic emphasis, it is included in this multi-
ple levels of analysis model of Zuckerman that the type
of temperamental pattern, which initially may have a
strong genetic component, attains features of contextu-
ally based self-organization. Thus, the temperamental
pattern is transformed by context and experience in
623
ways that it becomes an outcome of a multicausal and
self-organizing process.
In sum, in this first section we have attempted to en-
gage the reader in an integrative view on research on the
development of personality, self-concepts, and self-
regulatory processes. In order to gain an understanding
of the life span development of self and personality, it
seems useful to consider structure and processes, as
well as functions (Mischel & Shoda, 1999). A dynamic
systems approach to development provides a useful the-
oretical framework for the integration of the different
components of personality discussed in the literature.
In addition, interest of a life span perspective centers
on features—such as temperament—that allow to study
continuity and discontinuity across the whole life span
and also demonstrate predictive power from childhood
into adulthood. Based on this conceptualization, we will
now apply the level of analysis approach, introduced in
the beginning of this chapter, to the field of self and
personality.
Illustrations of the Role of Biology and Culture
in Personality Development
How does Figure 11.1 apply to the field of personality?
Working from the assumption that the genome and its
expressions, by means of evolution, are not optimized
with regard to old age, and that genetic programs poten-
tially are less orderly and integrated for late than for
young adulthood (e.g., Kirkwood, 2003), what are the
implications for personality functioning across the life
span? Recently, there has been growing interest in expli-
cating the evolutionary base of personality, both in
terms of biological and cultural-social forces in the
sense of co-evolution (e.g., Barkow, Cosmides, & Tooby,
1992; Klix, 1993). This trend, however, is only begin-
ning to reach the second half of life (e.g., Plomin &
Caspi, 1999).
As selection primarily operates through fertility and
parenting behavior, most of the evolutionary work in the
field of personality (in the widest sense) has focused on
gender differences in altruism, cooperative behaviors,
sexual competition, or jealousy (e.g., DeKay & Buss,
1992; Hammerstein, 1996). In addition, however, argu-
ments have been raised that the ability for self-
deception might have been favored by evolution because
it seems to increase the ability to deceive others and
thereby gain a survival advantage (e.g., Gigerenzer,
1996; Trivers, 1985). The evolutionary importance of
624 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
the ability to deceive others in turn is related to the cru-
cial role of reciprocal relationships for reproductive fit-
ness (e.g., Axelrod, 1984). We would like to suggest that
this ability “ to deceive oneself,” or one could also say
“redefine reality,” indeed serves an important adaptive
function across the life span and probably increasingly
so in old age.
Thus, the fact that the evolutionary base has
been less “optimized” for the postreproductive phases
of life than for younger ages may not be as detrimental
for the ontogenesis of self and personality as for bio-
logical and cognitive functioning. Perhaps what is rele-
vant here is that the “mechanics of the mind” which
evince definite aging losses (see earlier discussion),
either carry little implication for personality function-
ing, or that evolutionary selection in humans provided
a better basis for personality than for intellectual
functioning.
This interpretation of findings from evolutionary
psychology, that personality is less at a disadvantage
than cognition and biological functioning, is supported
by findings on the genetic component of interindividual
differences in personality functioning as advanced by
behavior-genetic research. Evidence from the cross-
sectional as well longitudinal analyses of the genotype
and the phenotype of personality characteristics indi-
cate that none of the personality traits is without a 40%
to 50% genetic variance component. There are still too
few data sets, however, that would allow disentangling
methods effects. Mostly twin and adoption studies
have used self-report data to assess personality. When
comparing genetic variance components as derived
from self-report with those based on peer ratings clear
differences emerge that suggest that observational as-
sessment and/or test-based assessment of personality
may still yield other results. Based on the few data sets
that allow for multimethod testing it seems that genetic
factors largely account for what is in common across
assessment methods (Plomin & Caspi, 1999). Across
the life span, genetic variance components seem to fol-
low a different pattern than the one just reported for
the domain of intellectual functioning. During the life
course, stability or even slight decreases in heritability
coefficients have been found (e.g., Pedersen &
Reynolds, 2002).
This very general summary statement needs qualifi-
cation and differentiation. So far, only few behavior-
genetic studies of personality based on longitudinal data
with extensive age intervals are available, let alone using
multiple assessment techniques. Highly complex statisti-
cal methods that allow modeling of the genetic architec-
ture of development (Pedersen, 1991) by simultaneously
taking into account mean levels and growth curves (e.g.,
McArdle & Bell, 1999; J. R. Nesselroade & Ghisletta,
2003) have become available. However, due to the lack
of appropriate data sets and to the recency of their avail-
ability, they have not been widely applied yet. Therefore,
authors in the field of behavioral genetics consider the
available evidence as preliminary (e.g., Pedersen &
Reynolds, 2002).
Taking such limitations into account, the following
preliminary insights into the developmental behavioral
genetics of personality seem to find consensus among
behavioral geneticists (e.g., Pedersen & Reynolds,
2002). First, results of behavior-genetic analyses of per-
sonality assessments are difficult to compare with the
equivalent analyses of intelligence assessments because
the latter are based on behavioral performance mea-
sures, whereas personality measures typically refer to
self-reports. Thus, strictly speaking, personality-related
analyses refer to the heritability and its life span
changes in how people report about themselves. Second,
the extent to which genetic influences account for phe-
notypic variability in personality measures is smaller
than for measures of intelligence, with heritability coef-
ficients between .4 and .6 depending on the personality
trait and the age of assessment. Third, the importance of
genetic influences on interindividual differences in
personality seems to decrease slightly with increasing
age (e.g., McGue, Bacon, & Lykken, 1993; Pedersen &
Reynolds, 2002). And fourth, there is initial evidence for
a quite high overlap in the genetic effects (i.e., stability)
operating on personality expression at different ages, al-
though at each point in time they account for not more
than half of the variance (e.g., McGue, Bacon, et al.,
1993; Pedersen & Reynolds, 2002).
One of the more recent and exciting directions
for genetic research on personality involves the use of
molecular genetic techniques to identify some of
the specific genes responsible for genetic influences
on personality (Hamer & Copeland, 1998). It is too
early to be certain, but it is possible that ultimately this
molecular genetic analysis will become more and more
prominent. That it will shift our attention away from
focusing on quantifying genetic influences to a focus
on the causal mechanisms from cells to social systems
that will elucidate how genes affect and are affected
by personality development. Currently, progress is
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
being made with regard to the molecular analysis of
temperamental features such as approach/avoidance or
positive/negative emotional tone (see the following
discussion). In the long run, such molecular genetic
analysis may help to answer questions of heterotypic
continuity much more clearly than currently is the case
when referring to behavioral measures (Plomin &
Caspi, 1999).
The Allocation of Resources in
Personality Functioning
In an earlier section, we emphasized the life span devel-
opmental script of a reallocation of resources, from a
predominant allocation into growth to an increase in
relative allocation into maintenance, repair, and man-
agement of losses (see also Staudinger et al., 1995). In
contrast to the domain of cognitive functioning where
resources in old age are depleted to maintain a certain
level of functioning, the resource situation for life span
growth in self and personality might present itself more
favorably. Taking a system’s view on psychological
functioning, we can assume therefore that personality
by virtue of being the self-reflective head of the living
system “ human being” (a quality emerging during
childhood) might be able to continue to deliver its or-
chestrating or executive function with regard to manag-
ing the gains and losses across various domains of
functioning until at least the third age (cf. Staudinger
et al., 1995).
It is less and less certain, however, whether, on aver-
age, personality-related resources are available in old
age to promote further development of the personality-
system itself. In other words, as life reaches old age,
it becomes more and more necessary for available
personality-related resources to be invested in managing
cognitive, physical, and social declines and losses. Pos-
sibly only under very favorable developmental condi-
tions would personality-related resources be sufficient
to invest in further development of personality itself.
Although, in principle, life span changes in personality
could include advances, we do not expect them to occur
in everyone. Under very favorable conditions, however,
personality growth might even involve such high goals
as wisdom (cf. Erikson, 1959; see also P. B. Baltes,
Smith, & Staudinger, 1992).
Further, we assume that the personality-system also
manages and organizes the extension of internal re-
sources (e.g., cognitive capacity, physical strength, per-
625
sonality characteristics) by referring to others and the
physical and institutional context as resources (for
overview see Staudinger et al., 1995). Others can help to
do things that one’s own health or time or ability does
not allow. External memory aids can help to compensate
for the loss in memory performance. Given this line of
thought, one can also conceive of a situation that allows
personality to optimize the use of external resources
such that enough internal resources are left for further
personality development, for example, toward wisdom.
An extreme case for such personality-based orchestrat-
ing of resources aimed at selective optimization is the
loss of independent functioning. There the task is to ac-
cept dependency in such domains as household manage-
ment in order to free up resources for other purposes
(M. M. Baltes, 1996).
The notion that personality performs an orchestrat-
ing or executive function with regard to the management
and identification of resources raises the following ques-
tion: Is it possible to distinguish the mechanisms and
characteristics that support the overarching orchestrat-
ing or executive functions from those that constitute one
of the three domains of psychological functioning, that
is intelligence and cognition, self and personality, and
social relations, or are both inextricably intertwined?
This question is discussed in research on resilience
(Staudinger et al., 1995). By taking such a research per-
spective on the origins, maintenance, and consequences
of personality—ideally in a longitudinal manner—it be-
comes possible to identify, for instance, whether, or
how, personality manages itself while at the same time
having to manage extraordinary challenges such as
losses in cognitive functioning or losses of significant
others due to death, or to challenges of one’s own fini-
tude. Each process and each characteristic constituting
personality can thus be identified as a phenomenon in it-
self but also in its executive and orchestrating function.
We next discuss in more detail three issues of person-
ality development across the life span. The first is the
question of stability and change across the life span.
Aside from questions of stability in individual rank
order, this issue can also be phrased as investigating the
gains, maintenance, and losses in mean levels in person-
ality functioning. The second issue relates to the oppor-
tunities and constraints of personality development.
And finally, the third issue will illustrate the adaptive
personality-related potential across the life span, which
arguably might present the most comprehensive general-
purpose mechanism involved in life span development.
626 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Personality Development as Lifelong
Transactional Adaptation: Continuity and Change
Before we explore further the question of continuity and
change (gains, losses) in personality development, it
seems useful to consider the question what it means to
speak about gains and losses in the context of personality
functioning. Using the notions of growth and decline or
gain and loss with regard to personality characteristics
makes the criterion problem of what is a gain and what a
loss even more obvious and pressing than it is with re-
gard to intellectual functioning. In cognitive research, it
seems obvious that the more words one can remember,
the better; the faster we can complete a problem-solving
task, the higher the level of performance. But even with
regard to intellectual functioning such criteria of adap-
tive fitness, of what is a gain and what a loss, are subject
to contextual conditions. When it comes to personality,
we are presented with the problem of determining a
“ best ” direction of personality development. What is the
desirable end state of personality development? Is there
one, or are there many potentially incompatible ends de-
pending on the outcome criteria we examine? To what de-
gree do subjective and objective criteria converge?
For example, let us take extraversion and assume that
being extraverted is set as an aspired goal of personality
development. We can think of occasions, however,
when, on the contrary, introversion turns out to be the
more adaptive personality feature. Similarly, it is very
important to strike a balance between affiliation and
solitude or between autonomy and dependence. Such
considerations remind us of the argument presented
previously about general-purpose mechanisms. We ar-
gued there that it is the flexibility and the availability
of a monitoring algorithm that is “ best ” with regard to
self and personality functioning, rather than one or the
other personality characteristic (e.g., Aspinwall &
Staudinger, 2003; Staudinger, 1999b). Similar views
can be applied to coping research. There, high domain-
specificity with regard to the functionality of coping
behaviors has been identified. Furthermore, coping be-
haviors that are adaptive as immediate responses need
not be adaptive in the long run. Thus, even with regard
to coping, implications for everyday functioning are not
fully known (Filipp & Klauer, 1991).
One approach to deal with the question of functional-
ity is to invoke subjective assessments, for instance,
about the perceived desirability or undesirability of a
given self-related attribute. In a series of studies on be-
liefs and expectations about development, Heckhausen
and Baltes found that people have quite clear conceptions
about what they consider to be a desirable and what an
undesirable developmental outcome and also when it is
supposed to occur. For example, only two desirable per-
sonality characteristics were reported to continue to grow
in old age, that is wisdom and dignity, whereas many
other positive characteristics were mentioned as emerg-
ing for the periods of young and middle adulthood (Heck-
hausen, Dixon, & Baltes, 1989). It was also found in these
studies that people of different ages and socioeconomic
backgrounds agree about how personality develops and
about what is a desirable and what an undesirable person-
ality development, that is, what is a gain or a loss.
In the following, as we characterize gains and losses
in life span development of self and personality, we use
two approaches (see also Staudinger & Kunzmann,
2005). A first is based on evaluating developmental
changes with regard to the adaptivity and functionality
of the outcome for the individual, be it from a subjective
(e.g., subjective well-being) or an objective perspective
(e.g., longevity). The second refers to theoretical growth
models of personality (e.g., ego maturity, integrity, gen-
erativity) when making a judgment about gains and
losses. We alert the reader to the problem that these cat-
egorizations are preliminary and by no means absolute.
Be it gains or losses, it is the core assumption of a life
span perspective that personality does not simply
passively unfold as a consequence of the prewired
maturational programs or the mechanistic reaction to
environmental stimuli. Personality develops out of a
constant and active process of the individual’s transac-
tions with changing internal and external influences, in-
cluding biological changes and changes in historical
conditions of society. “ Transactional adaptation” (e.g.,
R. M. Lerner, 1984, 2002) or person-environment inter-
action (e.g., Magnusson, 1990; Magnusson & Stattin,
Chapter 8, this Handbook, this volume) are considered
the central developmental processes. In this process of
transactional adaptation of personality, systemic princi-
ples of self-organization are key ingredients. This basic
life span premise about personality development is fur-
ther elaborated by the differentiation between the me-
chanics and pragmatics of life and how it pertains to our
understanding of personality development.
The Mechanics and Pragmatics of Life as
Relevant to Personality Functioning
As described earlier the contribution of the mechanics
and pragmatics as well as their dynamic interaction
is quite well understood with regard to cognitive develop-
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
ment (see also P. B. Baltes et al., 2006; Cabeza, 2002).
With regard to personality, however, we are still at the
beginning of understanding the interaction between me-
chanic and pragmatic elements in producing developmen-
tal trajectories. The developmental trajectories of the
cognitive mechanics and pragmatics are well established
at least in terms of the behavioral level. We also know
that with increasing age the cognitive pragmatics help to
compensate functional deficits in the mechanics (e.g.,
Salthouse, 1984; see also P. B. Baltes et al., 1998;
Staudinger et al., 1995). Do we expect to see similar de-
velopmental trends when investigating the mechanics and
pragmatics as relevant to personality functioning?
It may be useful to extend the notion of cognitive me-
chanics and pragmatics to encompass personality func-
tioning. Thus, instead of speaking of cognitive mechanics
and pragmatics one may consider to use the more general
notion of mechanics and pragmatics of life (see also
Staudinger & Pasupathi, 2000). Clearly, this model is of a
heuristic nature; that is, we do not assume that any phe-
nomenon in the area of personality can be assigned to
only representing the mechanics or the pragmatics.
Rather, we assume that it may be useful to categorize as-
pects of personality functioning according to their rela-
tive position on the continuum between the mechanics
and pragmatics of life. In the following, these more gen-
eral notions of mechanics and pragmatics are explicated
with regard to their relevance for personality functioning
and development.
The Mechanics of Life as Relevant to Personality
Functioning. The life mechanics relevant to
personality functioning refer to a unique configuration
of elements that contribute to interindividual differences
in self-concept, self-regulation, or trait personality such
as basic emotional and motivational tendencies as they
are studied in temperament research (positive/negative
emotional tone, approach/avoidance, novelty seeking;
Schindler & Staudinger, 2005a; Staudinger & Pasupathi,
2000). This configuration entails basic emotional and
motivational tendencies, as well as cognitive processes
that can be observed on the behavioral as well as on the
neurophysiological level.
The mechanics of life encompass complex interactions
between the cellular, neural, endocrine, and immunologi-
cal system, which in turn provide the basis for basic be-
havioral indicators of cognition, emotion, motivation,
and behavior/action. On the behavioral level basic tem-
peramental features such as emotional, motor and atten-
tional reactivity as well as their regulation are considered
627
(e.g., Rothbart, 2001). On the level of physiological indi-
cators, it is impossible to clearly separate from each other
aspects of the mechanics that underlie either cognition,
or emotion, or motivation. For instance, changes in heart
rate such as acceleration can be observed during negative
affective episodes, but also during mental arithmetic (cf.
Baltissen, 2005; Levenson, 2000). With regard to neu-
roanatomy, there is evidence for specialized brain areas
(e.g., the amygdala, prefrontal cortex) that contribute to
the formation of both basic emotions and basic motiva-
tional tendencies but not to higher cognitive functioning
(e.g., Davidson, Jackson, & Kalin, 2000). A further dif-
ferentiation between emotion and motivation, however,
so far seems not possible. The emotion of fear, for in-
stance, is inextricably linked to avoidance motivation.
Temperamental dimensions also tend to show substantial
interrelations, reflecting an underlying affective-motiva-
tional system rather than separate qualities (cf. Rothbart
& Bates, 1998).
The Pragmatics of Life as Relevant to Personality
Functioning. The pragmatics of life as they are rele-
vant to personality functioning represent the power of
experiences and contextual influences. They encompass
self-related knowledge as well as self-regulatory compe-
tencies (Staudinger & Pasupathi, 2000). Knowledge
about the self pertains to trait conceptions of personal-
ity as well as to the self-concept. It includes all that we
know about our behavior, past experiences, anticipated
and idealized futures, needs and wishes, abilities, or
weaknesses that characterize our selves. The concept of
who we are and what we are like is closely related to
how we pursue goals, evaluate our selves or adjust our
self-views or goals under threat. Thus, self-regulation
constitutes the procedural part of our self-knowledge.
The Dynamic Interaction of the Mechanics and
Pragmatics of Life as Relevant to Personality Func-
tioning. The mechanics and pragmatics of life mutu-
ally influence each other. As mentioned previously, we
follow Cattell’s (e.g., 1971) investment theory and con-
sider the life mechanics as the building blocks promot-
ing developmental progress in the life pragmatics
(Staudinger & Pasupathi, 2000). At first sight, it seems
that the mechanics constrain the pragmatics, and to a
certain degree that is true. But most genetic as well as
recent brain research has demonstrated that, for in-
stance, the richness or poverty of the (factual and proce-
dural) knowledge we accumulate feeds back into the life
mechanics and indeed may even change them (genetic
628 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
expression, brain structures; Kirkwood, 2003; W.
Singer, 2003; see also S.-C. Li, 2003). Extremely inhib-
ited children, for instance, are able to gain control of
their fearful behavior, changing not only their psycho-
logical state but also the underlying reactive sympa-
thetic nervous system (Kagan, 1998). This reciprocal
interaction of mechanics and pragmatics highlights the
limits of the hardware-software metaphor introduced
earlier (at least as our current understanding of hard-
ware is concerned).
The life span conception of ontogenesis (e.g., P. B.
Baltes et al., 1998; Brandtstädter, 1998) as a product of
the interaction between biology (i.e., life mechanics),
culture, and automated as well as purposeful attempts at
regulating one’s development (i.e., life pragmatics) im-
plies that it is impossible to clearly separate the mechan-
ics from the pragmatics of life. Starting at conception,
biology, culture, and the developing “person” interact.
We just showed that, for instance, basic temperamental
dimensions (i.e., mechanics) and personality character-
istics (i.e., pragmatics) show predictive relations across
the life span (e.g., Caspi & Silva, 1995). But we do not
know yet how exactly the underlying mechanics play out
in the development of traits. For instance, do changes in
the life mechanics result in the age-related decrease in
openness to experience (e.g., decay in the physiological
basis of the approach system, or reduced biological re-
sources “demand” parsimonious; i.e., habituated, rather
than novel functioning) or is it rather the result of years
of experience (e.g., losing interest because I have seen it
all before), that is, the life pragmatics? Or is it both? De-
spite the seemingly inextricable interaction, it may nev-
ertheless be useful for heuristic purposes to distinguish
between the life mechanics and pragmatics of personal-
ity and use this distinction to better understand person-
ality development across the life span. We start by
reviewing some first and still scarce evidence on the life
span development of the mechanics followed by results
with regard to the life pragmatics of personality.
The Development of Neurophysiological Indicators
of Life Mechanics of Personality
When we consider the mechanics of life it is not trivial
to identify indicators that have a clear emphasis on the
mechanic side and that at the same time can be used to
assess participants across the whole life span. Espe-
cially on the behavioral level, such as basic behavioral
indicators of temperament are usually not applied
throughout the life span but are substituted by personal-
ity trait measures when adults are assessed. In our ter-
minology, however, trait measures of personality are the
result of many cumulative interactions between the bio-
logical basis of personality, context and individual
choices. Thus, they are much closer to the pragmatic
than the mechanic end of the continuum.
Behavioral operationalizations of basic temperament
dimensions clearly are closer to the mechanic end of the
continuum even though we need to be aware that the
pragmatic component gains importance whenever self-
report is involved (cf. P. B. Baltes et al., 1998; Kagan,
1998). Nevertheless, with regard to affective tone it is
possible to consult basic behavioral findings from life
span emotion research. Also, there is some scarce be-
havioral evidence on the approach/avoidance system
stemming from research on the goal system.
In addition, one can have a look at neurophysiological
indicators of personality functioning in order to learn
about the development of the mechanics of life. Two neu-
rophysiological indicators have been—reliably and across
different laboratories—identified as biological indicators
of basic dimensions of affectivity and motivation: (1) au-
tonomic reactivity and (2) cerebral asymmetry (see also
Schindler & Staudinger, 2005a). Those two indicators
seem to be rather “pure” reflections of the life mechanics
given presently available measurement paradigms and
they have received most of the empirical attention.2 In the
following, we will first present developmental evidence
for the two neurophysiological indicators. Subsequently,
progressing from the mechanics a little further toward the
pragmatics end of the dimension, we present developmen-
tal evidence on the behavioral data about emotional tone
and about the approach/avoidance tendency.
Autonomic reactivity ( heart rate, heart rate variabil-
ity). The parasympathetic and sympathetic branches of
the autonomic nervous system influence the activity of
the heart. Both higher sympathetic reactivity (e.g., Kagan,
1998) and a weaker influence of the parasympathetic
nervous system (e.g., Porges & Doussard-Roosevelt,
1997) have been linked to behavioral inhibition (i.e.,
withdrawal /avoidance). Our focus is on the relationship
2
These two indicators only present a subset of the physiologi-
cal indicators of temperament and additional indicators that
may be discussed in this context are excitability levels of the
amygdala, asymmetric activation of the amygdala, norepi-
nephrine, cortisol, or dopamine levels (e.g., Davidson et al.,
2000; Depue & Collins, 1999; Kagan, 1998; Rothbart &
Baltes, 1998).
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
between heart rate and heart rate variability on the one
and basic dispositions such as approach/avoidance or
positive/negative emotional tone on the other hand.
On the one hand, a low and variable resting heart rate
is generally related to approach behavior and positive af-
fect, but also to regulatory disorders and angry irritable
affect (e.g., Porges & Doussard-Roosevelt, 1997; Roth-
bart & Bates, 1998). These two findings seem contra-
dictory, but match the special nature of anger. Albeit
considered a negative affective state, anger is associated
with a motivation to approach rather than to avoid or
withdraw (e.g., Davidson et al., 2000; Harmon-Jones &
Allen, 1998). On the other hand, higher resting heart
rate combined with lower variability and high reactivity
shows relations to inhibitory or avoidance behaviors
(e.g., Kagan, 1998). These findings highlight the neces-
sity to consider the regulation of the heart rate in re-
sponse to stimulation in addition to the resting heart
rate. Indeed, it is the physiological regulation of cardiac
activity that has been suggested as “an antecedent sub-
strate for emotional, cognitive, and behavioral regula-
tion” (Doussard-Roosevelt, McClenny, & Porges, 2001,
p. 58). Infants who have a low and variable resting heart
rate and demonstrate appropriate heart rate modulation
tend to show more optimal developmental outcomes (at
age 3) such as fewer depressive and aggressive behaviors
and more socially competent behaviors (e.g., Porges &
Doussard-Roosevelt, 1997).
During childhood stability of resting and stress-
tested heart rate as well as its variability reach close to
perfect levels (Porges, Doussard-Roosevelt, Portales, &
Suess, 1994). Mean-level decreases in resting heart rate
and increased levels of variability have been observed
between 9 months and 3 years of age (Porges et al.,
1994). Unfortunately, no studies investigating mean-
level stability of heart rate and its variability from
childhood into adulthood and old age are yet available.
But there is evidence that the resting heart rates of older
adults hardly differ from those of young adults, while
maximum heart rate is considerably reduced with in-
creasing age (Folkow & Svanborg, 1993). Heart rate re-
activity is also attenuated in older adults (e.g.,
Levenson, Carstensen, Friesen, & Ekman, 1991; see
Baltissen, 2005, for an overview). In addition, once the
ANS is activated, there is at least some first indication
from emotion research that the activation tends to per-
sist for longer time periods in old compared with
younger adults (Levenson et al., 1991). To date, how-
ever, no data exist about possible changes of the relation
629
between autonomic reactivity and behavioral indicators
of approach/avoidance or other personality indicators
across the life span.
Cerebral Asymmetry. Over the last 15 years dif-
ferent laboratories have developed theories and accumu-
lated empirical evidence concerning the idea that
approach (Gray, 1981), activation (Cloninger, 1987), and
engagement (Depue, Krauss, & Spoont, 1987) motiva-
tion on the one hand, and avoidance, withdrawal (David-
son, 1984), and inhibition (Cloninger, 1987; Gray, 1981)
motivation on the other hand are related to different
neural substrates, different basic emotions, and have dis-
tinct influences on action. The approach/engagement
system facilitates appetitive behavior, generates particu-
lar types of approach-related positive affect, and is re-
lated to relative increases in left-sided prefrontal
activation. There is some evidence that dopaminergic
pathways play a central role in that system (e.g., Depue &
Collins, 1999). The withdrawal /inhibition system, in
contrast, responds to threats or signals of punishment. Its
engagement inhibits ongoing behavior (Gray, 1981) or
supports withdrawal behavior (Davidson, 1984) and in-
volves negative affective states such as anxiety, disgust,
and heightened vigilance. The activation of the inhibi-
tion /withdrawal system is associated with relatively
stronger activation of the right prefrontal cortex.
Interindividual differences in baseline prefrontal ac-
tivation asymmetry are related to differences in dispo-
sitional affect, inhibition, and differential reactivity to
negative stimulation (Davidson et al., 2000). For in-
stance, infants with higher relative right anterior corti-
cal activation at baseline are more likely to cry in
response to being separated from their mothers com-
pared to infants that do not show that asymmetrical ac-
tivation pattern. Children with asymmetric right-sided
anterior activation show a tendency toward inhibited
behavior. During adulthood, greater relative activation
of the right anterior cortex at rest has been related to
higher levels of general negative affect, higher self-
reported behavioral inhibition, stronger negative affect
in response to unpleasant film clips, and slower recov-
ery following a negative affective stimulus (for an
overview see Davidson et al., 2000).
Although there is evidence of internal consistency and
test-retest reliability of measures of prefrontal asymme-
try (Tomarken, Davidson, Wheeler, & Kinney, 1992),
our knowledge about the intraindividual development of
cerebral asymmetry especially over longer time spans is
630 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
still very limited. Rank-order stability of baseline pre-
frontal asymmetries seems to be very low over an 8-year
period during childhood (Davidson & Rickman, 1999),
but stability is assumed to increase after puberty when
the prefrontal cortex has stopped to undergo develop-
mental change (Davidson et al., 2000).
Again, there is no study yet that compares the relative
magnitude of prefrontal asymmetry between infants, chil-
dren, and adults. Cerebral asymmetry has been demon-
strated during the 1st year of life (cf. Davidson et al.,
2000), but it is unclear whether these interindividual
differences in brain activity stay stable during further
development. It has been speculated that the later devel-
opment of left-brain abilities might be accompanied by a
maturational shift toward better emotion-regulation
(see Rothbart & Bates, 1998). Similar to research on
heart rate and its variability, there seems to be hardly
any evidence on the mean-level stability of prefrontal
asymmetry in old age. We only found one study of odor
perception in older adults that showed that left frontal
brain activation in response to pleasant stimuli was un-
compromised. However, brain activity in response to un-
pleasant stimuli did not differ from that to neutral
stimuli (Kline, Blackhart, Woodward, Williams, &
Schwartz, 2000). This may imply that the right pre-
frontal cortex area undergoes stronger age-related losses
in functioning than the left prefrontal area. We will see
in the next section that on a behavioral level of assess-
ment there is evidence accruing for differentially re-
duced frequency of negative emotions as well as reduced
reactivity to negative stimuli.
Some Conclusions about the Development of
Neurophysiological Indicators of the Mechanics of
Personality Functioning. To date, there are few
studies on either mean-level or rank-order stability of
the selected physiological indicators of the life me-
chanics of personality and the majority of extant find-
ings come from studies on infancy and childhood.
Thus, we can only draw some very preliminary conclu-
sions about life span development. Substantial stability
coefficients are attained past adolescence. Thus, these
physiological indicators may possibly contribute to
continuity on the behavioral level. The mechanics un-
derlying basic motivational and emotional tendencies
show smaller mean-level changes than the cognitive
mechanics across the life span. But there are some de-
creases such as the declining physiological reactivity of
the ANS in old age and the possibly reduced asymme-
try in prefrontal brain activation. Please, note that
these changes in the mechanics by no means have to
play out as losses on the behavioral level but rather—as
discussed next—the opposite may be the case.
Overall, our understanding of life span changes in the
life mechanics of personality as well as their relation
with behavioral indicators is still limited. We need stud-
ies linking differential age-related change in physiologi-
cal indicators to differential intraindividual change in
personality. For instance, what happens to inhibited in-
dividuals who have a tendency to show strong heart rate
acceleration in response to challenge when they reach
old age? We know that heart rate acceleration probably
declines with increasing age due to reduced reactivity of
the ANS. But is there any age-related change in behav-
ioral inhibition as a result of declined heart rate reactiv-
ity? Or what happens to emotion-regulation in old age
given the changes in brain activity discussed previously?
Is there a mechanic basis to the age-related changes
found in emotion-regulation (e.g., Labouvie-Vief, Lum-
ley, Jain, & Heinze, 2003)? These and related questions
are especially relevant when we describe and explain the
findings about the development of behavioral indicators
of emotional tone and approach/avoidance that are much
closer to the pragmatics of personality next.
The Development of Behavioral Indicators of Life
Mechanics of Personality
Emotional Tone and Reactivity. The physiologi-
cal patterns are maintained, however the magnitude of
physiological responses seems to be reduced (e.g., Lev-
enson et al., 1991). Studies assessing emotion via self-
reported positive and negative affect, that is indicators
much closer to the pragmatic side of emotion-regulation,
supported the view of a gain in affective functioning in
old age. Overall the subjective salience of emotion
seems to increase with age (e.g., Carstensen et al.,
1999). Negative affect has been shown to either stay sta-
ble or decline in old age. Positive affect was found to be
rather stable or even increasing with age depending on
the study and the age range under investigation (e.g.,
Charles, Reynolds, & Gatz, 2001; Diener & Suh, 1998;
Kunzmann, Little, & Smith, 2000). Increased affective
complexity (i.e., more factors underlying emotional ex-
perience, plus higher potential for the co-occurrence of
positive and negative affect) and improved reported
emotional control were also linked to increasing age
(e.g., Gross et al., 1997). A common interpretation of
those findings is an age-related emotional maturation as
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
a result of accumulated experience and knowledge about
emotions as well as a changing time horizon (e.g.,
Carstensen et al., 1999), that is, changes in the life prag-
matics of personality. Based on the findings about neu-
rophysiological indicators of the mechanics of
personality presented earlier, we would like to offer
some speculations about how those changes may con-
tribute to these changes in emotional tone and emotion-
regulation observed on the behavioral level.
First, as noted, there is indication that ANS activity
(particularly the cardiovascular system) in reaction to
elicited emotions is smaller and refraction times are
longer in older adults in comparison with younger adults.
Further, an age-related reduction of the asymmetry of
prefrontal brain activity seems to occur. These changes
(and we have only looked at a small selection of possible
mechanic indicators) may contribute to the changes ob-
served in emotional tone and emotion-regulation. For
instance, lower ANS reactivity may make it easier to
deal with upsetting emotional experiences. Decreased
asymmetry in prefrontal brain activation during emo-
tional experiences may contribute to differences in the
relative frequency of specific emotional experiences
and may predispose toward the processing of a particu-
lar kind of emotional quality.
Second, with regard to emotional control there is indi-
cation that in contrast to self-report assessment, behav-
ioral measures of emotional control actually find no
age-related increases but rather that older adults seem to
overestimate their own ability to regulate their emotions
as measured by physiological indicators (Kunzmann, Kup-
perbusch, & Levenson, 2005). And there is first indication
that when using highly age-relevant emotional stimuli
(loss of a loved one) older people actually report to expe-
rience stronger negative reactions (sadness) than younger
ones (Kunzmann & Grühn, in press). Thus, it may be the
case that certain constellations of emotional reaction are
practiced more often than others and thus by pragmatics
means (i.e., exercise) developmental trends based on the
life mechanics of personality are “compensated.” In sum,
we suggest that the interplay between mechanic and prag-
matics components of personality development is far from
being understood but that the heuristic distinction be-
tween the mechanics and pragmatics of life may be quite
helpful in order to increase our understanding of emo-
tional functioning across the life span.
Approach and Avoidance Goals. Corresponding
to the age-related declines in the mechanics of life, goal-
631
focus is expected to shift with increasing age from
growth, that is, trying to reach higher levels of function-
ing, toward maintenance, that is, preserving levels of
functioning in the face of challenge, and regulation of
loss, that is, organizing functioning at lower levels
(Staudinger et al., 1995). Inspecting findings from re-
search on the goal system (e.g., Emmons, 1996) that dis-
tinguishes goals focusing on gains, that is, approach
goals, and goals focusing on the avoidance of loss, that
is, avoidance goals, can be used to test this hypothesized
developmental trend. And indeed in line with the as-
sumption, it has been demonstrated that growth (ap-
proach) goals were more frequent in adolescence, while
maintenance (avoidance of loss) goals increased in fre-
quency during middle adulthood and into old age (Ebner
& Freund, 2003; Freund, 2002; Heckhausen, 1997;
Ogilvie, Rose, & Heppen, 2001). Further, maintenance
goals still increase in frequency during very old age (J.
Smith & Freund, 2002). Nevertheless, in spite of mid-
dle-aged and old people becoming more invested in
maintenance and loss management, approach goals per-
sist throughout life (Ogilvie et al., 2001). When asked
about their future selves, even a majority among the
very old consistently reported to pursue improvement
goals across two measurement points (J. Smith & Fre-
und, 2002). And elective selection is the component of
the SOC theory that is maintained into old age (Freund
& Baltes, 2002b). This pattern of findings is replicated
across different methodological approaches, such as
coding of goals by raters, self-rating of goals, and goal-
selection behavior. Further, with regard to a systems
view on goals it was demonstrated that one goal could
receive ratings on the approach as well the avoidance di-
mensions (Ebner & Freund, 2003). Relating these be-
havioral and self-report findings on approach and
avoidance to the evidence based on neurophysiological
indicators it is striking that it is the right anterior cor-
tex, which is related to avoidance behavior that seems to
undergo stronger age-related declines in functioning
suggesting that the goal-related approach/avoidance
findings are more closely linked with the life pragmatics
rather than the life mechanics of personality.
Evidence on the Development of the Life
Pragmatics of Personality
In this last part of reviewing evidence on personality de-
velopment, we turn to constructs that on our mechanic-
pragmatic continuum are much closer to the pragmatic
end such as personality traits, the self-concept but also
632 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
self-regulatory processes. A frequent distinction drawn
in reviews of personality and aging (Kogan, 1990) is the
one between trait and growth models of personality
development.
Radical trait theorists equate personality with per-
sonality traits, that is, dispositional behaviors and attri-
butes. Some even argue that personality is “set like
plaster ” after age 30 (Costa & McCrae, 1994). Trait
models of personality approach the question of continu-
ity and discontinuity and stability and instability from
the continuity side. Trait-oriented researchers are inter-
ested in exploring and possibly arriving at a structure of
personality characteristics that captures an individual’s
experiences and behaviors in a way that is as compre-
hensive and continuous as possible.
Among a large number of trait personality re-
searchers there is consensus that personality can be rea-
sonably well described by the so-called “Big Five.” The
Big Five have been identified by means of factor analy-
sis across different instruments and different samples,
though labels vary somewhat among authors. We have
chosen Costa and McCrae’s factor names to convey
the information: Extraversion, agreeableness, conscien-
tiousness, neuroticism, and openness to experience.
Growth models of personality, in contrast, like the
most influential one by Erik Erikson (e.g., 1959), con-
tend that we continuously adapt to changing internal and
external requirements and thereby grow. If all require-
ments are successfully met, at the end of an ideal trajec-
tory, Erikson envisions a person full of hope, will power,
purpose in life, competence, fidelity, love, care, and
wisdom. Clearly, this outcome is not the rule but rather
the exception.
More and more empirical evidence based on either of
the two models, however, has demonstrated that both
stability and change (i.e., gains and losses) characterize
personality development in adulthood and old age.
Thus, the focus of this overview will be on presenting
this evidence and suggesting ways to better understand
the dialectic between stability and change in personal-
ity development.
Development of Trait Personality. When asking
about stability or change of personality traits, this im-
plies three questions rather than one, that is, stability or
change of (1) mean levels within a group of individuals,
(2) inter-individual differences between individuals
(variance), and (3) of the structural interrelationships
of dimensions of personality (covariances). To start, a
meaningful comparison between different age groups is
solely possible if personality dimensions measure the
same characteristics at different ages. For the Big Five
factorial model of personality cross-sectional as well
longitudinal information on structural invariance is
available (Costa & McCrae, 1994; Small, Hertzog,
Hultsch, & Dixon, 2003). Such studies have demon-
strated high structural invariance during adulthood
and into old age.
According to a recent meta-analysis (Roberts &
DelVecchio, 2000), the rank-order stability of the Big
Five increases almost linearly across the life span with
stability levels in the .40 to .50 range during adoles-
cence and a peak in stability at over .75 in middle
adulthood (50 to 59 years). This peak of personality
consistency at age 50 to 60 contradicts earlier argu-
ments that the consistency of personality traits should
plateau after age 30 (Costa & McCrae, 1994). Compar-
ison among the five dimensions showed that extraver-
sion and agreeableness had slightly higher stabilities
than the other three dimensions (see also Vaidya Gray,
Haig, & Watson, 2002). In this meta-analysis (Roberts
& DelVecchio, 2000), stability estimates did neither
vary by assessment method (i.e., self-report, other-
report, projective test) nor by gender. Finally, control-
ling for sample attrition did not alter the results. The
findings from this meta-analysis are confirmed with
regard to old and very old age by recent publications
from two longitudinal aging studies (Mroczek & Spiro,
2003; Small et al., 2003). In both studies, consistencies
across 12 and 6 years, respectively, were around .7. No
evidence has been found for cohort differences in con-
sistency. Please note that even though a consistency of
.75 at age 50 and 60 is high, on the assumption of
higher reliability than stability, it leaves room for indi-
vidual change. In this vein, recent studies using latent
growth modeling found that with increasing age indi-
vidual differences in personality change also increase
(Pedersen & Reynolds, 2002; Small et al., 2003). As
no age-graded increase but rather a decrease in the
relative importance of genetic effects on personality
development has been found, this increasing interindi-
vidual variability of change most likely is related to in-
terindividual differences in life circumstances
(Pedersen & Reynolds, 2002). Alternatively, it may
also be the case that overall system robustness is re-
duced with age and thus greater intraindividual vari-
ability emerges (S.-C. Li, Aggen, Nesselroade, &
Baltes, 2001; J. R. Nesselroade, 2002).
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
Finally, what happens with the mean levels of person-
ality traits? Do we become less extravert and less open,
but also less neurotic, as we move through adulthood
and old age? Taking into account cross-sectional and
longitudinal evidence, it seems that neuroticism de-
creases across adulthood (Mroczek & Spiro, 2003) and
may show some increase again very late in life (Small
et al., 2003). Some decrease is also found for openness
to experience and extraversion (e.g., Costa, Herbst, Mc-
Crae, & Siegler, 2000). In contrast, agreeableness and
conscientiousness increase to some degree (Helson &
Kwan, 2000).
This mean-level decrease in neuroticism, increase in
agreeableness and conscientiousness across adulthood
and into old age can be described as an increase in social
adaptation, in the sense of becoming emotionally less
volatile and more attuned to social demands (Helson &
Wink, 1987; Staudinger, 2005; Whitbourne & Water-
man, 1979). The decrease in openness to experience, in
contrast fits a different developmental pattern that is
discussed next.
McCrae and others (e.g., 2000) lately offered an in-
teresting proxy of a longitudinal study. Comparing sam-
ples between age 14 and 83 years from Korea, Portugal,
Italy, Germany, Czech Republic, Turkey, they found
cross-country consistency with regard to the pattern of
mean-level changes just described. The authors argue
that the observed similarity across cultures makes it un-
likely—given the very different historical and cultural
circumstances in these different countries—that such
age differences are indeed cohort differences. Instead
the authors suggest that this developmental pattern may
reflect changes in genetic expression selected for by
evolution (McCrae et al., 2000). Thus, using the termi-
nology introduced in this chapter, McCrae and others
view those results as reflecting changes in the life me-
chanics underlying personality functioning.
Knowing the many different ways that genes and en-
vironment interact in order to produce stability (cf.
Plomin, DeFries, & Loehlin, 1977; Roberts & Caspi,
2003) and also how important specific life experiences
are in personality development (e.g., Magnus, Diener,
Fujita, & Pavot, 1993), we are somewhat reluctant in ac-
cepting this explanation as the only valid alternative.
For example, the transition to partnership during early
adulthood is accompanied by decreases in neuroticism
and shyness and increases in conscientiousness (Neyer
& Asendorpf, 2001). Thus, personality changes can also
be attributed to normative, in the sense of culturally
633
shared, life events. For instance, a recent cross-sequential
study found that two cohorts differed in their develop-
ment of neuroticism between the ages of 70 and 75
(Mroczek & Spiro, 2003). The older cohort (1897 to
1919) showed stability whereas the younger cohort
(1920 to 1929) showed decline in neuroticism pointing
to the fact that aging might express itself differently in
different cohorts.
In sum, when we return to our heuristic dual-compo-
nent model of the mechanics and pragmatics of life, we
question the degree to which the Big Five are prototypi-
cal elements of the life mechanics, as McCrae and others
(2000) suggest. In our view, the Big Five are prototypical
elements of the life pragmatics. They are the result of an
endless number of interactions between biology, cul-
ture, and the person. Thus, aside from stable genetic
components, their relative high degree of stability can
also be located in the physical and social environments
in which individuals live and which, as sociological the-
ories of human development and social differentiation
suggest (Settersten, 2005), evince systematic and stable
interindividual differences. Therefore, in our view per-
sonality traits likely are much less of an exclusively bio-
logical nature than is assumed to be the case for the
more fundamental elements of the personality system
such as basic emotional tone and basic motivational
tendency.
Using a psychometric approach to the study of growth-
aspects of personality replicates and extends the finding
of increased social adaptation just described for the Big
Five. Measuring dimensions such as “environmental
mastery,” “autonomy,” or “personal growth” and “pur-
pose in life,” Ryff and Keyes (1995) find that the first
two dimensions increase with age during adulthood and
old age and the latter two level off after midlife. The in-
creases in environmental mastery and autonomy can be
described as being highly functional and adaptive for
mastering adult life.
Personal growth and purpose in life, however, level
off in midlife. This developmental trend fits well with
the decline observed in openness to new experiences in
old age. It has been argued (Staudinger, 2005), that these
observed declines in self-reported openness, personal
growth and purpose in life, may indicate that in contrast
to social adaptation, personal maturity is less likely to
come with age for most people. And indeed studies of
wisdom (e.g., Staudinger, 1999b) and of ego develop-
ment (e.g., Labouvie-Vief et al., 1987) find no norma-
tive increase with age during adulthood.
634 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Self-Concept Development. When studying the
self-concept both content and structure need to be con-
sidered (e.g., Filipp & Mayer, 2005; Staudinger & Pasu-
pathi, 2000). Therefore, developmental trajectories of
both will be covered next.
The content of the self-concept refers to the beliefs
we hold about ourselves and to the domains we employ
when describing ourselves. Answers to questions like
“Who am I?” (e.g., Freund & Smith, 1999) are indica-
tors of the content of the self-concept. The content of
spontaneous self-descriptions shows change, but also
stability (Filipp & Klauer, 1986). There is, for in-
stance, substantial stability in the content of self-
definitions across different age groups when it comes
to central domains of life (e.g., health, social relations;
Filipp & Klauer, 1986). But there is also change that
can be attributed to the influence of a succession of de-
velopmental tasks, critical life events, and also changes
in the life mechanics. During childhood the academic
self-concept and school achievement assume a central
role, in adolescence we are very much concerned about
our physical appearance (for an overview cf. Filipp &
Mayer, 2005). With increasing age, however, people de-
fine themselves more and more in terms of health and
physical functioning, life experiences, and hobbies
(Dittmann-Kohli, 1991; Freund & Smith, 1999). An-
other aspect of this adaptation to aging seems to be that
activity and agency become important parts of the self-
definition in old age, as they are no longer self-evident
(Freund & Smith, 1999; Herzog, Franks, Markus, &
Holmberg, 1998).
The structure of the self-concept refers to the organi-
zation of the self-concept. This organization is often in-
vestigated in terms of its complexity and integration (cf.
Campbell, Assanand, & Di Paula, 2003). One classic
definition of complexity (or differentiation) taps the
number of nonredundant self-aspects or content cate-
gories of the self-definition (Linville, 1987). Integra-
tion often is assessed as the correlation of trait ratings
across different domains of the self-concept (Donahue,
Robins, Roberts, & John, 1993).
Cognitive representations of the self emerge during
the 2nd year of life (cf. Harter, 1998) and can be charac-
terized with regard to the degree of differentiation
(measured in terms of correlations among different self-
concept domains) as early as 4 to 5 years of age (Marsh
et al., 2002). During childhood, the average correlation
among self-concept domains has been shown to become
smaller. This trend of decreasing integration levels off
during adolescence, where no further decline in average
correlations between preadolescence and late adoles-
cence has been demonstrated (cf. Marsh et al., 2002). In
contrast, there is evidence that the self-structure be-
comes more integrated again and that self-complexity
increases between 18 and 22 years of age (Elbogen
et al., 2001). For the age range from 20 to 88 years,
cross-sectional findings indicate an U-shaped relation-
ship between self-concept integration and age (Diehl
et al., 2001). Currently, there is not much evidence on
the rank-order stability of self-complexity or differenti-
ation. 1-week test-retest correlations for measures of
self-complexity and integration are in the .60 range
(Campbell et al., 2003). No knowledge about long-term
stability is available.
In sum: It seems that mean levels of integration of the
self-concept increase until adolescence, decrease up to
midlife and increase again thereafter. In contrast, the
trajectory of self-complexity (in the sense of number of
relevant self domains mentioned) follows an inverted U-
shape function during adulthood. Thus, in contrast to
the orthogenetic principle proposed by Heinz Werner
(1926), one of the pioneers of developmental psychol-
ogy, normatively there seems to be no coexistence of
complexity and integration. In this vein, recently an ef-
fort has been made to develop a measure of self-concept
growth, which incorporates this combination of differ-
entiation and integration, and no significant age differ-
ences have been found during adulthood (Staudinger,
Dörner, & Mickler, 2005).
Development of Self-Regulatory Processes. Hav-
ing discussed some of the major evidence on the content
and structure of self and personality, we turn next to re-
sults about the self-related processes. Self-regulation in-
cludes both the agentic (assimilative, primary control,
problem-focused coping) and yielding qualities (accom-
modative, secondary control, emotion-focused coping;
P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b; Brandtstädter & Greve,
1994; Brandtstädter & Rothermund, 2003; Heckhausen
& Schulz, 1995). Accommodative and yielding qualities
have consistently been found to increase with age (e.g.,
Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990). Most likely this is a
pragmatic response to the declines in the mechanics of
life. In contrast, theoretical predictions and findings
with respect to the development of agentic and assimila-
tive qualities are inconsistent. Different authors speak
of declining (Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990), stable
(Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995), and even increasing
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
(Heckhausen, 2000) primary control across adulthood.
In line with findings of increase and stability of primary
control is evidence that demonstrates that older adults
report elective, self-governed selection (within the
model of selective optimization with compensation) as
their primary action strategy (Freund & Baltes, 2002b).
Human beings are producers of their development
(R. M. Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981), but there are
also times when to accept the limits of our agency and to
cope with challenges, threats and losses (see P. B. Baltes
et al., 1998; P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2004; Brandtstädter,
1998; Staudinger & Lindenberger, 2003). And indeed, it
may be that with age self-regulatory behaviors differ
markedly in their prioritization. In order for people to
maintain active involvement as composers of their lives,
it is crucial to believe in one’s ability to control and se-
lect environments, optimize outcomes, and to have com-
pensatory strategies dealing with emotions in situations
of failure and stress (e.g., Freund & Baltes, 2002b). In
the following, we are interested in the developmental
trajectories of various facets of self-regulation, such as
(a) internal and external control beliefs, ( b) emotion-
regulation, as well (c) goal setting and goal pursuit.
Control and Self Ef ficacy Beliefs. When consider-
ing the development of control beliefs and related be-
liefs such as self efficacy (Bandura, 1997), one variable
in the equation has to be the actual potential for control
afforded by current psychological and nonpsychological
resources. Based on the overall life span architecture
presented earlier (P. B. Baltes, 1997), there is reason to
assume that our capacity to influence outcomes in the
external world follows an inverted U-shaped trajectory
across the life span (primary control potential: Heck-
hausen & Schulz, 1995). Thus, the rise in objective con-
trol potential during childhood and adolescence may be
reflected in increasing internal control beliefs, while
the declining control potential in old age may be accom-
panied by declining internal and increasing external
control beliefs. However, the ontogenesis of control be-
liefs is a little more complicated than this assumption
would suggest.
If the two dimensions are considered separately,
which is the current state of the art in research on con-
trol beliefs (E. A. Skinner, 1996), interesting differ-
ences between the development of internal and external
control beliefs have been found. For instance, children
from age 8 to 14 show no systematic mean-level change
in internal control beliefs, but external control beliefs
635
(powerful others) decline (cf. E. A. Skinner & Connell,
1986). Further, stability and even increases in internal
control beliefs with increasing age are observed. In
adult samples, no clear-cut changes in perceived inter-
nal control and a tendency for older adults to report
more external control are found (Brandtstädter &
Rothermund, 1994). A global measure of perceived
internal control demonstrates increases between young
adulthood and old age (up to age 75; Lachman &
Weaver, 1998).
Recent findings from the Berlin Aging Study (a sam-
ple of old and very old adults) indicate that a high sense
of internal control can be maintained into very old age,
that is, in spite of losses and functional decline the old
adults did not report diminished internal control over de-
sirable outcomes. Simultaneously, however, mean levels
of perceived others’ control increased (Kunzmann, Lit-
tle, & Smith, 2002). Thus, there seems to be a consistent
pattern of increasing externality in control beliefs with
increasing age. Results for internal control beliefs are
less clear. We can conclude that beliefs in one’s ability
to control desirable outcomes are relatively stable during
adulthood and might even show some increases with
age. In other words, the belief in our agency “survives”
actual losses in resources. Age differences in domain-
specific control beliefs show that control over children
and sex life decreases, while control over work, fi-
nances, and marriage increases between young adult-
hood and old age (Lachman & Weaver, 1998). Control
over mental functioning and health declines in very old
age (Lachman, 1991).
Selected evidence on the rank-order stability of
control beliefs points to moderate stability estimates
ranging between r = .45 and r = .57 (Brandtstädter &
Rothermund, 1994; Kunzmann et al., 2002; Lachman,
1986b). In sum, findings on the stability of control be-
liefs suggest increases (external control) or stability (in-
ternal control) and moderate stability in interindividual
differences across time.
Coping. When we turn to age-comparative re-
search on coping, Folkman, Lazarus, Pimley, and
Novacek (1987), for example, found that older respon-
dents were less likely to seek social support or use
confrontive coping and were more likely to use dis-
tancing and positive reappraisal. In fact, more and
more of the recent evidence supports this “growth”
view of coping in adulthood and old age (e.g., Aldwin,
Sutton, & Lachman, 1996; Costa & McCrae, 1993;
636 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Labouvie-Vief, Hakim-Larson, & Hobart, 1987; Rott
& Thomae, 1991) or at least speaks for stability in
coping behavior. With respect to the developmental
stability of coping behavior during adult life, it has
also been observed that individual differences in the
endorsement of coping mechanisms are more a func-
tion of the type of stressful event than of age (Mc-
Crae, 1989).
Furthermore, older adults seem to be more flexible
in adapting their coping response to the characteristics
of the situation (e.g., controllability) than younger
adults (e.g., Aldwin et al., 1996). Such evidence is con-
gruent with findings that, in comparison to younger
adults, older adults have been found to demonstrate an
accommodative coping style in the face of adversity or
failure; that is, older adults were more flexible and bet-
ter able to adjust their strivings to changed circum-
stances than were young adults (Brandtstädter &
Renner, 1990). Conversely, younger adults were more
likely to adhere to their once established goals (i.e., as-
similative coping), even if they were no longer realiz-
able. With age, Brandtstädter and Renner (1990) have
demonstrated that adults favor accommodative (goal
flexible) over assimilative (goal persistent) coping. In a
similar vein, Heckhausen and Schulz (1993) have pro-
posed and presented empirical evidence (Heckhausen,
2000) that an age-related shift from primary to second-
ary control strategies takes place in order to master the
tasks of aging.
Personal Life Investment (PLI) and the Goal System.
Self-regulation is also reflected in goal setting and goal
pursuit (cf. Cantor & Blanton, 1996). The goals people
hold at different points in their life and how they try to
achieve these goals in part are reflections of develop-
mental contexts and developmental tasks. For instance,
although family related goals are prominent throughout
adulthood, young adults frequently mention marriage
and family goals, whereas the goals of middle-aged
adults relate to the lives of their children (Nurmi, 1992).
Another well-established finding is that occupational
goals lose priority with increasing age, while health-
related pursuits do gain (e.g., Frazier, Hooker, Johnson,
& Klaus, 2000). Ryff (1989b) demonstrated that younger
people strive for accomplishment and career, whereas
older people are more likely to aim at good health and
the ability to accept change. In another vein, Riediger,
Freund, and Baltes (2005) have suggested that the de-
gree of goal convergence and interference may be con-
sidered another kind of relevant age-related change in
the goal system.
Thus, whether the goal system shows more change or
stability seems to be an issue of perspective. Although
change in the goal system is evident, continuity has also
been demonstrated (Frazier et al., 2000; Smith & Fre-
und, 2002). For instance, across a 5-year period, people
in late adulthood and old age tended to consistently
mention the same domains of possible (future) selves at
two measurement occasions (Frazier et al., 2000). And
even for the old and oldest old more stability than
change was reported with regard to the domains of pos-
sible selves across a 4-year period (Smith & Freund,
2002). Obviously, as was true for our discussion of the
trait literature, evidence suggests that continuity as well
as discontinuity play a role in age-related changes of the
goal system.
Personal life investment (PLI ), one aspect of the
goal system, is defined as the amount of energy and ef-
fort (in terms of both acting and thinking) that people
invest in central life domains (e.g., Staudinger et al.,
1999). This broad conception of investment in terms of
thought and action allows to capture all aspects of the
motivational process, that is, goal selection, planning,
and goal pursuit, but also disengagement from blocked
goals and restructuring of goal hierarchies. The devel-
opment of PLI in ten life domains ( health, cognitive
fitness, independence, well-being of one’s family, rela-
tionships with friends, sexuality, hobbies, one’s occu-
pation or similar activities, thinking about one’s life,
and one’s death and dying) has been studied across the
entire adult life span.
Cross-sectional evidence from a sample ranging in
age from 14 to 103 years demonstrated that the invest-
ment patterns across these ten life domains indeed re-
flect the developmental tasks of the respective life
periods (Staudinger & Schindler, 2005). Certainly, age
and its related social and biological demands is only
one developmental context influencing investment pat-
terns. In addition, socioeconomic characteristics and
personality play an important role in moderating age-
related differences in investment patterns. Finally, a
distinction between investment related to age-graded
societal and biological demands (obligatory) and self-
selected investment (optional) turned out to be useful.
These two types of investments follow stable and de-
clining trajectories, respectively, as analyses with the
longitudinal data from the BASE showed (Schindler &
Staudinger, 2005b).
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
Summary on Stability and Change in Personality
across the Life Span
Considering the evidence on the development of person-
ality structure presents only half of the picture. Without
the investigation of personality processes, we may be
lead to think that personality and aging is about some in-
creases in social adaptation and decreases in personal
growth. Taking self-regulation and developmental regu-
lation into account, however, “complicates” the story.
Yes, there is stability that can be associated with endur-
ing genetic and contextual influences. And there is a
psychological need for coherence and stability that al-
lows us to have a sense of enduring self. Stability, how-
ever, should not be completely equated with standstill.
Rather, stability is also reflective of resilience. Consid-
erable regulatory processes “produce” that stability. In
addition to biological changes, change on the structural
level of personality occurs when self-regulation cannot
withstand the pressure for modification any longer. In
the future, we need to better understand the biological
underpinnings of personality functioning and how they
change with age and interact with contextual features
and individual choices.
Reserve Capacities of Self and
Personality Development
As a further life span problematic, we have selected the
notion of reserve capacity and resilience for further
elaboration. This notion gains special importance for a
functional perspective on personality development, that
is, for perspectives that aim at an analysis of the orches-
tration of self and personality as a system of adaptive
functioning. The topic of reserve capacity and resilience
in the domain of self and personality relates to the allo-
cation of resources introduced earlier but discusses this
theme at a more microanalytic level of analysis. What
are the self-related mechanisms and characteristics that
either show or contribute to reserve capacity?
Traditionally, the central role of reserve capacity, or
related concepts such as resilience, is articulated within
the province of child development (e.g., Cicchetti &
Cohen, 1995). More recently, this view was extended to
include adulthood and old age (e.g., Brandtstädter, Wen-
tura, & Rothermund, 1999; Staudinger et al., 1995; Vail-
lant, 1993). For the present purpose we have chosen
aging as a forum of illustration. We make this selection
for several reasons. One is the relative novelty of this
age period for researchers in child development. Another
637
is because presenting research on aging permits us to
elaborate more clearly the theme of gains and losses and
the dynamic of differential allocation of resources into
growth, maintenance, and management of losses.
We discussed that there is little or no correlation be-
tween age and trait-based personality structure. In a sim-
ilar vein, there is little correlation between age and
various self-related indicators of adaptation (e.g., P. B.
Baltes, 1993; Brandtstädter, Wentura, & Greve, 1993),
including self-esteem (e.g., Bengtson et al., 1985), sense
of personal control (e.g., Lachman, 1986b), or happiness
and subjective well-being (e.g., Costa et al., 1987; Ryff,
1989a). This also includes 70- to 80-year-olds (J. Smith
& Baltes, 1993). Only in advanced old age, do we seem to
observe more salient changes toward a lower level of de-
sirable functioning in trait-like dispositions (P. B. Baltes
& Smith, 2003; J. Smith & Baltes, 1999). Thus, on the
group level, for the larger part of the adult age spectrum,
age does not seem to be a “risk ” factor for these aspects
of the personality system (note, however, that age chal-
lenges become larger when comparison with younger ages
are requested).
The absence of strong relationships between age and
self-related indicators of well-being, despite what we
have characterized above as an increase in risks and po-
tential losses with advancing age, but also for certain es-
pecially disadvantaged groups, is theoretically and
methodologically important. Indeed, the discrepancy
between an increasing number of risks on the one hand,
and maintenance of adaptive functioning in the self on
the other, is perhaps one of the most persuasive indica-
tors of the power of the personality system in dealing
with reality (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b; Greve &
Staudinger, in press; Staudinger et al., 1995). It is sug-
gested that the personality system exhibits resilience, or
reserve capacity, in the face of age-related risks and pri-
marily health-related losses. In a similar way, it has
been argued in childhood research conducted in the
field of developmental psychopathology that certain self
and environment constellations allow maintenance of
adaptive development even in the face of adversity (e.g.,
Garmezy, 1991).
Multiple arguments can be presented to understand
this discrepancy between an age-related increase in
risks and stability in self-related indicators of well-
being (Staudinger, 2000). First and foremost, the self
applies various protective mechanisms to reinterpret
or transform reality in the interest of maintaining or
regaining levels of well-being (e.g., M. M. Baltes &
638 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Baltes, 1986; Filipp, 1996; Greve & Wentura, 2003).
Second, age is only a rough proxy of increasing risks; not
everyone of a given age cohort needs to be concerned by
them. Therefore, the negative effects need not necessar-
ily show on a group level. Third, as just argued, the self
has a strong interest in continuity and growth. Over a
given period of time, the self adapts to even adverse cir-
cumstances as if nothing or not much has happened.
Thus, for researchers interested in the “self at work,” it
seems crucial at which point in this adaptive process the
assessment takes place. Fourth, the changes due to in-
creasing risks may be chronic rather than acute and
therefore might not affect the self suddenly, but gradu-
ally. It may be difficult, therefore, for the self to recog-
nize them and reflect them in self-report measures.
In the following, we will illustrate the reserve capac-
ity of the personality system by citing select findings or-
dered according to the distinction introduced above
between (a) form and structure of the personality sys-
tem and ( b) self-regulatory and self-transformational
processes. Except for few studies with objective indica-
tors of adaptivity, such as longevity or professional suc-
cess, in most of the studies adaptivity is measured by
self-report indicators of well-being. First, with regard to
form or structure we will highlight information on dif-
ferences in the adaptive fitness of personality and self
profiles. Second, we will select evidence on the adaptive
value of self-regulatory processes in three domains for
further illustration of life span developmental changes:
(1) goal seeking and reorganization; (2) self-evaluative
comparison processes; and (3) coping. Finally, note that
the protective mechanisms described in the following
are an inherent part of theories of successful develop-
ment such as the theory of selective optimization with
compensation (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b).
Evidence for Reserve Capacity in Indicators of
Personality Structure
There is longitudinal and cross-sectional evidence that
individual differences in largely stable personality char-
acteristics contribute to level of adaptation and some-
times even advances. From a life span perspective, it is
important to note that the adaptive patterns differ some-
what depending on the first time of assessment (i.e.,
adolescence or adulthood) and thus whether short- or
long-term predictions are involved. This applies espe-
cially to two traits widely assumed to constitute a risk or
a protective factor, that is, neuroticism and optimism or
cheerfulness (Friedman et al., 1995; Scheier & Carver,
1987). One possible explanation for the contradictory
finding with regard to cheerfulness and optimism might
be that cheerfulness in adolescence is linked to certain
risk behaviors whereas optimism in adulthood is related
to higher levels of positive emotions, which have protec-
tive effects in the face of stress (e.g., Fredrickson &
Levenson, 1998). As very few life time studies are avail-
able, our knowledge about the long-term protective per-
sonality profile to date is still limited. Nevertheless, it
seems safe to say that across a number of studies, posi-
tive expressions of the following personality character-
istics have been demonstrated to mostly contribute to
positive outcomes, thus, can be called general-purpose
mechanisms (cf. Friedman et al., 1995; Helson & Wink,
1987; Manners & Durkin, 2000; Peterson, Seligman,
Yurko, Martin, & Friedman, 1998): Conscientiousness,
extraversion, openness to experience, behavioral f lexibil-
ity, ego resilience, ego level, internal control or agency
(ef ficacy) beliefs, and cognitive investment.
Another strand of research focuses less on trait-based
personality characteristics than on the structure and
content of self-conceptions. Evidence is accruing that a
positive, multifocal and diversified, yet integrated
structure of priorities and self-conceptions, or identity
projects, makes transactive adaptation to developmental
changes easier (e.g., Diehl et al., 2001; Freund, 1995;
Riediger et al., 2005).
It is recent work that has shown that understanding
the adaptivity of self-definitions is more complex than
first thought. Combining dimensions like quantity, rich-
ness, positivity, integration, and importance of self-
definitions, as well as differentiating real and potential
selves in one theoretical framework will be an important
step in capturing the adaptive life span dynamics of
self-knowledge. Very important also seems a more ex-
plicit recognition of contextual factors including issues
of collective self-concepts such as among spouses
(M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1999; Hermans, 1996).
Evidence for Reserve Capacity in Self-Regulatory
Processes: The Goal System and Self Evaluation
Selection of Goals and Life Priorities. Life span
theory (P. B. Baltes, 1997) emphasizes the critical im-
portance of selection of domains and life priorities for
effective regulation of developmental processes such as
advancement, maintenance, recovery and regulation of
loss. In this sense, personality traits as well as possible
selves act as motivational sources, and are linked to
goals that are either strived for or avoided.
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
The evidence on life span development of life priori-
ties and personal life investment patterns reported
above indeed points to selection into individual life con-
texts and the importance of internal and external con-
texts in defining salient features of the self across the
life span (see also Brandtstädter & Rothermund, 1994;
Cantor & Fleeson, 1994; Carstensen, 1995; Staudinger
& Schindler, 2005). Socioemotional selectivity theory,
for instance, argues for systematic and adaptive life
span changes in social goals over the life span (e.g.,
Carstensen et al., 1999). So, temporal constraints like
impending end of life may shift the criteria used for se-
lecting social relationships, requiring a corresponding
change in the criteria for judging a particular relation-
ship as adaptive (e.g., Carstensen et al., 1999).
Beyond the social realm, the adaptive value of life
priorities in general seems to change. For example, older
adults find meaning in life predominantly by searching
for “contentment,” whereas younger adults report
searching for “ happiness” (Dittmann-Kohli, 1991).
Younger people tend to assess their subjective well-
being in terms of accomplishments and careers, whereas
older people associate well-being with good health and
the ability to accept change (Ryff, 1989a). These
changes are highly adaptive and illustrate the impor-
tance of flexibility—giving up or reducing investment in
those roles and commitments that are no longer avail-
able, and investing in commitments which fit current
conditions of living (e.g., Brim, 1992; Dittmann-Kohli,
1991; Freund & Baltes, 2002b). Flexibility in goals and
investments, or priorities, is of course facilitated by a
rich variety of self-defining concepts to select from and
prioritize. In this sense, a rich variety of interrelated but
well-articulated life goals is part of a person’s develop-
mental reserve capacity (cf. Staudinger et al., 1995;
Riediger et al., 2005).
In addition to the repertoire and selection of goals,
other facets of goal pursuit also relate to adaptation.
Achieving a goal is usually adaptive, but the meaning-
fulness of the goal and the degree of commitment to it
may enhance or limit that adaptivity (see also Brun-
stein, 1993; Emmons, 1996). Further, one must act; one
study demonstrated that the relationship between peo-
ple’s goals and well-being was primarily mediated
through doing more in the selected domain (Holahan,
1988; see also Harlow & Cantor, 1996). Recent evi-
dence suggests that the pursuit of approach goals (or
hoped-for selves) is related to greater well-being, while
that of avoidance goals (or feared-for selves) relates to
639
less well-being (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 2003; Elliot,
Sheldon, & Church, 1997). Most of this research is done
with young adults and much less is known about
changes over the life span. Due to reduced resources
and increased risks, avoidance goals seem to be more
prevalent in later life and lose the dysfunctional effect
which they evince in young adulthood (Freund & Ebner,
in press). In old age it is the maintenance goals that
demonstrate the highest adaptive value.
The adaptiveness of goal investment is also altered
by life circumstances. Given highly restrictive life cir-
cumstances, such as major health constraints, concen-
tration on a few selected goals rather than many helps
to sustain levels of subjective well-being (Staudinger &
Fleeson, 1996). This finding has been replicated
with longitudinal data from the Berlin Aging Study
(Schindler & Staudinger, 2005b). When considering a
life span sample, it was found that it is during middle
adulthood and into old age that the exact composition
of the investment pattern (i.e., the selection pattern)
contributes significantly to subjective well-being (Staud-
inger & Schindler, 2005).
The Adaptive Value of Self-Evaluations. In ad-
dition to changes in content, ranking, and valence of
self-concepts and goals, self-evaluative processes
can be considered protective or risk factors. Three
motives of self-evaluation (see Fiske & Taylor, 1991)
can serve protective functions—self-verification, self-
enhancement (e.g., Taylor & Brown, 1988), and self-
improvement (e.g., Taylor, Neter, & Wayment, 1995).
General statements such as “positive illusions are
adaptive” are simplistic (cf. Taylor & Brown, 1988;
Colvin & Block, 1994; Baumeister, 1989). It’s important
to know when positive illusions are adaptive (e.g., at
which point in the action sequence; see e.g., Schwarz &
Bohner, 1996). It may, for instance, be adaptive to have
positive illusions before the action is completed to main-
tain motivation. But it may be dysfunctional to maintain
positive illusions during implementation and when inter-
preting outcomes, because this reduces the likelihood of
an adequate response (Oettingen, 1997). Consistent with
this reasoning, people think more realistically when set-
ting goals than when implementing them (Taylor & Goll-
witzer, 1995). The particular content of the illusions is
also important. For example, positive expectations about
behavior outcomes contrasted with negative fantasies
about the same outcome can result in the best behavioral
outcome (Oettingen, 1996). Such unresolved recent issues
640 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
qualify the existing literature on the adaptivity of self-
evaluations, which we address next.
Self-Evaluation: Social Comparisons. Goals shift in
any activity during the life span, and those shifts lead to
shifts in the selection and weighting of comparative in-
formation (Bandura & Cervone, 1983; Frey & Ruble,
1990). Individuals also modify their self-evaluative
standards within a given domain in order to adapt to de-
creases in their behavioral competence or negative
changes in their health condition, thus maintaining sta-
bility in their self-views (Buunk & Gibbons, 1997; Frey
& Ruble, 1990).
Social comparison and other forms of interactive
minds (P. B. Baltes & Staudinger, 1996a) are one im-
portant mechanism of self-regulation (e.g., Wood,
1996). New reference groups are selected or sometimes
even constructed in order to permit a reorganization of
personal standards of evaluation (e.g., Buunk, 1994).
Downward comparisons, in which individuals compare
themselves to people who are worse off in a relevant do-
main of functioning, may become more important with
age, increasing levels of risk, or losses that cannot be
remedied through instrumental action (e.g., Filipp &
Mayer, 2005; Heckhausen & Krueger, 1993; Heidrich &
Ryff, 1993). Of course, little is known about the level of
consciousness at which people make such comparisons
in everyday life.
The downward comparison story is not as simple as
it seems, however (see also Wood, 1996). The opera-
tionalization of downward social comparisons varies
markedly between studies. Some studies evaluate spon-
taneous reasons for self-evaluations provided “on-
line,” which are later coded for comparison standards.
Other studies ask in retrospect for the frequency with
which social upward, downward, and lateral compar-
isons are made and relate this to measures of well-
being (e.g., Filipp & Buch-Bartos, 1994). Still other
studies have participants rate themselves and a gener-
alized other on certain personality dimensions, and
then indirectly infer upward or downward comparisons
(e.g., Heckhausen & Krueger, 1993). As suggested
above, the most critical issue for adaptivity may be the
use of the most functional comparison at the appropri-
ate time during the person-situation transaction,
something seldom addressed in these studies.
Self-Evaluation: Lifetime Comparisons. Besides
social comparisons, comparisons with oneself at dif-
ferent times in the life span constitute an important
resource for the self. As noted earlier, evidence on life-
time trajectories of social and lifetime comparisons
remains scarce. In one study, higher frequency of
future-oriented comparisons by older participants was
related to lower well-being (Fillip & Buch-Bartos,
1994). In contrast, drawing on past successes in diffi-
cult situations can produce adaptive outcomes (Aldwin,
Sutton, Chiara, & Spiro, 1996; see also Staudinger &
Fleeson, 1996). Obviously, it is critical to distinguish
between upward and downward temporal comparisons,
as past and future comparisons can involve standards
of better or worse functioning. It is not the temporal
comparison per se that is protective or damaging;
rather, depending on the characteristic or domain, and
on the point in the self-regulatory process, lifetime
comparisons can result in an enhanced self-evaluation
or a sense of loss and decline. Selectively attending to
positive aspects of the self at different points in the
lifetime can support a positive sense of self at the pres-
ent. The endorsement of selective lifetime comparisons
may contribute to the lack of age differences in concur-
rent self-evaluations.
Longitudinal work has demonstrated that self-
perceived personality change may be biased by what
one might call “ time enhancement ” (Woodruff &
Birren, 1972). Participants perceive improvement as
compared to their own past, whereas the actual ratings
collected at the two occasions (25 years apart) did
not reveal significant change (see also Ross, 1997).
Unfortunately, no interactions with age in this ten-
dency to upgrade the past were tested. Other work on
self-perceived personality change shows that discrep-
ancies between ratings of past, present, future, and
ideal personality are especially pronounced for young
adults and hardly existent for older adults (Ryff, 1991;
see also Ross & Bühler, 2001). It seems adaptive—and
in line with respective developmental tasks—for young
adults to strive for improvement and thus perceiving
the past and the future to be of a different category
(contrast effect; Schwarz & Strack, 1999). While for
older adults, with decreasing resources, it seems adap-
tive to conceive of the future as being close to the pres-
ent and the past and perceiving them as belonging to
one category (assimilation effect; Schwarz & Strack,
1999). In this vein, a recent study found that in old age
perceptions of ourselves in the past and the future have
a stronger predictive value for our well-being in the
present than in young and middle adulthood, which
 Second Level 5 Example: The Study of Personality Development across the Life Span
may in fact contribute to perceiving fewer changes
(Staudinger, Bluck, & Herzberg, 2003).
Persons’ current view of themselves may not be mean-
ingful unless we also understand how they believe they
once were and will become. Being moderately ex-
traverted in the present when having been very ex-
traverted in the past has different implications for
well-being than being moderately extraverted in the pres-
ent and introverted in the past. Fleeson and Baltes (1998)
showed that past and future ratings of personality pre-
dicted well-being above and beyond present ratings.
When only current personality is assessed, the absence of
information about change may mask relationships be-
tween personality perceptions and well-being (see also
Fleeson & Heckhausen, 1997). Similar cautions apply to
goal assessments. Regrets about past, unattained goals
predict lower subjective well-being over and above cur-
rent goal ratings and general tendencies toward negative
affect (Lecci, Okun, & Karoly, 1994).
Coping and Control Strategies: Further
Evidence for Reserve Capacity Related to
Self-Regulatory Processes
In contemporary contextual models of coping (e.g.,
Brandtstädter & Greve, 1994; Filipp, 1999; Heckhausen
& Schulz, 1995; Lazarus, 1996; Staudinger et al., 1995)
questions of adaptivity are conditioned on the particu-
lar situation, including all its inherent constraints and
demands. Whether a coping behavior is adaptive de-
pends entirely on who does it, in response to which
stressor, and in which situation the behavior occurs. In
this vein, increasing evidence highlights the importance
of context. For example, depending on a person’s level
of physical impairment, different coping styles are re-
lated to subjective well-being (Aldwin & Revenson,
1987; Staudinger & Fleeson, 1996). What has been la-
beled “regressive” and thus dysfunctional coping under
“normal” living circumstances (e.g., “I like someone to
take over,” “denial,” “I give up”) is functional under
conditions of physical impairment. Thus, older adults’
“regression” in coping styles may be adaptive, given
higher incidences of physical constraints (Staudinger
et al., 1999). Of course, even “normally” adaptive be-
haviors are noneffective if not well executed (e.g., Suls
& David, 1996).
Beyond the adaptivity of specific coping behaviors, it
is important to have multiple coping options to choose
from, while retaining some selectivity. Those old indi-
viduals who report selective flexibility in coping, that is
641
endorsing some coping styles very strongly and others
not at all, also demonstrate high levels of well-being
(Staudinger & Fleeson, 1996). Similar findings are re-
ported for coping with depression in old age. Rather
than any particular form of coping, better mental health
means being able to choose from several different
responses (Forster & Gallagher, 1986). In a similar
vein, the integrated multiplicity and selectivity (with
regard to importance) of self-definitions has protective
value, and social relations with multiple functions are a
richer resource than other types of relationships (for
an overview, see Staudinger et al., 1995). This evidence
suggests that access to, and flexible selection from,
a repertoire of regulating functions or characteristics
(e.g., coping, self-definitions, functions of a relation-
ship, life investments) may be a key resource used by in-
dividuals in proactive adaptation.
People obviously show highly adaptive coping behavior
well into old age. In contrast to stereotypical views of the
elderly as rigid, the evidence based on social-cognitive
processes of self-representation, self-regulation, and self-
enhancement, points to a substantial capacity for adjust-
ment to and mastery of life’s demands. Of course, this
capacity for adaptation may find its limits in extreme
situations, such as the challenges of advanced old age
(P. B. Baltes & Smith, 2003; J. Smith & Baltes, 1999).
Many facets of coping and control processes remain
uninvestigated or poorly understood, however, includ-
ing the microgenesis of coping processes (e.g.,
Lazarus, 1996). To outline one example—findings sug-
gest that the critical factors in success at quitting ciga-
rette smoking involve being reflective and thoughtful
(e.g., emotion /self-focused) at a planning stage and
then problem-focused and behavioral during the actual
quitting process (Perz, DiClemente, & Carbonari,
1996). As in the case of self-evaluative cognitions, it is
also crucial to focus on the timing of coping. We need
to consider which coping behavior is exhibited at which
point in the coping process (e.g., Suls, David, & Har-
vey, 1996). For instance, longitudinal studies in the do-
main of coping with cancer (e.g., Filipp, 1999) and
with death of a close person (e.g., Wortman & Silver,
2001) demonstrated that coping strategies such as
“minimizing the threat ” and “ wish for someone to take
over ” maintained their adaptive power across a period
of 9 months after the critical event. In contrast, the
strategy “rumination” only showed positive relations
during the first 3 months and turned into being mal-
adaptive thereafter.
642 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Summarizing Foci and Facets of Personality
Development across the Life Span
In this section, we brought together theory and research
from three different areas of research, that is, trait per-
sonality, the self-system, and self-regulatory processes.
Each of these areas is characterized by their own foci
and methodological approaches. We have argued that
a life span perspective on personality development,
rather than viewing these three approaches as relatively
independent from each other or even mutually exclusive,
tries to incorporate and integrate theoretical and empir-
ical evidence from these fields. Dynamic systems theory
and similar theoretical perspectives such as models of
successful development provide useful theoretical guid-
ance for this endeavor.
1. A central feature of personality development is
the emergence of structure and of an associated system
of self-regulatory mechanisms that mediate successful
transactional adaptation. Beginning in childhood, we
obtain solid evidence for structure, a sense of coher-
ence, and some stable modes of adaptive behavior (e.g.,
Caspi & Bem, 1990). Such a view is represented in
dynamic-system models of development (Magnusson,
1996), where principles of structural emergence and
self-organization are critical for successful ontogenesis.
Structural organization and coherence of personality,
self, and self-regulatory mechanisms are a necessary
precondition (constraint) for adaptive fitness and fur-
ther growth. In this sense, the ensemble of features de-
scribed function as general-purpose mechanisms.
2. Theory and research have advanced beyond the
traditional trait versus change contrast. Traits them-
selves are part of the dynamic personality system. Thus,
even stability is developmental in the sense that it is the
result of surviving continuous challenge. Indeed, we do
change during adulthood and old age but to a degree that
does not jeopardize our sense of continuity. Personality
development is characterized by a dialectic between
trait expressions and self-regulation at work.
3. We have started to explore the fertility of ex-
tending the distinction between the biologically driven
cognitive mechanics and the culturally driven cogni-
tive pragmatics to also cover the field of personality
functioning. The result of this endeavor is a heuristic
model that distinguishes between the biologically
driven mechanics and the culturally driven pragmatics
of life. The two neurophysiological indicators selected
to represent the mechanics of life, that is, heart rate
activity and cerebral asymmetry, seem to evince less
steep increases in the beginning and lesser decreases
at the end of life; as well as lower longitudinal stabil-
ity of interindividual differences when compared with
the developmental evidence that is available about the
life mechanics of cognition. One source of this differ-
ence in trajectories may be that for evolutionary
reasons children are already further developed
with regard to basic emotional and motivational ten-
dencies than in terms of higher cognitive functions.
Consequently, we may speculate that following the
law of “ first in, last out ” these basic indicators of
emotional and motivational functioning maintain
higher levels of functioning until later in life than indi-
cators of the cognitive mechanics. Such an interpreta-
tion would make it understandable why many
personality mechanisms are well-preserved into older
ages and only demonstrate decline when the oldest-old
are considered.
4. There has been no systematic work as of yet on the
interaction between the life mechanics and pragmatics
of personality. Also our knowledge about the links be-
tween the neurophysiological and the behavioral level
are still at the beginning. Thus, our insight into the func-
tional relations between the life mechanics and pragmat-
ics in that regard is rather limited. Nevertheless, the
limited evidence available foreshadows the rich and
complex interactions taking place along the continuum
between the life mechanics and pragmatics of personal-
ity. The picture is further complicated by the special
role of the self in the development of the mechanics and
pragmatics of life. The self is not merely a developing
element in this system, but also has an orchestrating
function, coordinating cognitive, emotional, and moti-
vational development. When it comes to life as a whole,
the self can be postulated to play a central role in orga-
nizing our actions and thoughts, but we need to recog-
nize that at least the consciously agentic self is but part
of organizing behaviors.
5. Against this background, we suggest that in the
domain of the personality system, developmental in-
creases and stability dynamics extend over longer time
spans than is true for the domain of cognition qua cog-
nition. In fact, we have argued that the losses and
stressors of adult life may even result in advances re-
garding the acquisition and refinement of self-
regulatory skills. Still, when studying the resilience of
the aging self, we also need to take into consideration
 Concluding Commentary 643

whether the underlying physiological and neurological functional losses may for more and more persons reach
systems have a debilitating and/or facilitating influ- an overwhelming degree or at earlier ages when other
ence on self and personality functioning. The less pos- extreme life circumstances result in an imbalance of
itive evidence on personality functioning in the oldest gains and losses.
old supports this conjecture. 7. The systemic and overall developmental theory of
6. Personality as a dynamic system composed of selective optimization with compensation introduced in
various components with different properties holds a the first part of this chapter serves as a useful theoreti-
domain-general potential for the transactional adapta- cal tool when analyzing the adaptive potential of the
tion of the developing organism. We argued and pre- self and personality (P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990b).
sented evidence that personality serves an executive or When orchestrating the optimization of development by
orchestrating function with regard to the management processes such as selection and compensation, the ap-
of gains and losses during ontogeny. Personality pos- praisal of resources is of central importance. Questions
sesses a great ability to negotiate the opportunities and such as how to evolve a goal structure and the associated
constraints of development that come with age, histori- goal-relevant means and motivational investment strate-
cal, and idiosyncratic conditions. What we have called gies, how to deal with selection-related disengagements
general-purpose mechanisms play a central role in this from other possible goals, when to accept a loss and re-
adaptational process. Besides protective personality orient one’s life, and when to still strive harder because
structure and content, it is primarily the availability of current behavior is not yet employed to its fullest capa-
a rich variety of self-regulatory mechanisms, and of an bility become crucial in composing life development.
adaptive algorithm which monitors their application, Brim has argued, for example, that one criterion for
that contribute to the adaptational power of personality. making this decision could be to consider something like
Table 11.6 summarizes these protective features in a “performance/capacity ratio” (Brim, 1992). Accord-
more detail. This adaptive potential reaches its limits ing to this ratio, acceptance of a certain loss becomes
in very old age when, due to biological processes, the necessary when the display of the behavior requires a
“dysfunctionally” high amount of reserve capacity.
TABLE 11.6 Summary of Protective and Optimizing
Characteristics of Self and Personality
Self and Protective and Optimizing CONCLUDING COMMENTARY
Personality Components Characteristics (Examples)
The purpose of this chapter was to present life span de-
Personality Conscientiousness, extraversion,
openness to experience, behavioral velopmental psychology as a theoretical orientation to
flexibility, ego resilience, the study of human development. Because the dominant
advanced ego level, and cognitive theoretical approaches in developmental psychology
investment
have been formed primarily by research on infants,
Self-concept Interrelated, well-articulated
variety of self-conceptions and children, and adolescents, we made special efforts to
life priorities highlight the uniqueness in developmental theory that
Positive agency (efficacy) beliefs emanates from a life span developmental framework. An
Self-regulatory and life- unfortunate by-product of this strategy of presentation
management mechanisms may have been the relative inattention paid to important
–Self-evaluation Application of a functional type of commonalities between age-specialized developmental
comparison (up, down, lateral,
temporal) at the appropriate time theories and theoretical efforts in life span work.
in the adaptational process There is a larger (and growing) commonality in theo-
–Goal setting and restructuring Selection and reorganization of retical approach between more age-specialized develop-
life priorities mental theories and life span developmental theory than
–Coping styles Intraindividual variability and
might appear to be true based on the arguments pre-
f lexibility in coping styles and
compensatory strategies sented in this chapter. In part, this is true because there
Flexibility in adapting goals to are several new sources (only alluded to in this chapter)
circumstances from which innovative theoretical efforts in various
–Systemic processes Selective optimization with quarters of developmental psychology have emerged
compensation (SOC) and which contain a structure of arguments similar to
644 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
those put forward in the short history of life span devel-
opmental theory. Work in cultural psychology, dynamic
systems theory, and on other forms of self-organization
in ontogenesis, are examples of this new theoretical
treatment of ontogenesis that is beginning to pervade
the developmental field as a whole.
As was true for life span psychology and the benefits
it derived from its contact with the biology of aging,
these new kinds of theoretical treatments have benefited
from transdisciplinary dialogue, especially with modern
developmental biologists but also anthropologists. Biol-
ogists have perhaps led the way in moving research away
from unilinear, organismic, and deterministic models of
ontogenesis to a theoretical framework that highlights
the contextual, adaptive, probabilistic, and self-
organizational dynamic aspects of ontogenesis (P. B.
Baltes & Graf, 1996; Magnusson, 1996). Similarly, cul-
tural psychologists and anthropologists (e.g., Cole,
1996; Durham, 1991; Valsiner & Lawrence, 1997) have
succeeded equally in convincingly demonstrating that
human ontogenesis is not only strongly conditioned by
culture, but that the architecture of human development
is essentially incomplete as to the culturally engineered
pathways and possible endpoints (P. B. Baltes, 1997).
Not the least because of this transdisciplinary dia-
logue, a new conception has emerged regarding the “na-
ture” (Kagan, 1984) of human development. In the
modern context, the nature of human development no
longer refers to the fixed-biological (P. B. Baltes, 1991;
R. M. Lerner, 1984; Magnusson, 1996). Rather, in modern
versions of ontogenesis, its nature is both biological and
cultural, and both of these categories are subject to dy-
namic and interactive changes as well as systemic trans-
formations. Of all developmental specialties, life span
development, because of its intimate connection with
long-term processes of individual development, cultural
evolution, and generational transmission is perhaps the
field most dependent on, and committed to, such views
(e.g., P. B. Baltes, Reuter-Lorenz, & Rösler, 2006; P. B.
Baltes & Smith, 2004; S.-C. Li, 2003). Most recently, the
emergence of the concept of biocultural co-construction-
sim is another justification of this orientation.
The future of life span developmental theory will de-
pend significantly on the extent to which the metatheo-
retical perspectives advanced turn out to be useful in
the conduct of empirical inquiry. On this score, the
1980s have witnessed impressive growth. In the area of
intellectual development (see following), for instance,
we now have available a cohort- and age-sequential
study that extends over close to 50 years (Schaie, 2005)
and demonstrates the varied conditions and outcomes
which we can observe when placing adult development
into the context of historical change and, in addition,
consider processes of individual differentiation. There
also have been advances in demonstrating the useful-
ness of the life span approach for other specialties such
as clinical (Staudinger et al., 1995; Vaillant, 1990) and
applied psychology (Abraham & Hansson, 1995; B. B.
Baltes & Dickson, 2001; Sterns & Dorsett, 1994). In
fact, these intersects of the life span approach to the
study of human development with other psychological
specialties need to be identified and nurtured.
Close to 25 years ago, one of us wrote: “ There can be
no strong field of life span developmental psychology
without a solid foundation in and connection to child-
hood. By the same token, the study of child development
does not exist in a vacuum, but is vitally enriched by
considering the aftermath of childhood” (P. B. Baltes,
1979b, p. 1). Since then, there has been much progress
in elaborating this reciprocal connection between age-
focused developmental specialities and their integration
into a life span view of human development, but at the
same time, this challenge continues to be with us.
REFERENCES
Abraham, J. D., & Hansson, R. O. (1995). Successful aging at work:
An applied study of selection, optimization, and compensation
through impression management. Journal of Gerontology: Psycho-
logical Sciences, 50B, 94–103.
Ackerman, P. L. (1996). A theory of adult intellectual develop-
ment: Process, personality, interests, and knowledge. Intelli-
gence, 22, 227–257.
Ackerman, P. L., Beier, M. E., & Bowen, K. R. (2000). Explorations
of crystallized intelligence. Learning and Individual Dif ferences,
12(1), 105.
Ackerman, P. L., & Cianciolo, A. T. (2000). Cognitive, perceptual-
speed, and psychomotor determinants of individual differences
during skill acquisition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Ap-
plied, 6, 259–290.
Aldwin, C. M., & Revenson, T. A. (1987). Does coping help? A reex-
amination of the relation between coping and mental health. Jour-
nal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53, 337–348.
Aldwin, C. M., Sutton, K. J., Chiara, G., & Spiro, A., III. (1996). Age
differences in stress, coping, and appraisal: Findings from the
Normative Aging Study. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological
Sciences, 51B, 179–188.
Aldwin, C. M., Sutton, K. J., & Lachman, M. (1996). The develop-
ment of coping resources in adulthood. Journal of Personality,
64, 837–871.
Anokhin, A. P., Müller, V., Lindenberger, U., & Heath, A. C. (in
press). Genetic inf luences on dynamic complexity of brain oscil-
lations. Neuroscience Letters.

Ardelt, M. (2004). Wisdom as expert knowledge system: A critical
review of a contemporary operationalization of an ancient con-
cept. Human Development, 47, 257–285.
Aspinwall, L. G., & Staudinger, U. M. (2003). A psychology of human
strengths: Some central issues of an emerging field. In L. G. As-
pinwall & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), A psychology of human
strengths (pp. 9–22). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Axelrod, R. (1984). The evolution of cooperation. New York: Basic
Books.
Bäckman, L., & Dixon, R. A. (1992). Psychological compensation: A
theoretical framework. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 1–25.
Bäckman, L., & Farde, L. (2004). The role of dopamine systems in
cognitive aging. In R. Cabeza, L. Nyberg, & D. Park (Eds.), Cog-
nitive neuroscience of aging: Linking cognitive and cerebral aging.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Bäckman, L., Josephsson, S., Herlitz, A., Stigsdotter, A., & Viitanen,
M. (1991). The generalizability of training gains in dementia: Ef-
fects of an imagery-based mnemonic on face-name retention du-
ration. Psychology and Aging, 6, 489–492.
Baddeley, A. D. (2000). The episodic buffer: A new component of
working memory? Trends in Cognitive Science, 4, 417–423.
Baltes, B. B., & Dickson, M. W. (2001). Using life-span models in
industrial-organizational psychology: The Theory of Selective
Optimization with Compensation. Applied Developmental Sci-
ence, 5, 51–61.
Baltes, B. B., & Heydens-Gahir, H. A. (2003). Reduction of work-
family conf lict through the use of selection, optimization, and
compensation behaviors. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88,
1005–1018.
Baltes, M. M. (1987). Erfolgreiches altern als ausdruck von verhal-
tenskompetenz und umweltqualität. In C. Niemitz (Ed.), Der men-
sch im zusammenspiel von anlage und umwelt (pp. 353–377).
Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany: Suhrkamp.
Baltes, M. M. (1988). The etiology and maintenance of dependency
in the elderly: Three phases of operant research. Behavior Ther-
apy, 19, 301–319.
Baltes, M. M. (1995). Dependency in old age: Gains and losses. Cur-
rent Directions in Psychological Science, 4, 14–19.
Baltes, M. M. (1996). The many faces of dependency in old age. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, M. M., & Baltes, P. B. (Eds.). (1986). The psychology of con-
trol and aging. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Baltes, M. M., & Carstensen, L. L. (1996). The process of successful
ageing. Aging and Society, 16, 397–422.
Baltes, M. M., & Carstensen, L. L. (1999). Social psychological the-
ories and their applications to aging: From individual to collec-
tive social psychology. In V. L. Bengtson & K. W. Schaie (Eds.),
Handbook of theories of aging (pp. 209–226). New York:
Springer.
Baltes, M. M., Kühl, K.-P., Gutzmann, H., & Sowarka, D. (1995). Po-
tential of cognitive plasticity as a diagnostic instrument: A cross-
validation and extension. Psychology and Aging, 10, 167–172.
Baltes, M. M., Kühl, K.-P., & Sowarka, D. (1992). Testing the limits
of cognitive reserve capacity: A promising strategy for early diag-
nosis of dementia? Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sci-
ences, 47, 165–167.
Baltes, M. M., & Lang, F. R. (1997). Everyday functioning and suc-
cessful aging: The impact of resources. Psychology and Aging,
12, 433–443.
References 645
Baltes, M. M., Neumann, E.-M., & Zank, S. (1994). Maintenance and
rehabilitation of independence in old age: An intervention pro-
gram for staff. Psychology and Aging, 9, 179–188.
Baltes, M. M., & Silverberg, S. B. (1994). The dynamics between de-
pendency and autonomy: Illustrations across the life span. In
D. L. Featherman, R. M. Lerner, & M. Perlmutter (Eds.), Life
span development and behavior (Vol. 12, pp. 41–90). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Baltes, M. M., & Wahl, H.-W. (1992). The dependency-support script
in institutions: Generalization to community settings. Psychology
and Aging, 7, 409–418.
Baltes, P. B. (1968). Longitudinal and cross-sectional sequences in
the study of age and generation effects. Human Development,
11, 145–171.
Baltes, P. B. (1973). Life span models of psychological aging: A
white elephant? Gerontologist, 13, 457–512.
Baltes, P. B. (Ed.). (1976). Symposium on implications of life span
developmental psychology for child development. Advances in
Child Development and Behavior, 11, 167–265.
Baltes, P. B. (1979a). Life span developmental psychology: Some con-
verging observations on history and theory. In P. B. Baltes &
O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 2,
pp. 255–279). New York: Academic Press.
Baltes, P. B. (1979b, Summer). On the potential and limits of child
development: Life span developmental perspectives. Newsletter of
Society for Research in Child Development, 1–4.
Baltes, P. B. (1983). Life span developmental psychology: Observa-
tions on history and theory revisited. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), De-
velopmental psychology: Historical and philosophical perspectives
(pp. 79–111). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Baltes, P. B. (1984). Intelligenz im alter [Intelligence in old age].
Spektrum der Wissenschaft, 5, 46–60.
Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theoretical propositions of life span develop-
mental psychology: On the dynamics between growth and decline.
Developmental Psychology, 23, 611–626.
Baltes, P. B. (1991). The many faces of human aging: Toward a psycho-
logical culture of old age. Psychological Medicine, 21, 837–854.
Baltes, P. B. (1993). The aging mind: Potential and limits. Gerontolo-
gist, 33, 580–594.
Baltes, P. B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human on-
togeny: Selection, optimization, and compensation as founda-
tion of developmental theory. American Psychologist, 52,
366–380.
Baltes, P. B. (Guest Ed.). (2005). Theoretical approaches to life span
development: Interdisciplinary perspectives [Special issue]. Re-
search in Human Development, 2(1/2).
Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1980). Plasticity and variability in
psychological aging: Methodological and theoretical issues. In
G. E. Gurski (Ed.), Determining the ef fects of aging on the cen-
tral nervous system (pp. 41–66). Berlin, Germany: Schering.
Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1990a). Psychological perspectives on
successful aging: The model of selective optimization with com-
pensation. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful
aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences (pp. 1–34). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (Eds.). (1990b). Successful aging: Per-
spectives from the behavioral sciences. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Baltes, P. B., Cornelius, S. W., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1979). Cohort
effects in developmental psychology. In J. R. Nesselroade & P. B.
646 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Baltes (Eds.), Longitudinal research in the study of behavior and
development (pp. 61–87). New York: Academic Press.
Baltes, P. B., Dittmann-Kohli, F., & Dixon, R. A. (1984). New per-
spectives on the development of intelligence in adulthood: Toward
a dual-process conception and a model of selective optimization
with compensation. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life
span development and behavior (Vol. 6, pp. 33–76). New York:
Academic Press.
Baltes, P. B., Freund, A. M., & Li, S.-C. (2005). The psychological
science of human aging. In M. Johnson, V. L. Bengston, P. G.
Coleman, & T. Kirkwood (Eds.), Cambridge handbook of age and
aging. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Goulet, L. R. (1970). Status and issues of a life span
developmental psychology. In L. R. Goulet & P. B. Baltes (Eds.),
Life span developmental psychology: Research and theory
(pp. 4–21). New York: Academic Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Goulet, L. R. (1971). Exploration of developmental
variables by manipulation and simulation of age differences in
behavior. Human Development, 14, 149–170.
Baltes, P. B., & Graf, P. (1996). Psychological aspects of aging: Facts
and frontiers. In D. Magnusson (Ed.), The life span development
of individuals: Behavioural, neurobiological and psychosocial per-
spectives (pp. 427–459). Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Kliegl, R. (1992). Further testing of limits of cogni-
tive plasticity: Negative age differences in a mnemonic skill are
robust. Developmental Psychology, 28, 121–125.
Baltes, P. B., & Kunzmann, U. (2003). Wisdom. Psychologist, 16, 131–133.
Baltes, P. B., & Kunzmann, U. (2004). The two faces of wisdom: Wis-
dom as a general theory of knowledge and judgment about excel-
lence in mind and virtue versus wisdom as everyday realization in
people and products. Human Development, 47, 290–299.
Baltes, P. B., & Labouvie, G. V. (1973). Adult development of intel-
lectual performance: Description, explanation, modification. In
C. Eisdorfer & M. P. Lawton (Eds.), The psychology of adult de-
velopment and aging (pp. 157–219). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Baltes, P. B., & Lindenberger, U. (1988). On the range of cognitive
plasticity in old age as a function of experience: 15 years of inter-
vention research. Behavior Therapy, 19, 283–300.
Baltes, P. B., & Lindenberger, U. (1997). Emergence of a powerful
connection between sensory and cognitive functions across the
adult life span: A new window at the study of cognitive aging?
Psychology and Aging, 12, 12–21.
Baltes, P. B., Lindenberger, U., & Staudinger, U. M. (1998). Life span
theory in developmental psychology. In W. Damon (Editor-in-
Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology:
Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th ed.,
pp. 1029–1143). New York: Wiley.
Baltes, P. B., & Mayer, K. U. (Eds.). (1999). The Berlin Aging Study:
Aging from 70 to 100. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., Mayer, K. U., Helmchen, H., & Steinhagen-Thiessen, E.
(1993). The Berlin Aging Study (BASE): Overview and design.
Ageing and Society, 13, 483–515.
Baltes, P. B., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1978). Multivariate antecedents
of structural change in adulthood. Multivariate Behavioral Re-
search, 13, 127–152.
Baltes, P. B., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1984). Paradigm lost and paradigm
regained: Critique of Dannefer’s portrayal of life span develop-
mental psychology. American Sociological Review, 49, 841–846.
Baltes, P. B., Reese, H. W., & Lipsitt, L. P. (1980). Life span devel-
opmental psychology. Annual Review of Psychology, 31, 65–110.
Baltes, P. B., Reese, H. W., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1977). Life span de-
velopmental psychology: Introduction to research methods. Mon-
terey, CA: Brooks/Cole.
Baltes, P. B., Reese, H. W., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1988). Life span de-
velopmental psychology: Introduction to research methods. Hills-
dale, NJ: Erlbaum. (Original work published 1977)
Baltes, P. B., Rösler, F., & Reuter-Lorenz, P. A. (2006). Prologue:
The perspective of biocultural co-constructivism. In P. B. Baltes,
P. A. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler (Eds.), Lifespan development
and the brain: The perspective of biocultural co-constructivism
(pp. 3–39). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., Reuter-Lorenz, P., & Rosler, F. (Eds.). (2006). Lifespan
development and the brain: The perspective of biocultural co-
constructivism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Schaie, K. W. (1976). On the plasticity of intelligence
in adulthood and old age: Where Horn and Donaldson fail. Ameri-
can Psychologist, 31, 720–725.
Baltes, P. B., & Singer, T. (2001). Plasticity and the ageing mind: An
exemplar of the biocultural orchestration of brain and behaviour.
European Review: Interdisciplinary Journal of the Academia Eu-
ropaea, 9, 59–76.
Baltes, P. B., & Smith, J. (1990). The psychology of wisdom and its on-
togenesis. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Wisdom: Its nature, origins, and
development (pp. 87–120). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Smith, J. (2003). New frontiers in the future of aging:
From successful aging of the young old to the dilemmas of the
fourth age. Gerontology, 49, 123–135.
Baltes, P. B., & Smith, J. (2004). Life span psychology: From de-
velopmental contextualism to developmental biocultural co-
constructivism. Research in Human Development, 1(3), 123–143.
Baltes, P. B., Smith, J., & Staudinger, U. M. (1992). Wisdom and suc-
cessful aging. In T. Sonderegger (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on
Motivation (Vol. 39, pp. 123–167). Lincoln: University of Ne-
braska Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (Eds.). (1996a). Interactive minds:
Life span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (1996b). Interactive minds in a life
span perspective: Prologue. In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger
(Eds.), Interactive minds: Life span perspectives on the social
foundation of cognition (pp. 1–32). New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Wisdom: A metaheuristic
to orchestrate mind and virtue towards excellence. American Psy-
chologist, 55, 122–136.
Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., & Lindenberger, U. (1999). Life span
psychology: Theory and application to intellectual functioning
[Review]. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 471–507.
Baltes, P. B., Staudinger, U. M., Maercker, A., & Smith, J. (1995).
People nominated as wise: A comparative study of wisdom-
related knowledge. Psychology and Aging, 10, 155–166.
Baltes, P. B., & Willis, S. L. (1982). Plasticity and enhancement of
intellectual functioning in old age: Penn State’s Adult Develop-
ment and Enrichment Project ADEPT. In F. I. M. Craik & S. E.
Trehub (Eds.), Aging and cognitive processes (pp. 353–389). New
York: Plenum Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Willis, S. W. (1977). Toward psychological theories
of aging and development. In J. E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.),

Handbook of the psychology of aging (pp. 128–154). New York:
Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Baltissen, R. (2005). Psychophysiologische aspekte des mittleren
und höheren erwachsenenalters [Psychophysiological aspects
of middle and older age]. In S. H. Filipp & U. M. Staudinger
(Eds.), Entwicklungspsychologie des mittleren und höheren
erwachsenalters: Enzyklopädie der psychologie [Developmental
psychology of the middle and older age] (pp. 123–173). Göttin-
gen, Germany: Hogrefe.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency.
American Psychologist, 37, 122–147.
Bandura, A. (1984). Representing personal determinants in causal
structures. Psychological Review, 91, 508–511.
Bandura, A. (1993). Perceived self-efficacy in cognitive development
and functioning. Educational Psychologist, 28, 117–148.
Bandura, A. (1997). Self-ef ficacy: The exercise of control. New
York: Freeman.
Bandura, A., & Cervone, D. (1983). Self-evaluative and self-efficacy
mechanisms governing the motivational effects of goal systems.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 1017–1028.
Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. (1963). Social learning and personality
development. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Barkow, J. H., Cosmides, L., & Tooby, J. (1992). The adapted mind:
Evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Barton, S. (1994). Chaos, self-organization, and psychology. Ameri-
can Psychologist, 49, 5–14.
Bashore, T. R., Ridderinkhof, K. R., & van der Molen, M. W. (1997).
The decline of cognitive processing speed in old age. Current Di-
rections in Psychological Science, 6, 163–169.
Basseches, M. (1984). Dialectical thinking and adult development.
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Baumeister, R. F. (1989). The optimal margin of illusion. Journal of
Social and Clinical Psychology, 8, 176–189.
Baumeister, R. F. (1992). Neglected aspects of self theory: Motiva-
tion, interpersonal aspects, culture, escape, and existential value.
Psychological Inquiry, 3, 21–25.
Bengtson, V. L., Reedy, M. N., & Gordon, C. (1985). Aging and self-
conceptions: Personality processes and social contexts. In J. E.
Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of
aging (2nd ed., pp. 544–593). New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
Benson, F. B., Cherny, S. S., Haith, M. M., & Fulker, D. W. (1993).
Rapid assessment of infant predictors of adult IQ: Midtwin-
midparent analyses. Developmental Psychology, 29, 434–447.
Berg, C. A., & Sternberg, R. J. (1985a). A triarchic theory of in-
tellectual development during adulthood. Developmental Review,
5, 334–370.
Berg, C. A., & Sternberg, R. J. (1985b). Response to novelty: Conti-
nuity versus discontinuity in the developmental course of intelli-
gence. In H. W. Reese (Ed.), Advances in child development and
behavior (pp. 2–47). New York: Academic Press.
Birren, J. E. (1959). Principles of research on aging. In J. E. Birren
(Ed.), Handbook of aging and the individual: Psychological and bi-
ological aspects (pp. 3–42). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Birren, J. E. (1964). The psychology of aging. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
Prentice-Hall.
Birren, J. E. (1988). A contribution to the theory of the psychology of
aging: As a counterpart of development. In J. E. Birren & V. L.
Bengtson (Eds.), Emergent theories of aging (pp. 153–176). New
York: Springer.
References 647
Birren, J. E., & Fisher, L. M. (1995). Aging and speed of behavior:
Possible consequences for psychological functioning. Annual Re-
view of Psychology, 46, 329–353.
Birren, J. E., & Schaie, K. W. (Eds.). (1996). Handbook of the psy-
chology of aging (3rd ed.). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Bjorklund, D. F. (1997). The role of immaturity in human develop-
ment. Psychological Bulletin, 122, 153–169.
Blanchard-Fields, F. (1996). Social cognitive development in adult-
hood and aging. In F. Blanchard-Fields & T. M. Hess (Eds.),
Perspectives on cognitive change in adulthood and aging
(pp. 454–487). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Blanchard-Fields, F., & Norris, L. (1994). Causal attributions from
adolescence through adulthood: Age differences, ego level, and
generalized response style. Aging and Cognition, 1, 67–86.
Block, J. (1971). Lives through time. Berkeley, CA: Bancroft Books.
Block, J. (1993). Studying personality the long way. In D. C. Funder,
R. D. Parke, C. Tomlinson-Keasey, & K. Widaman (Eds.), Study-
ing lives through time: Personality and development—APA science
volumes (pp. 9–41). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Block, J. (1995). A contrarian view of the five-factor approach to per-
sonality description. Psychological Bulletin, 117, 187–215.
Bloom, B. (1985). Developing talent in young people. New York: Bal-
lantine Books.
Boesch, E. E. (1997). Boesch and cultural psychology [Special issue].
Culture and Psychology, 3(3).
Bornstein, M. H. (1989). Stability in early mental development: From
attention and information processing in infancy to language and
cognition in childhood. In M. H. Bornstein & N. A. Krasnegor
(Eds.), Stability and continuity in mental development
(pp. 147–170). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bosman, E. A., & Charness, N. (1996). Age-related differences in
skilled performance and skill acquisition. In F. Blanchard-Fields
& T. M. Hess (Eds.), Perspectives on cognitive change in adult-
hood and aging (pp. 428–453). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Brandtstädter, J. (1984). Personal and social control over develop-
ment: Some implications of an action perspective in life span de-
velopmental psychology. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.),
Life span development and behavior (Vol. 6, pp. 1–32). New York:
Academic Press.
Brandtstädter, J. (1998). Action perspectives on human development.
In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
book of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human de-
velopment (5th ed., pp. 807–866). New York: Wiley.
Brandtstädter, J., & Baltes-Götz, B. (1990). Personal control over de-
velopment and quality of life perspectives in adulthood. In P. B.
Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives from
the behavioral sciences (pp. 197–224). New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Brandtstädter, J., & Greve, W. (1994). The aging self: Stabilizing and
protective processes. Developmental Review, 14, 52–80.
Brandtstädter, J., & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.). (1999). Action and self de-
velopment: Theory and research through the life span. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Brandtstädter, J., & Renner, G. (1990). Tenacious goal pursuit and
f lexible goal adjustment: Explication and age-related analysis of
assimilative and accommodative models of coping. Psychology
and Aging, 5, 58–67.
Brandtstädter, J., & Rothermund, K. (1994). Self-perceptions of con-
trol in middle and later adulthood: Buffering losses by rescaling
goals. Psychology and Aging, 9, 265–273.
648 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Brandtstädter, J., & Rothermund, K. (2003). Intentionality and time in
human development and aging: Compensation and goal adjustment
in changing developmental contexts. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lin-
denberger (Eds.), Understanding human development: Dialogues
with life span psychology (pp. 105–124). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Brandtstädter, J., & Wentura, D. (1995). Adjustment to shifting pos-
sibility frontiers in later life: Complementary adaptive modes. In
R. A. Dixon & L. Bäckman (Eds.), Psychological compensation:
Managing losses and promoting gains (pp. 83–106). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Brandtstädter, J., Wentura, D., & Greve, W. (1993). Adaptive re-
sources of the aging self: Outlines of an emergent perspective. In-
ternational Journal of Behavioral Development, 16, 323–349.
Brandtstädter, J., Wentura, D., & Rothermund, K. (1999). Intentional
self-development through adulthood and later life: Tenacious pur-
suit and f lexible adjustment of goals. In J. Brandtstädter & R. M.
Lerner (Eds.), Action and self-development: Theory and research
through the life span (pp. 373–400). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Brehmer, Y., Li, S.-C., Müller, V., von Oertzen, T., & Lindenberger,
U. (2005). Memory plasticity across the lifespan: Uncovering chil-
dren’s latent potential. Unpublished manuscript, Max Planck In-
stitute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Brent, S. B. (1978a). Individual specialization, collective adaptation
and rate of environmental change. Human Development, 21, 21–23.
Brent, S. B. (1978b). Prigogine’s model for self-organization in non-
equilibrium systems: Its relevance for developmental psychology.
Human Development, 21, 374–387.
Brim, O. G., Jr. (1976). Life span development of the theory of one-
self: Implications for child development. In P. B. Baltes (Ed.), Ad-
vances in Child Development and Behavior, 11, 242–251.
Brim, O. G., Jr. (1988). Losing and winning: The nature of ambition
in everyday life. Psychology Today, 9, 48–52.
Brim, O. G., Jr. (1992). Ambition: How we manage success and failure
throughout our lives. New York: Basic Books.
Brim, O. G., Jr., & Kagan, J. (1980). Constancy and change: A view
of the issues. In O. G. Brim Jr. & J. Kagan (Eds.), Constancy and
change in human development (pp. 1–25). Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Brim, O. G., Jr., & Ryff, C. D. (1980). On the properties of life events.
In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and
behavior (Vol. 3, pp. 367–388). New York: Academic Press.
Brim, O. G., Jr., Ryff, C. D., & Kessler, R. C. (Eds.). (2004). How
healthy are we? A national study of well-being at midlife. Chicago:
Chicago University Press.
Brim, O. G., Jr., & Wheeler, S. (1966). Socialization after childhood:
Two essays. New York: Wiley.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of
human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–532.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994). Nature-nuture reconceptu-
alized in developmental perspective: A bioecological model. Psy-
chological Review, 101, 568–586.
Brown, A. L. (1982). Learning and development: The problem of com-
patibility, access, and induction. Human Development, 25, 89–115.
Brunstein, J. C. (1993). Personal goals and subjective well-being: A
longitudinal study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
65, 1061–1070.
Buckner, R. I. (2004). Three principles for cognitive aging research:
Multiple causes and sequelae, variance in expression, and the
need for integrative theory. In R. Cabeza, L. Nyberg, & D. Park
(Eds.), Cognitive neuroscience of aging: Linking cognitive and
cerebral aging. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bühler, C. (1933). Der menschliche lebenslauf als psychologisches
problem [The human life course as a psychological problem]. Göt-
tingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
Burgess, R. L., & Molenaar, P. C. M. (1995). Commentary. Human
Development, 38, 159–164.
Burns, B. D. (2004). The effects of speed on skilled chess perfor-
mance. Psychological Science, 7, 52–55.
Buss, A. H., & Plomin, R. (1984). A temperament theory of personal-
ity development. New York: Wiley.
Buunk, B. P. (1994). Social comparison processes under stress: To-
wards an integration of classic and recent perspectives. European
Review of Social Psychology, 5, 211–241.
Buunk, B. P., & Gibbons, F. X. (1997). Health, coping, and well-being:
Perspectives from social comparison theory. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cabeza, R. (2002). Hemispheric asymmetry reduction in older adults:
The HAROLD model. Psychology and Aging, 17(1), 85–100.
Cabeza, R., Daselaar, S. M., Dolcos, F., Prince, S. E., Budde, M., &
Nyberg, L. (2004). Task-independent and task-specific age ef-
fects on brain activity during working memory, visual attention
and episodic retrieval. Cerebral Cortex, 14, 364–375.
Cabeza, R., Nyberg, L., & Park, D. (Eds.). (2004). Cognitive neuro-
science of aging: Linking cognitive and cerebral aging. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Campbell, J. D., Assanand, S., & Di Paula, A. (2003). The structure
of the self-concept and its relation to psychological adjustment.
Journal of Personality, 71, 115–140.
Cantor, N., & Blanton, H. (1996). Effortful pursuit of personal goals
in daily life. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psy-
chology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behavior
(pp. 338–359). New York: Guilford Press.
Cantor, N., & Fleeson, W. (1994). Social intelligence and intelligent
goal pursuit: A cognitive slice of motivation. Nebraska Sympo-
sium on Motivation (Vol. 41, pp. 125–179). Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press.
Cardon, L. R., & Fulker, D. W. (1991). Sources of continuity in infant
predictors of later IQ. Intelligence, 15, 279–293.
Cardon, L. R., & Fulker, D. W. (1994). A model of developmental
change in hierarchical phenotypes with application to specific
cognitive abilities. Behavior Genetics, 24, 1–16.
Carlson, J. S. (1994). Dynamic assessment of mental abilities. In R. J.
Sternberg (Ed.), Encyclopedia of intelligence (pp. 368–372). New
York: Macmillan.
Carstensen, L. L. (1995). Evidence for a life span theory of socioe-
motional selectivity. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
4, 151–156.
Carstensen, L. L., Isaacowitz, D. M., & Charles, S. T. (1999). Taking
time seriously: A theory of socioemotional selectivity. American
Psychologist, 54, 165–181.
Carus, F. A. (1808). Psychologie: Zweiter Teil: Specialpsychologie
[Psychology: Pt. 2. Special psychology]. Leipzig, Germany:
Barth & Kummer.
Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (1998). On the self-regulation of be-
havior. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Carver, C. S., & Scheier, M. F. (2003). Three human strengths. In
U. M. Staudinger & L. G. Aspinwall (Eds.), A psychology of
human strengths (pp. 87–102). Washington, DC: American Psy-
chological Association.

Case, R. (1985). Intellectual development: From birth to adulthood.
New York: Academic Press.
Case, R. (1992). The role of the frontal lobes in the regulation of
human development. Brain and Cognition, 20, 51–73.
Caspi, A. (1987). Personality in the life course. Journal of Personal-
ity and Social Psychology, 53, 1203–1213.
Caspi, A. (1998). Personality development across the life course. In
W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
book of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social emotional, and personality
development (5th ed., pp. 311–387). New York: Wiley.
Caspi, A., & Bem, D. J. (1990). Personality continuity and change
across the life course. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personal-
ity: Theory and research (pp. 549–575). New York: Guilford Press.
Caspi, A., & Silva, P. A. (1995). Temperamental qualities at age 3
predict personality traits in young adulthood: Longitudinal evi-
dence from a birth cohort. Child Development, 66, 486–498.
Cattell, R. B. (1971). Abilities: Their structure, growth, and action.
Boston: Houghton Miff lin.
Cerella, J. (1990). Aging and information processing rate. In J. E.
Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of
aging (pp. 201–221). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Chapman, M. (1988a). Constructive evolution: Origins and develop-
ment of Piaget’s thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Chapman, M. (1988b). Contextuality and directionality of cognitive
development. Human Development, 31, 92–106.
Chapman, M., & Lindenberger, U. (1992). Transitivity judgments,
memory for premises, and models of children’s reasoning. Devel-
opmental Review, 12, 124–163.
Charles, S. T., Reynolds, C. A., & Gatz, M. (2001). Age-related dif-
ferences and change in positive and negative affect over 23 years.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 136–151.
Charlesworth, B. (1994). Evolution in age-structured populations
(2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Charness, N. (1981). Search in chess: Age and skill differences. Jour-
nal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor-
mance, 7, 467–476.
Charness, N. (1989). Age and expertise: Responding to Talland’s
challenge. In L. W. Poon (Ed.), Everyday cognition in adulthood
and late life (pp. 437–456). Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Charness, N. (2005). Work /occupation: Macro-structural dimensions
of experience and skills training—A developmental perspective.
In P. B. Baltes, P. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler (Eds.), Life span
development and the brain: The perspective of biocultural co-
constructivism. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Charness, N. (2006). The inf luence of work and occupation on brain
development. In P. B. Baltes, P. A. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler
(Eds.), Lifespan development and the brain: The perspective
of biocultural co-constructivism (pp. 306–325). Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Chess, S., & Thomas, A. (1984). Origins and evolution of behaviour
disorders. New York: Brunner/ Mazel.
Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Rees, E. (1982). Expertise in problem
solving. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Advances in the psychology of
human intelligence (Vol. 1, pp. 7–75). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Chi, M. T., & Koeske, R. D. (1983). Network representation of a
child’s dinosaur knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 19, 29–39.
Chugani, H. T., Phelps, M. E., & Mazziotta, J. C. (1987). Positron
emission tomography study of human brain development. Annals
of Neurology, 22, 487–497.
References 649
Cicchetti, D. (1993). Developmental psychopathology: Reactions, re-
f lections, projections—Setting a path for the coming decade:
Some goals and challenges [Special issue]. Developmental Review,
13, 471–502.
Cicchetti, D., & Cohen, D. J. (Eds.). (1995). Developmental psycho-
pathology (Vols. 1–2). New York: Wiley.
Cicero, M. T. (44B.C./1744). Cato major: De senectute [Cato major or
His discourse of old age] (J. Logan, Trans.). Philadelphia: Ben-
jamin Franklin.
Cloninger, C. R. (1987). A systematic method of clinical description
and classification of personality variants: A proposal. Archives of
General Psychiatry, 44, 573–588.
Cloninger, C. R. (2003). Completing the psychobiological architec-
ture of human personality development: Temperament, character,
and coherence. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.),
Understanding human development: Dialogues with life span psy-
chology (pp. 159–181). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Cohen, S. H., & Reese, H. W. (Eds.). (1994). Life span developmen-
tal psychology: Methodological contributions. Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Colcombe, S. J., Erickson, K. I., Raz, N., Webb, A. G., Cohen, N. J.,
McAuley, E., et al. (2003). Aerobic fitness reduces brain tissue
loss in aging humans. Journals of Gerontology: Biological Sciences
and Medical Sciences, 58(2, Series A), 176–180.
Cole, M. (1996). Interacting minds in a life span perspective: A cul-
tural / historical approach to culture and cognitive development.
In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Interactive minds:
Life span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition
(pp. 59–87). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Collins, W. A. (Ed.). (1982). Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychol-
ogy: Vol. 15. The concept of development (pp. 55–81). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Colvin, C. R., & Block, J. (1994). Do positive illusions foster mental
health? An examination of the Taylor and Brown formulation.
Psychological Bulletin, 116, 3–20.
Costa, P.-T., Jr., Herbst, J. H., McCrae, R. R., & Siegler, I. C. (2000).
Personality at midlife: Stability, intrinsic maturation, and re-
sponse to life events. Assessment, 7, 365–378.
Costa, P. T., Jr., & McCrae, R. R. (1993). Psychological stress and
coping in old age. In L. Goldberger & S. Breznitz (Eds.), Hand-
book of stress: Theoretical and clinical aspects (2nd ed.,
pp. 403–412). New York: Free Press.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1994). Set like plaster? Evidence for
the stability of adult personality. In T. F. Heatherton & J. L.
Weinberger (Eds.), Can personality change? (pp. 21–40). Wash-
ington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Costa, P. T., Zondermann, A. B., McCrae, R. R., Cornoni-Huntley, J.,
Locke, B. Z., & Barbano, H. E. (1987). Longitudinal analyses of
psychological well-being in a national sample: Stability of mean
levels. Journal of Gerontology, 42, 50–55.
Cotman, C. W. (Ed.). (1985). Synaptic plasticity. New York: Guil-
ford Press.
Cowdry, E. V. (1939). Problems of ageing: Biological and medical as-
pects. Baltimore: Williams & Wilkins.
Craik, F. I. M. (1983). On the transfer of information from temporary
to permanent memory. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal So-
ciety of London B, 302, 341–359.
Craik, F. I. M. (1986). A functional account of age differences in mem-
ory. In F. Klix & H. Hagendorf (Eds.), Human memory and cogni-
tive capabilities, mechanisms, and performance (pp. 409–422).
Amsterdam: North-Holland.
650 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Craik, F. I. M., & Bialystok, E. (Eds.). (2006). Life span cognition:
Mechanisms of change. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Craik, F. I. M., & Byrd, M. (1982). Aging and cognitive deficits: The
role of attentional resources. In F. I. M. Craik & S. Trehub
(Eds.), Aging and cognitive processes (pp. 191–211). New York:
Plenum Press.
Craik, F. I. M., & Salthouse, T. A. (Eds.). (2000). The handbook of
aging and cognition (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Damon, W. (1996). The lifelong transformation of moral goals
through social inf luence. In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger
(Eds.), Interactive minds: Life span perspectives on the social
foundation of cognition (pp. 198–220). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
D’Andrade, R. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Dannefer, D. (1989). Human action and its place in theories of aging.
Journal of Aging Studies, 3, 1–20.
Datan, N., & Reese, H. W. (Eds.). (1977). Life span developmental
psychology: Dialectical perspectives on experimental research.
New York: Academic Press.
Davidson, R. J. (1984). Affect, cognition, and hemispheric special-
ization. In C. E. Izard, J. Kagan, & R. Zajonc (Eds.), Emotion,
cognition, and behavior (pp. 320–365). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Davidson, R. J., Jackson, D. C., & Kalin, N. H. (2000). Emotion, plas-
ticity, context, and regulation: Perspectives from affective neuro-
science. Psychological Bulletin, 126, 890–909.
Davidson, R. J., & Rickman, M. (1999). Behavioral inhibition and the
emotional circuitry of the brain: Stability and plasticity during
the early childhood years. In L. A. Schmidt & J. Schulkin (Eds.),
Extreme fear and shyness: Origins and outcomes (pp. 67–87). New
York: Oxford University Press.
Dawkins, R. (1982). The extended phenotype: The gene as the unit of
selection. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.
Deary, I. J., & Pagliari, C. (1991). The strength of g at different
levels of ability: Have Detterman and Daniel rediscovered
Spearmans law of diminishing returns? Intelligence, 15,
251–255.
de Geus, E. J. C., & Boomsma, D. I. (2002). A genetic neuroscience
approach to human cognition. European Psychologist, 6, 241–253.
DeKay, W. T., & Buss, D. M. (1992). Human nature, individual dif-
ferences, and the importance of context: Perspectives from evolu-
tionary psychology. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
1, 184–189.
Dempster, F. N. (1992). The rise and fall of the inhibitory mecha-
nism: Toward a unified theory of cognitive development and
aging. Developmental Review, 12, 45–75.
Denney, N. W. (1984). A model of cognitive development across the
life span. Developmental Review, 4, 171–191.
Depue, R. A., & Collins, P. F. (1999). Neurobiology of the structure
of personality: Dopamine, facilitation of incentive motivation,
and extraversion. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 22, 491–569.
Depue, R. A., Krauss, S. P., & Spoont, M. R. (1987). A two-dimensional
threshold model of seasonal bipolar affective disorder. In D. Mag-
nusson & A. Oehman (Eds.), Psychopathology: An interactional
perspective—Personality, psychopathology, and psychotherapy
(pp. 95–123). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Diamond, A. (2002). Normal development of prefrontal cortex from
birth to young adulthood: Cognitive functions, anatomy, and bio-
chemistry. In D. T. Stuss & R. T. Kinght (Eds.), Principles of frontal
lobe function (pp. 466–503). London: Oxford University Press.
Dick, D. M., & Rose, R. J. (2002). Behavior genetics: What’s new?
What’s next? Current Direction in Psychological Science, 11, 70–74.
Dickinson, C. M., & Rabbitt, P. M. A. (1991). Simulated visual im-
pairment: Effects on text comprehension and reading speed. Clin-
ical Vision Sciences, 6, 301–308.
Diehl, M., Hastings, C. T., & Stanton, J. M. (2001). Self-concept
differentiation across the adult life span. Psychology and Aging,
16, 643–654.
Diener, E., & Suh, E. (1998). Subjective well-being and age: An in-
ternational analysis. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geri-
atrics, 17, 304–324.
Dittmann-Kohli, F. (1991). Meaning and personality change from
early to late adulthood. European Journal of Personality, 1, 98–103.
Dittmann-Kohli, F., Bode, C., & Westerhof, G. J. (2001). Selbst- und
lebensvorstellungen in der zweiten lebenshälfte: Ergebnisse aus
dem alters-survey. In F. U. J. Bundesministerium für Familie, Se-
nioren (Ed.), Die zweite lebenshälfte: Psychologische perspek-
tiven—Ergebnisse des alters-survey (pp. 549–584). Stuttgart,
Germany: Kohlhammer.
Dixon, R. A., & Bäckman, L. (Eds.). (1995). Compensating for psy-
chological deficits and declines: Managing losses and promoting
gains. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Dixon, R. A., & Baltes, P. B. (1986). Toward life span research on the
functions and pragmatics of intelligence. In R. J. Sternberg &
R. K. Wagner (Eds.), Practical intelligence: Nature and origins of
competence in the everyday world (pp. 203–234). New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Dixon, R. A., & Gould, O. N. (1996). Adults telling and retelling
stories collaboratively. In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger
(Eds.), Interactive minds: Life span perspective on the social
foundation of cognition (pp. 221–241). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Dixon, R. A., & Lerner, R. M. (1988). A history of systems in devel-
opmental psychology. In M. H. Bornstein & M. E. Lamb (Eds.),
Developmental psychology: An advanced textbook (2nd ed.,
pp. 3–50). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Donahue, E. M., Robins, R. W., Roberts, B. W., & John, O. P. (1993).
The divided self: Concurrent and longitudinal effects of psycho-
logical adjustment and social roles on self-concept differentia-
tion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 834–846.
Doussard-Roosevelt, J. A., McClenny, B. D., & Porges, S. W.
(2001). Neonatal cardiac vagal tone and school-age development
outcome in very low birth weight infants. Developmental Psy-
chology, 38, 56–66.
Draganski, B., Gaser, C., Busch, V., Schuierer, G., Bogdahn, U., &
May, A. (2004). Changes in gray matter induced by training. Na-
ture, 427, 311–312.
Durham, W. H. (1991). Coevolution: Genes, culture and human diver-
sity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Ebner, N. C., & Freund, A. M. (2003, August). Win or don’t lose:
Age dif ferences in personal goal focus. Poster presented at the
111th Meeting of the American Psychological Association,
Toronto, Canada.
Edelman, G. M. (1987). Neural Darwinism: The theory of neuronal
group selection. New York: Basic Books.

Edelstein, W., & Noam, G. (1982). Regulatory structures of the
self and “postformal” stages in adulthood. Human Development,
6, 407–422.
Eichorn, D. H., Clausen, J. A., Haan, N., Honzik, M. P., & Mussen,
P. H. (Eds.). (1981). Present and past in middle life. New York:
Academic Press.
Elbert, T., Pantev, C., Wienbruch, C., Rockstroh, B., & Taub, E.
(1995). Increased cortical representation of the fingers of the left
hand in string players. Science, 270, 305–307.
Elbogen, E. B., Carlo, G., & Spaulding, W. (2001). Hierarchical clas-
sification and the integration of self-structure in late adoles-
cence. Journal of Adolescence, 24, 657–670.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1974). Children of the Great Depression. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (Ed.). (1985). Life course dynamics: Trajectories and
transitions 1968–1980. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1986). Military times and turning points in men’s
lives. Developmental Psychology, 22, 233–245.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1990). Studying lives in a changing society: Socio-
logical and personological explorations. In A. Rabin, R. Zucker,
R. Emmons, & S. Frank (Eds.), Studying persons and lives
(pp. 201–247). New York: Springer.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1994). Time, human agency, and social change: Per-
spectives on the life course. Social Psychology Quarterly, 57, 4–15.
Elliot, A. J., Sheldon, K. M., & Church, M. A. (1997). Avoidance per-
sonal goals and subjective well-being. Personality and Social Psy-
chology Bulletin, 23(9), 915–927.
Elman, J. L., Bates, E. A., Johnson, M. H., Karmiloff-Smith, A.,
Parisi, D., & Plunkett, K. (1996). Rethinking innateness: A connec-
tionist perspective on development. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Emmons, R. A. (1996). Striving and feeling: Personal goals and sub-
jective well-being. In P. M. Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The
psychology of action: Linking cognition and motivation to behav-
ior (pp. 313–337). New York: Guilford Press.
Engle, R. W., Conway, A. R. A., Tuholski, S. W., & Shishler, R. J.
(1995). A resource account of inhibition. Psychological Science,
6, 122–125.
Engle, R. W., Kane, M. J., & Tuholski, S. W. (1999). Individual dif-
ferences in working memory capacity and what they tell us about
controlled attention, general f luid intelligence, and functions of
the prefrontal cortex. In A. Miyake & S. Priti (Eds.), Models of
working memory: Mechanisms of active maintenance and executive
control (pp. 102–134). Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Ericsson, K. A., Krampe, R. T., & Tesch-Römer, C. (1993). The role
of deliberate practice in the acquisition of expert performance.
Psychological Review, 100, 363–406.
Ericsson, K. A., & Smith, J. (Eds.). (1991). Towards a general theory
of expertise: Prospects and limits. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle. Psychological Is-
sues Monograph 1. New York: International University Press.
Featherman, D. L., & Lerner, R. M. (1985). Ontogenesis and socio-
genesis: Problematics for theory and research about development
and socialization across the life span. American Sociological Re-
view, 50, 659–676.
Featherman, D. L., Smith, J., & Peterson, J. G. (1990). Successful
aging in a “post-retired” society. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes
References 651
(Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences
(pp. 50–93). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Filipp, S.-H. (1996). Motivation and emotion. In J. E. Birren &
K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging
(pp. 218–235). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Filipp, S.-H. (1999). A three-stage model of coping with loss and
trauma: Lessons from patients suffering from severe and chronic
disease. In A. Maercker, M. Schützwohl, & Z. Solomon (Eds.),
Posttraumatic stress disorder: A life span developmental perspec-
tive (pp. 43–80). Seattle, WA: Hogrefe & Huber.
Filipp, S.-H., & Buch-Bartos, K. (1994). Vergleichsprozesse und leben-
szufriedenheit im alter: Ergebnisse einer pilotstudie [Comparison
processes and life satisfaction in old age]. Zeitschrift für Entwick-
lungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie, 26, 22–34.
Filipp, S.-H., & Klauer, T. (1986). Conceptions of self over the life
span: Ref lections on the dialectics of change. In M. M. Baltes &
P. B. Baltes (Eds.), The psychology of aging and control
(pp. 167–204). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Filipp, S.-H., & Klauer, T. (1991). Subjective well-being in the face
of critical life events: The case of successful coping. In
F. Strack, M. Argyle, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), The social psychology
of subjective well-being (Vol. 21, pp. 213–234). Oxford, England:
Pergamon Press.
Filipp, S.-H., & Mayer, A. K. (2005). Selbstkonzepentwicklung [Self-
concept development]. In J. B. Asendorpf & H. Rauh (Eds.),
Soziale, emotionale und Persönlichkeitsentwicklung: Enzyklopädie
der Psychologie [Social, emotional, and personality development:
Encyclopedia of psychology]. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
Filipp, S.-H., & Staudinger, U. M. (Hrsg.). (2005). Entwicklungspsy-
chologie des mittleren und hoheren Erwachsenenalters (Enzy-
klopädie für Psychologie: Entwicklungspsychologie, Vol. 6).
Göttingen: Hogrefe.
Finch, C. E. (1990). Longevity, senescence, and the genome. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Finch, C. E., & Zelinski, E. M. (2005). Normal aging of brain struc-
ture and cognition: Evolutionary perspectives. Research in Human
Development, 2(1/2), 69–82.
Finkel, D., Pedersen, N. L., McClearn, G. E., Plomin, R., & Berg, S.
(1996). Cross-sequential analysis of genetic inf luences on cogni-
tive ability in the Swedish Adoption / Twin Study of Aging. Aging,
Neuropsychology, and Cognition, 3, 84–99.
Fisk, J. E., & Warr, P. (1996). Age-related impairment in associative
learning: The role of anxiety, arousal, and learning self-efficacy.
Personality and Individual Dif ferences, 21, 675–686.
Fiske, S. T., & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social cognition (2nd ed.). New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Flavell, J. H. (1970). Cognitive changes in adulthood. In L. R. Goulet
& P. B. Baltes (Eds.), Life span developmental psychology: Re-
search and theory (pp. 247–253). New York: Academic Press.
Flavell, J. H. (1992). Cognitive development: Past, present, and fu-
ture. Developmental Psychology, 28, 998–1005.
Fleeson, W., & Baltes, P. B. (1998). Beyond present-day personality
assessment: An encouraging exploration of the measurement prop-
erties and predictive power of subjective lifetime personality.
Journal of Research in Personality, 32, 411–430.
Fleeson, W., & Heckhausen, J. (1997). More or less “me” in past,
present, and future: Perceived lifetime personality during adult-
hood. Psychology and Aging, 12, 125–136.
652 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Flynn, J. R. (1987). Massive IQ gains in 14 nations: What IQ tests re-
ally measure. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 171–191.
Folkman, S., Lazarus, R. S., Pimley, S., & Novacek, J. (1987). Age
differences in stress and coping processes. Psychology and Aging,
2, 171–184.
Folkow, B., & Svanborg, A. (1993). Physiology of cardiovascular
aging. Psysiological Reviews, 73, 725–764.
Ford, D. H., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems theory:
An integrative approach. London: Sage.
Forster, J. M., & Gallagher, D. (1986). An exploratory study compar-
ing depressed and nondepressed elders coping strategies. Journals
of Gerontology, 41, 91–93.
Fox, P. W., Hershberger, S. L., & Bouchard, T. J. (1996). Genetic and
environmental contributions to the acquisition of a motor skill.
Nature, 384, 356–358.
Frazier, L. D., Hooker, K., Johnson, P. M., & Klaus, C. R. (2000). Con-
tinuity and change in possible selves in later life: A 5-year longitu-
dinal study. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 22, 237–243.
Fredrickson, B. L., & Levenson, R. W. (1998). Positive emotions
speed recovery from the cardiovascular sequelae of negative emo-
tions. Cognition and Emotion, 12, 191–220.
Freund, A. (1995). Wer bin ich? Die sebstdefinition alter menschen
[Who am I? The self-definition of older people]. Berlin, Ger-
many: Sigma.
Freund, A. M. (2002). Selection, optimization, and compensation. In
D. J. Ekerdt, R. A. Applebaum, K. C. Holden, S. G. Post, K. Rock-
wood, R. Schulz, et al. (Eds.), Encyclopedia of aging (Vol. 4,
pp. 1257–1260). New York: Macmillan.
Freund, A. M. (in press). Differential motivational consequences of
goal focus in younger and older adults. Psychology and Aging.
Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (1998). Selection, optimization, and
compensation as strategies of life-management: Correlations with
subjective indicators of successful aging. Psychology and Aging,
13, 531–543.
Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2000). The orchestration of selection,
optimization, and compensation: An action-theoretical conceptu-
alization of a theory of developmental regulation. In W. J. Perrig
& A. Grob (Eds.), Control of human behavior, mental processes,
and consciousness (pp. 35–58). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2002a). The adaptiveness of selec-
tion, optimization, and compensation as strategies of life man-
agement: Evidence from a preference study on proverbs. Journal
of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B, 426–434.
Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2002b). Life-management strategies
of selection, optimization, and compensation: Measurement by
self-report and construct validity. Journal of Personality and So-
cial Psychology, 82, 642–662.
Freund, A. M., & Ebner, N. C. (2005). The aging self: Shifting from
promoting gains to balancing losses. In W. Greve, K. Rothermund,
& D. Wentura (Eds.), The adaptive self: Personal continuity and
intentional self-development (pp. 185–202). New York: Hogrefe.
Freund, A. M., & Smith, J. (1999). Content and function of the self-
definition in old and very old age. Journal of Gerontology: Psy-
chological Sciences, 55–67.
Frey, K. S., & Ruble, D. N. (1990). Strategies for comparative evalua-
tion: Maintaining a sense of competence across the life span. In
R. J. Sternberg & J. John Kolligian (Eds.), Competence considered
(pp. 167–189). New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Friedman, H. S., Tucker, J. S., Schwartz, J. E., Tomlinson-Keasey, C.,
Martin, L. R., Wingard, D. L., et al. (1995). Psychosocial and be-
havioral predictors of longevity: The aging and death of the “ Ter-
mites.” American Psychologist, 50, 69–78.
Friedman, H. S., Tucker, J. S., Tomlinson-Keasey, C., Schwartz, J. E.,
Wingard, D. L., & Criqui, M. H. (1993). Does childhood person-
ality predict longevity? Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, 65, 176–185.
Fries, J. F., & Crapo, L. M. (1981). Vitality and aging. San Fran-
cisco: Freeman.
Funder, D. C. (2001). Personality. Annual Review of Psychology,
52, 197–221.
Garmezy, N. (1991). Resilience in children’s adaptation to negative
life events and stressed environments. Pediatric Annals, 20,
459–466.
Garrett, H. E. (1946). A developmental theory of intelligence. Amer-
ican Psychologist, 1, 372–378.
Gehlen, A. (1956). Urmensch und Spätkultur. Bonn, Germany:
Athenäum.
George, L. K., & Okun, M. A. (1985). Self-concept content. In E. Pal-
more, E. W. Busse, G. L.
Ghisletta, P., & Lindenberger, U. (2005). Exploring structural dy-
namics within and between sensory and intellectual functioning
in old and very old age: Longitudinal evidence from the Berlin
Aging Study. Intelligence, 33, 555–587.
Gigerenzer, G. (1996). Rationality: Why social context matters. In
P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Interactive minds:
Life span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition
(pp. 317–346). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gigerenzer, G. (2003). The adaptive toolbox and life span develop-
ment: Common questions. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lindenberger
(Eds.), Understanding human development: Dialogues with life
span psychology (pp. 423–435). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Gigerenzer, G., & Todd, P. M. (Eds.). (1999). Simple heuristics that
make us smart. Oxford University Press.
Gignac, M. A. M., Cott, C., & Badley, E. M. (2002). Adaptation to
disability: Applying selective optimization with compensation to
the behaviors of older adults with osteoarthritis. Psychology and
Aging, 17, 520–524.
Gobet, F., Lane, P. C. R., Croker, S., Cheng, P. C.-H., Jones, G.,
Oliver, I., et al. (2001). Chunking mechanisms in human learning.
Trends in Cognitive Neuroscience, 6(6), 236–243.
Goldberg, L. R. (1993). “ The structure of phenotypic personality
traits”: Author’s reactions to the six comments. American Psy-
chologist, 48, 1303–1304.
Goldberg, T. E., & Weinberger, D. R. (2004). Genes and the parsing
of cognitive processes. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 8, 325–335.
Gollwitzer, P. M., & Bargh, J. A. (Eds.). (1996). The psychology of
action: Linking cognition and motivation to action. New York:
Guilford Press.
Gottlieb, G. (1998). Normally occurring environmental and behav-
ioral inf luences on gene activity: From central dogma to probalis-
tic epigenesis. Psychological Review, 105, 792–802.
Gould, S. J. (1984). Relationship of individual and group change:
Ontogeny and phylogeny in biology. Human Development, 27,
233–239.
Gould, S. J., & Vrba, E. S. (1982). Exaptation—A missing term in the
science of form. Paleobiology, 8, 4–15.
Goulet, L. R., & Baltes, P. B. (Eds.). (1970). Life span developmental
psychology: Research and theory. New York: Academic Press.

Gray, J. A. (1981). A critique of Eysenck’s theory of personality. In
H. J. Eysenck (Ed.), A model of personality (pp. 246–276). Berlin,
Germany: Springer-Verlag.
Greenwald, A. G., & Pratkanis, A. R. (1984). The self. In R. S. Wyer
& T. K. Srull (Eds.), Handbook of social cognition (Vol. 3,
pp. 129–178). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Greve, W., & Staudinger, U. M. (in press). Resilience in later adult-
hood and old age: Resources and potentials for successful aging. To
appear in D. Cicchetti & A. Cohen (Eds.), Developmental Psycho-
pathology (2nd ed.).
Greve, W., & Wentura, D. (2003). Immunizing the self: Self-concept
stabilization through reality-adaptive self-definitions. Personal-
ity and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 39–50.
Grimm, J. (1860). Rede über das alter. In Kleinere Schriften von
Jacob Grimm (Vol. 1, pp. 188–210). Berlin, Germany: Harrwitz
und Grossmann.
Groffmann, K. I. (1970). Life span developmental psychology in Eu-
rope. In L. R. Goulet & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), Life span developmen-
tal psychology: Research and theory (pp. 54–68). New York:
Academic Press.
Gross, J. J., Carstensen, L. L., Pasupathi, M., Tsai, J., Skorpen, C. G.,
& Hsu, A. Y. C. (1997). Emotion and aging: Experience, expres-
sion, and control. Psychology and Aging, 12, 590–599.
Güntürkün, O. (2006). Epilogue: Letters on nature and nurture. In
P. B. Baltes, P. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler (Eds.), Lifespan de-
velopment and the brain: The perspective of biocultural co-
constructivism (pp. 379–397). Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Guthke, J., & Wiedl, K. H. (Eds.). (1996). Dynamisches Testen. Göt-
tingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
Hagen, E. H., & Hammerstein, P. (2005). Evolutionary biology and
the strategic view of ontogeny: Genetic strategies provide robust-
ness and f lexibility in the life course. Research in Human Devel-
opment, 2(1/2), 83–97.
Hale, S. (1990). A global developmental trend in cognitive processing
speed. Child Development, 61, 653–663.
Halford, G. S. (1993). Children’s understanding: The development of
mental models. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hall, G. S. (1922). Senescence: The last half of life. New York: Appleton.
Hambrick, D. Z., & Engle, R. W. (2002). Effects of domain knowl-
edge, working memory capacity, and age on cognitive perfor-
mance: An investigation of the knowledge-is-power hypothesis.
Cognitive Psychology, 44, 339–387.
Hamer, D., & Copeland, P. (1998). Living with our genes. New
York: Doubleday.
Hammerstein, P. (1996). The evolution of cooperation within and be-
tween generations. In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), In-
teractive minds: Life span perspectives on the social foundation of
cognition (pp. 35–58). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Harlow, R. E., & Cantor, N. (1996). Still participating after all these
years: A study of life task participation in later life. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 1235–1249.
Harmon-Jones, E., & Allen, J. J. B. (1998). Anger and frontal brain
activity: EEG asymmetry consistent with approach motivation de-
spite negative affective valence. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 74, 1310–1316.
Harris, D. B. (Ed.). (1957). The concept of development. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Harter, S. (1998). The development of self-representations. In
W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
References 653
book of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality
development (5th ed., pp. 553–617). New York: Wiley.
Hasher, L., & Zacks, R. T. (1988). Working memory, comprehension,
and aging: A review and a new view. Psychology of Learning and
Motivation, 22, 193–225.
Havighurst, R. J. (1948). Developmental tasks and education. New
York: Davis McKay.
Havighurst, R. J. (1973). History of developmental psychology: So-
cialization and personality development through the life span. In
P. B. Baltes & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Life span developmental psy-
chology (pp. 3–24). New York: Academic Press.
Hebb, D. O. (1949). The organization of behavior. New York: Wiley.
Heckhausen, J. (1997). Developmental regulation across adulthood:
Primary and secondary control of age-related challenges. Devel-
opmental Psychology, 33, 176–187.
Heckhausen, J. (Ed.). (2000). Motivational psychology of human de-
velopment: Developing motivation and motivating development.
Oxford, England: Elsevier.
Heckhausen, J., Dixon, R. A., & Baltes, P. B. (1989). Gains and
losses in development throughout adulthood as perceived by dif-
ferent adult age groups. Developmental Psychology, 25, 109–121.
Heckhausen, J., & Krueger, J. (1993). Developmental expectations for
the self and most other people: Age-grading in three functions of
social comparison. Developmental Psychology, 29, 539–548.
Heckhausen, J., & Schulz, R. (1993). Optimization by selection and
compensation: Balancing primary and secondary control in life
span development. International Journal of Behavioral Develop-
ment, 16, 287–303.
Heckhausen, J., & Schulz, R. (1995). A life span theory of control.
Psychological Review, 102, 284–304.
Heidrich, S. M., & Ryff, C. D. (1993). The role of social comparison
processes in the psychological adaptation of the elderly. Journals
of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 48, 127–136.
Helmchen, H., Baltes, M. M., Geiselmann, B., Kanowski, S., Linden,
M., Reischies, F. M., et al. (1999). Psychiatric illnesses in old age.
In P. B. Baltes & K. U. Mayer (Eds.), Berlin Aging Study: Aging
from 70 to 100 (pp. 167–196). New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Helson, R., & Kwan, V. S. Y. (2000). Personality development in
adulthood: The broad picture and processes in one longitudinal
sample. In S. Hampson (Ed.), Advances in personality psychology
(Vol. 1, pp. 77–106). London: Routledge.
Helson, R., & Wink, P. (1987). Two conceptions of maturity exam-
ined in the findings of a longitudinal study. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 53, 531–541.
Hermans, H. J. M. (1996). Voicing the self: From information process-
ing to dialogical interchange. Psychological Bulletin, 119(1), 31–50.
Hertzog, C. (1985). An individual differences perspective: Impli-
cations for cognitive research in gerontology. Research on
Aging, 7, 7–45.
Hertzog, C., Cooper, B. P., & Fisk, A. D. (1996). Aging and individ-
ual differences in the development of skilled memory search per-
formance. Psychology and Aging, 11, 497–520.
Hertzog, C., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2003). Assessing psychological
change in adulthood: An overview of methodological issues. Psy-
chology and Aging, 18, 639–657.
Hertzog, C., & Schaie, K. W. (1986). Stability and change in adult in-
telligence: Pt. 1. Analysis of longitudinal covariance structures.
Psychology and Aging, 1, 159–171.
654 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Hertzog, C., & Schaie, K. W. (1988). Stability and change in adult in-
telligence: Pt. 2. Simultaneous analysis of longitudinal means and
covariance structures. Psychology and Aging, 3, 122–130.
Herzog, A. R., Franks, M. M., Markus, H. R., & Holmberg, D. (1998).
Activities and well-being in older age: Effects of self-concept and
educational attainment. Psychology and Aging, 13, 179–185.
Herzog, A. R., & Markus, H. R. (1999). The self-concept in life span
and aging research. In V. L. Bengtson & K. W. Schaie (Eds.),
Handbook of theories of aging (pp. 227–252). New York: Springer.
Hess, T. M., & Pullen, S. M. (1996). Memory in context. In F.
Blanchard-Fields & T. M. Hess (Eds.), Perspectives on cognitive
change in adulthood and aging (pp. 387–427). New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Hetherington, E. M., Lerner, R. M., & Perlmutter, M. (Eds.). (1988).
Child development in life span perspective. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hobfoll, S. E. (2001). The inf luence of culture, community, and the
nested-self in the stress process: Advancing conservation of re-
sources theory. Applied Psychology: An International Review,
50, 337–421.
Holahan, C. K. (1988). Relation of life goals at age 70 to activity par-
ticipation and health and psychological well-being among Ter-
man’s gifted men and women. Psychology and Aging, 3, 286–291.
Holahan, C. K., Sears, R. R., & Cronbach, L. J. (1995). The gifted
group in later maturity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hollingworth, H. L. (1927). Mental growth and decline: A survey of
developmental psychology. New York: Appleton.
Hommel, B., Li, K. Z. H., & Li, S.-C. (2004). Visual search across the
life span. Developmental Psychology, 40, 545–558.
Hooker, K. (2002). New directions for research in personality and
aging: A comprehensive model for linking level, structure, and
processes. Journal of Research in Personality, 36, 318–334.
Horn, J. L. (1970). Organization of data on life span development of
human abilities. In L. R. Goulet & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), Life span
developmental psychology: Research and theory (pp. 423–466).
New York: Academic Press.
Horn, J. L. (1982). The theory of f luid and crystallized intelligence in
relation to concepts of cognitive psychology and aging in adult-
hood. In F. I. M. Craik & S. Trehub (Eds.), Aging and cognitive
processes (pp. 237–278). New York: Plenum Press.
Horn, J. L. (1989). Model of intelligence. In R. L. Linn (Ed.), Intelli-
gence: Measurement, theory, and public policy (pp. 29–73). Ur-
bana: University of Illinois Press.
Horn, J. L., & Hofer, S. M. (1992). Major abilities and development
in the adult period. In R. J. Sternberg & C. A. Berg (Eds.), Intel-
lectual development (pp. 44–99). New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Houdé, O. (1995). Rationalité, développement, et inhibition. Paris:
Presses Universitaires de France.
Hoyer, W. J. (1987). Acquisition of knowledge and the decentraliza-
tion of g in adult intellectual development. In C. Schooler & K. W.
Schaie (Eds.), Cognitive functioning and social structure over the
life course (pp. 120–141). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Hultsch, D. F., & MacDonald, S. W. S. (2004). Intraindividual vari-
ability in performance as a theoretical window onto cognitive
aging. In R. A. Dixon, L. Bäckman, & L.-G. Nilsson (Eds.), New
frontiers in cognitive aging (pp. 65–88). New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Humphreys, L. G., & Davey, T. C. (1988). Continuity in intellectual
growth from 12 months to 9 years. Intelligence, 12, 183–197.
Huttenlocher, P. R., & Dabholkar, A. S. (1997). Regional differences
in synaptogenesis in human cerebral cortex. Journal of Compara-
tive Neurology, 387, 167–178.
Johnson, M. H., Posner, M. I., & Rothbart, M. K. (1991). Components
of visual orienting in early infancy: Contingency learning, antici-
patory looking, and disengaging. Journal of Cognitive Neuro-
science, 3, 335–344.
Jones, H. E., & Conrad, H. (1933). The growth and decline of intelli-
gence: A study of a homogeneous group between the ages of 10
and 60. Genetic Psychological Monographs, 13, 223–298.
Just, M. A., Carpenter, P. A., & Keller, T. A. (1996). The capacity
theory of comprehension: New frontiers of evidence and argu-
ments. Psychological Review, 103(4), 773–780.
Kagan, J. (1964). American longitudinal research on psychological
development. Child Development, 35, 1–32.
Kagan, J. (1980). Perspectives on continuity. In O. G. Brim Jr. & J.
Kagan (Eds.), Constancy and change in human development
(pp. 26–74). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kagan, J. (1984). The nature of the child. New York: Basic Books.
Kagan, J. (1998). Three seductive ideas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Kagan, J., & Moss, H. (1962). Birth to maturity. New York: Wiley.
Kagan, J., & Snidman, N. (1991). Temperamental factors in human
development. American Psychologist, 46, 856–862.
Kahn, R. L., & Antonucci, T. C. (1980). Convoys over the life course:
Attachment, roles, and social support. In P. B. Baltes & O. G.
Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 3,
pp. 253–286). New York: Academic Press.
Kail, R. (1996). Nature and consequences of developmental change in
speed of processing. Swiss Journal of Psychology, 55, 133–138.
Kavsek, M. (2004). Predicting later IQ from infant visual habituation
and dishabituation: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Develop-
mental Psychology, 25, 369–393.
Kempermann, G. (2006). Adult neurogenesis. In P. B. Baltes,
P. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler (Eds.), Lifespan development and
the brain: The perspective of biocultural co-constructivism
(pp. 82–107). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Kirkwood, T. B. L. (2003). Age differences in evolutionary selection
benefits. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Under-
standing human development: Dialogues with life span psychology
(pp. 45–57). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Kliegl, R., & Baltes, P. B. (1987). Theory-guided analysis of mecha-
nisms of development and aging mechanisms through testing-the-
limits and research on expertise. In C. Schooler & K. W. Schaie
(Eds.), Cognitive functioning and social structure over the life
course (pp. 95–119). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Kliegl, R., Krampe, R., & Mayr, U. (2003). Formal models of age dif-
ferences in task-complexity effects. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lin-
denberger (Eds.), Understanding human development: Dialogues
with life span psychology (pp. 289–313). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Kliegl, R., Mayr, U., & Krampe, R. T. (1994). Time-accuracy func-
tions for determining process and person differences: An applica-
tion to cognitive aging. Cognitive Psychology, 26, 134–164.
Kliegl, R., Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1990). On the locus and process
of magnification of age differences during mnemonic training.
Developmental Psychology, 26, 894–904.
Kline, J. P., Blackhart, G. C., Woodward, K. M., Williams, S. R., &
Schwartz, G. E. R. (2000). Anterior electroencephalographic
asymmetry changes in elderly women in response to a pleasant
and an unpleasant odor. Biological Psychology, 52, 241–250.

Klix, F. (1993). Erwachendes Denken: Geistige Leistungen aus evolu-
tionspsychologischer Sicht. Heidelberg, Germany: Spektrum
Akademischer Verlag.
Kogan, N. (1990). Personality and aging. In J. E. Birren & K. W.
Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging
(pp. 330–346). New York: Academic Press.
Kohli, M., & Meyer, J. W. (1986). Social structure and social con-
struction of life stages. Human Development, 29, 145–180.
Kohn, M. L., & Schooler, C. (1983). Work and personality. Nor-
wood, NJ: Ablex.
Kramer, A. F., Hahn, S., Cohen, N. J., Banich, M. T., McAuley, E.,
Harrison, C. R., et al. (1999). Ageing, fitness and neurocognitive
function. Nature, 400, 418–419.
Kramer, A. F., Hahn, H., & Gopher, D. (2000). Task coordination and
aging: Explorations of executive control processes in the task
switching paradigm. Acta Psychologica, 101, 339–378.
Kramer, A. F., Louis, B., Coats, E. J., Colcombe, S., Dong, W., &
Greenough, W. T. (in press). Environmental inf luences on cogni-
tive and brain plasticity during aging. Journal of Gerontology.
Kramer, A. F., & Willis, S. L. (2002). Enhancing the cognitive vital-
ity of older adults. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
11, 173–177.
Krampe, R. T., & Baltes, P. B. (2003). Intelligence as adaptive re-
source development and resource allocation: A new look
through the lenses of SOC and expertise. In R. J. Sternberg &
E. L. Grigorenko (Eds.), Perspectives on the psychology of abili-
ties, competencies, and expertise (pp. 31– 69). New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Kray, J., & Lindenberger, U. (2000). Adult age differences in task
switching. Psychology and Aging, 15, 126–147.
Kruglanski, A. W. (1996). Goals as knowledge structures. In P. M.
Gollwitzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Link-
ing cognition and motivation to behavior (pp. 599–618). New
York: Guilford Press.
Kruse, A. (1992). Alter im Lebenslauf. In P. B. Baltes & J. Mittel-
straß (Eds.), Zukunft des Alterns und gesellschaftliche Entwick-
lung (pp. 331–355). Berlin, Germany: W. de Gruyter.
Kuhlen, R. G. (1963). Age and intelligence: The significance of cul-
tural change in longitudinal versus cross-sectional findings. Vita
Humana, 6, 113–124.
Kuhn, D. (1995). Microgenetic study of change: What has it told us?
Psychological Science, 6, 133–139.
Kunzmann, U. (2004). The emotional-motivational side to wisdom.
In P. A. Linley & S. Joseph (Eds.), Positive psychology in practice.
Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Kunzmann, U., & Baltes, P. B. (2003a). Beyond the traditional scope
of intelligence: Wisdom in action. In R. J. Sternberg, J. Lautrey,
& T. I. Lubart (Eds.), Models of intelligence: International per-
spectives (pp. 329–343). Washington, DC: American Psychologi-
cal Association.
Kunzmann, U., & Baltes, P. B. (2003b). Wisdom-related knowledge:
Affective, motivational, and interpersonal correlates. Personality
and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29, 1104–1119.
Kunzmann, U., & Grühn, D. (2005). Age differences in emotional re-
activity: The sample case of sadness. Psychology and Aging, 20,
47–59.
Kunzmann, U., Kupperbusch, C. S., & Levenson, R. W. (2005). Emo-
tion regulation in adulthood: A comparison of two age groups.
Psychology and Aging, 20, 144–159.
References 655
Kunzmann, U., Little, T., & Smith, J. (2000). Is age-related stability
of subjective well-being a paradox? Cross-sectional and longitu-
dinal evidence from the Berlin Aging Study. Psychology and
Aging, 15(511–526).
Kunzmann, U., Little, T., & Smith, J. (2002). Perceiving control: A dou-
ble-edged sword in old age. Journal of Gerontology, 57B, 484–491.
Labouvie, G. V., Frohring, W., Baltes, P. B., & Goulet, L. R. (1973).
Changing relationship between recall performance and abilities
as a function of stage of learning and timing of recall. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 64, 191–198.
Labouvie-Vief, G. (1977). Adult cognitive development. In search of
alternative interpretations. Merrill Palmer Quarterly, 23, 277–263.
Labouvie-Vief, G. (1980). Beyond formal operations: Uses and lim-
its of pure logic in life span development. Human Development,
23, 141–161.
Labouvie-Vief, G. (1982). Dynamic development and mature auton-
omy: A theoretical prologue. Human Development, 25, 161–191.
Labouvie-Vief, G., Hakim-Larson, J., & Hobart, C. J. (1987). Age,
ego level, and the life span development of coping and defense
processes. Psychology and Aging, 2, 286–293.
Labouvie-Vief, G., Lumley, M. A., Jain, E., & Heinze, H. (2003). Age
and gender differences in cardiac reactivity and subjective emo-
tion responses to emotional autobiographical memories. Emotion,
3, 115–126.
Lachman, M. E. (1986a). Locus of control in aging research: A case
for mulitdimensional and domain-specific assessment. Psychol-
ogy and Aging, 1, 34–40.
Lachman, M. E. (1986b). Personal control in later life: Stability,
change, and cognitive correlates. In M. M. Baltes & P. B. Baltes
(Eds.), The psychology of control and aging (pp. 207–236). Hills-
dale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lachman, M. E. (1991). Perceived control over memory aging: Devel-
opmental and intervention perspectives. Journal of Social Issues,
47, 159–175.
Lachman, M. E. (2001). Handbook of midlife development. New
York: Wiley.
Lachman, M. E., & Weaver, L. (1998). Sociodemographic variations
in the sense of control by domain: Findings from the MacArthur
Studies of Midlife. Psychology and Aging, 13, 553–562.
Lang, F. R., Rieckmann, N., & Baltes, M. M. (2002). Adapting to
aging losses: Do resources facilitate strategies of selection, com-
pensation, and optimization in everyday functioning? Journals of
Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B, P501–P509.
Lautrey, J. (2003). A pluralistic approach to cognitive differentiation
and development. In R. J. Sternberg & J. Lautrey (Eds.), Models of
intelligence: International perspectives (pp. 117–131). Washing-
ton, DC: American Psychological Association.
Lazarus, R. S. (1996). The role of coping in the emotions and how
coping changes over the life course. In C. Magai & S. H. McFad-
den (Eds.), Handbook of emotion, adult development, and aging
(pp. 284–306). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Lazarus, R. S., & Golden, G. Y. (1981). The function of denial in
stress, coping, and aging. In J. L. Lecci, L., Okun, M. A., &
Karoly, P. (1994). Life regrets and current goals as predictors of
psychological adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 66(4), 731–741.
Lehman, H. C. (1953). Age and achievement. Princeton, NJ: Prince-
ton University Press.
Lerner, J. V., & Lerner, R. M. (1983). Temperament and adaptation
across life: Theoretical and empirical issues. In P. B. Baltes &
656 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 5,
pp. 198–231). New York: Academic Press.
Lerner, R. M. (Ed.). (1983). Developmental psychology: Historical
and philosophical perspectives. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lerner, R. M. (1984). On the nature of human plasticity. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, R. M. (1991). Changing organism-context relations as the
basic process of development: A developmental contextual per-
spective. Developmental Psychology, 27, 27–32.
Lerner, R. M. (1995). The limits of biological inf luence: Behav-
ioral genetics as the emperor’s new clothes. Psychological In-
quiry, 6, 145–156.
Lerner, R. M. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development
(3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lerner, R. M., & Busch-Rossnagel, N. (Eds.). (1981). Individuals as
producers of their development: A life span perspective. New York:
Academic Press.
Levelt, W. J. M. (1989). Speaking: From intention to articulation.
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Levenson, R. W. (2000). Expressive, physiological, and subjective
changes in emotion across adulthood. In S. H. Qualls & N. Abeles
(Eds.), Dialogues about aging: Psychology responds to the aging
revolution (pp. 123–140). Washington, DC: American Psychologi-
cal Association.
Levenson, R. W., Carstensen, L. L., Friesen, W. V., & Ekman, P.
(1991). Emotion, physiology, and expression in old age. Psychol-
ogy and Aging, 6, 28–35.
Levinson, B., & Reese, H. W. (1967). Patterns of discrimination
learning set in preschool children, fifth-graders, college fresh-
men, and the aged. Monographs of the Society for Research in
Child Development, 32.
Levinson, D. J. (1986). A conception of adult development. American
Psychologist, 41, 3–13.
Li, K. Z. H., Lindenberger, U., Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2001).
Walking while memorizing: Age-related differences in compensa-
tory behavior. Psychological Science, 12, 230–237.
Li, S.-C. (2002). Connecting the many levels and facets of cognitive
aging. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11, 38–43.
Li, S.-C. (2003). Biocultural orchestration of developmental plastic-
ity across levels: The interplay of biology and culture in shaping
the mind and behavior across the life span. Psychological Bulletin,
129(2), 171–194.
Li, S.-C. (in press). Neurocomputational perspectives linking neuro-
modulation, processing noise, representational distinctiveness,
and cognitive aging. In R. Cabeza, L. Nyberg, & D. Park (Eds.),
Cognitive neuroscience of aging: Linking cognitive and cerebral
aging. New York: Oxford University Press.
Li, S.-C., Aggen, S. H., Nesselroade, J. R., & Baltes, P. B. (2001).
Short-term f luctuations in elderly people’s sensorimotor function-
ing predict text and spatial memory performance: The MacArthur
Successful Aging Studies. Gerontology, 47(2), 100–116.
Li, S.-C., & Freund, A. M. (2005). Advances in life span psychology:
A focus on biocultural and personal inf luences. Research in
Human Development, 2(1&2), 1–23.
Li, S.-C., Huxhold, O., & Schmiedek, F. (2004). Aging and attentu-
ated processing robustness: Evidence from cognitive and sensori-
motor functioning. Gerontology, 50, 28–34.
Li, S.-C., & Lindenberger, U. (1999). Cross-level unification: A
computational exploration of the link between deterioration of
neurotransmitter systems and dedifferentiation of cognitive abil-
ities in old age. In L.-G. Nilsson & H. J. Markowitsch (Eds.),
Cognitive neuroscience of memory (pp. 103–146). Seattle, WA:
Hogrefe & Huber.
Li, S.-C., & Lindenberger, U. (2002). Coconstructed functionality in-
stead of functional normality: Commentary. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 25(6), 761–762.
Li, S.-C., Lindenberger, U., Hommel, B., Aschersleben, G., Prinz, W.,
& Baltes, P. B. (2004). Transformations in the couplings among
intellectual abilities and constituent cognitive processes across
the life span. Psychological Science, 15, 155–163.
Li, S.-C., Lindenberger, U., & Sikström, S. (2001). Aging cognition:
From neuromodulation to representation. Trends in Cognitive Sci-
ence, 5(11), 479–486.
Lienert, G. A., & Crott, H. W. (1964). Studies on the factor structure
of intelligence in children, adolescents, and adults. Vita Humana,
7, 147–163.
Lindenberger, U. (2001). Life span theories of cognitive develop-
ment. In N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International ency-
clopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 8848–8854).
Oxford, England: Elsevier Science.
Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (1994). Sensory functioning and in-
telligence in old age: A strong connection. Psychology and Aging,
9, 339–355.
Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (1995a). Kognitive Leistungs-
fähigkeit im hohen Alter: Erste Ergebnisse aus der Berliner Al-
tersstudie. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 203, 283–317.
Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (1995b). Testing-the-limits and ex-
perimental simulation: Two methods to explicate the role of learn-
ing in development. Human Development, 38, 349–360.
Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (1999). Die Entwicklungspsycholo-
gie der lebensspanne: Johann Nicolaus Tetens zu Ehren
(1736–1807) [Life span psychology: In honor of Johann Nicolaus
Tetens (1736–1807)]. Zeitschrift für Psychologie, 207, 299–323.
Lindenberger, U., Kliegl, R., & Baltes, P. B. (1992). Professional ex-
pertise does not eliminate negative age differences in imagery-
based memory performance during adulthood. Psychology and
Aging, 7, 585–593.
Lindenberger, U., Li, S.-C., & Bäckman, L. (Eds.). (in press).
Methodological and conceptual advances in the study of brain-
behavior dynamics: A multivariate life span perspective [Special
issue]. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews.
Lindenberger, U., Marsiske, M., & Baltes, P. B. (2000). Memorizing
while walking: Increase in dual-task costs from young adulthood
to old age. Psychology and Aging, 15, 417–436.
Lindenberger, U., & Pötter, U. (1998). The complex nature of
unique and shared effects in hierarchical linear regression: Im-
plications for developmental psychology. Psychological Meth-
ods, 3, 218–230.
Lindenberger, U., Scherer, H., & Baltes, P. B. (2001). The strong con-
nection between sensory and cognitive performance in old age:
Not due to sensory acuity reductions operating during cognitive
assessment. Psychology and Aging, 2, 196–205.
Lindenberger, U., Singer, T., & Baltes, P. B. (2002). Longitudinal selec-
tivity in aging populations: Separating mortality-associated versus
experimental components in the Berlin Aging Study (BASE). Jour-
nal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 57B(6), 474–482.
Lindenberger, U., & Oertzen, T. von (in press). Variability in cogni-
tive aging: From taxonomy to theory. In F. I. M. Craik & E. Bia-
lystok (Eds.), Life span cognition: Mechanisms of change. Oxford,
England: Oxford University Press.

Linville, P. W. (1987). Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against
stress-related depression and illness. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 52, 663–676.
Loevinger, J. (1976). Ego development: Conception and theory. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Lourenço, O., & Machado, A. (1996). In defense of Piaget’s the-
ory: A reply to 10 common criticisms. Psychological Review,
103, 143–164.
Lövdén, M., Ghisletta, P., & Lindenberger, U. (2004). Cognition in
the Berlin Aging Study (BASE): The first 10 years. Aging, Neu-
ropsychology, and Cognition, 11, 104–133.
Lövdén, M., Ghisletta, P., & Lindenberger, U. (2005). Social partici-
pation attenuates decline in perceptual speed in old and very old
age. Psychology and Aging 20, 423–434.
Lövdén, M., & Lindenberger, U. (2005). Development of intellectual
abilities in old age: From age gradients to individuals. In
O. Wilhelm & R. W. Engle (Eds.), Handbook of understanding and
measuring intelligence (pp. 203–221). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Maciel, A. G., Heckhausen, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1994). A life span per-
spective on the interface between personality and intelligence. In
R. J. Sternberg & P. Ruzgis (Eds.), Intelligence and personality
(pp. 61–103). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Maercker, A. (1995). Existentielle konfrontation: Eine untersuchung
im rahmen eines psychologischen weisheitsparadigmas [Existential
confrontation: A study in the framework of a psychological wisdom
paradigm] (Studien und Berichte Nr. 62). Berlin, Germany: Max
Planck Institute for Human Development.
Magnus, K., Diener, E., Fujita, F., & Pavot, W. (1993). Extraversion
and neuroticism as predictors for objective life events: A longi-
tudinal analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
65, 1046–1053.
Magnusson, D. (1990). Personality development from an interactional
perspective. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality: The-
ory and research (pp. 193–222). New York: Guilford Press.
Magnusson, D. (Ed.). (1996). The life span development of individu-
als: Behavioural, neurobiological and psychosocial perspectives.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Magnusson, D. (2001). The holistic-interactionistic paradigm: Some
directions for empirical developmental research. European Psy-
chologist, 6, 153–162.
Magnusson, D., Bergman, L. R., Rudinger, G., & Törestad, B. (Eds.).
(1991). Problems and methods in longitudinal research: Stability
and change. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Magnusson, D., & Mahoney, J. (2003). A holistic person approach
for research on positive development. In L. G. Aspinwall &
U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), A psychology of human strengths: Fun-
damental questions and future directions for a positive psychol-
ogy (pp. 227–243). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Mandl, H., Gruber, H., & Renkl, A. (1996). Communities of practice
toward expertise: Social foundation of university instruction. In
P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Interactive minds: Life
span perspectives on the social foundation of cognition
(pp. 394–411). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Manners, J., & Durkin, K. (2000). Processes involved in adult ego
development: A conceptual framework. Developmental Review,
20, 475–513.
Markus, H. R., & Wurf, E. (1987). The dynamic self-concept: A
social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology,
38, 299–337.
References 657
Marsh, H. W., Ellis, L. A., & Craven, R. G. (2002). How do preschool
children feel about themselves? Unraveling measurement and
multidimensional self-concept structure. Developmental Psychol-
ogy, 38, 376–393.
Marsiske, M., Lang, F. R., Baltes, M. M., & Baltes, P. B. (1995).
Selective optimization with compensation: Life span perspec-
tives on successful human development. In R. A. Dixon &
L. Bäckman (Eds.), Compensation for psychological defects and
declines: Managing losses and promoting gains (pp. 35–79).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Martin, G. M., Austad, S. N., & Johnson, T. E. (1996). Genetic analy-
sis of ageing: Role of oxidative damage and environmental
stresses. Nature Genetics, 13, 25–34.
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in devel-
opment. American Psychologist, 56, 227–238.
Maturana, H., & Varela, F. (1980). Autopoiesis and cognition: The re-
alization of the living. Boston: D. Riedel.
Max Planck Institute for Human Development. (2005). Research Re-
port 2003–2004. Berlin, Germany: Author.
Mayer, K. U. (1990). Lebensverläufe und sozialer Wandel: An-
merkungen zu einem forschungsprogramm. Kölner Zeitschrift für
Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 42(Sonderheft 31), 7–21.
Mayer, K. U. (2003). The sociology of the life course and life span
psychology: Diverging or converging pathways. In U. M.
Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Understanding human de-
velopment: Dialogues with life span psychology (pp. 463–481).
Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Mayr, U. (2001). Age differences in the selection of mental sets: The
role of inhibition, stimulus ambiguity, and response-set overlap.
Psychology and Aging, 16, 96–109.
Mayr, U., Kliegl, R., & Krampe, R. T. (1996). Sequential and coordi-
native processing dynamics in figural transformations across the
life span. Cognition, 59, 61–90.
McAdams, D. P. (1996). Personality, modernity, and the storied self:
A contemporary framework for studying persons. Psychological
Inquiry, 7, 295–321.
McArdle, J. J., & Bell, R. Q. (1999). An introduction to latent growth
models for developmental data analysis. In T. D. Little, K. U.
Schnabel, & J. Baumert (Eds.), Modeling longitudinal and multi-
level data: Practical issues, applied approaches, and specific ex-
amples (pp. 69–107). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
McArdle, J. J., & Epstein, D. (1987). Latent growth curves within
developmental structural equation models. Child Development,
58, 110–133.
McArdle, J. J., Ferrer-Caja, E., Hamagami, F., & Woodcock, R. W.
(2002). Comparative longitudinal structural analyses of the
growth and decline of multiple intellectual abilities over the life
span. Developmental Psychology, 38, 115–142.
McArdle, J. J., Hamagami, F., Ellias, M. F., & Robbins, M. A. (1991).
Structural modeling of mixed longitudinal and cross-sectional
data. Experimental Aging Research, 17, 29–51.
McCall, R. M. (1979). The development of intellectual functioning
in infancy and the prediction of later, I. Q. In J. D. Osofsky
(Ed.), Handbook of infant development (pp. 707–740). New York:
Wiley.
McCall, R. M. (1994). What process mediates predictions of child-
hood IQ from infant habituation and recognition memory? Specu-
lations on the roles of inhibition and rate of information
processing. Intelligence, 18, 107–125.
658 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
McCall, R. M., & Carriger, M. S. (1993). A meta-analysis of infant
habituation and recognition memory performance as predictors of
later IQ. Child Development, 64, 57–79.
McClearn, G. E., Johansson, B., Berg, S., Pedersen, N. L., Ahern, F.,
Petrill, S. A., et al. (1997). Substantial genetic influence on cogni-
tive abilities in twins 80 or more years old. Science, 276, 1560–1563.
McClelland, J. L. (1996). Integration of information: Ref lections on
the theme of Attention and Performance XVI. In I. Toshui &
J. L. McClelland (Eds.), Attention and Performance XVI
(pp. 633–656). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
McCrae, R. R. (1989). Age differences and changes in the use of cop-
ing mechanisms. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences,
44, 919–928.
McCrae, R. R., Costa, P. T., Ostendorf, F., Angleitner, A., Hrebick-
ova, M., Avia, M. D., et al. (2000). Nature over nurture: Tempera-
ment, personality, and life span development. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 173–186.
McGue, M., Bacon, S., & Lykken, D. T. (1993). Personality stability
and change in early adulthood: A behavioral genetic analysis. De-
velopmental Psychology, 29, 96–109.
McGue, M., Bouchard, T. J., Jr., Iacono, W. G., & Lykken, D. T.
(1993). Behavioral genetics of cognitive ability: A life span per-
spective. In R. Plomin & G. E. McClearn (Eds.), Nature, nurture,
and psychology (pp. 59–76). Washington, DC: American Psycho-
logical Association.
Medawar, P. B. (1946). Old age and natural death. Modern Quar-
terly, 1, 30–56.
Metcalfe, J., & Mischel, W. (1999). A hot /cool-system analysis of
delay of gratification: Dynamics of willpower. Psychological Re-
view, 106, 3–19.
Miller, E. K., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An integrative theory of prefrontal
cortex function. Annual Review of Neuroscience, 24, 167–202.
Mischel, W. (1996). Principles of self-regulation: The nature of
willpower and self-control. In E. T.
Mischel, W. (2004). Toward an integrative science of the person. An-
nual Review of Psychology, 55, 1–22.
Mischel, W., & Shoda, Y. (1999). Integrating dispositions and pro-
cessing dynamics within a unified theory of personality: The
cognitive-affective personality system. In L. Pervin & O. John
( Eds.), Handbook of personalit y: Theory and research
(pp. 197–218). New York: Guilford Press.
Mischel, W., Shoda, Y., & Rodriguez, M. L. (1989). Delay of gratifi-
cation in children. Science, 244, 933–938.
Mitrushina, M., & Satz, P. (1991). Stability of cognitive functions in
young-old versus old-old individuals. Brain Dysfunction, 4, 174–181.
Molander, B., & Bäckman, L. (1993). Performance of a com-
plex motor skill across the life span: General trends and qualifi-
cations. In J. Cerella, J. Rybash, W. Hoyer, & M. L. Commons
(Eds.), Adult information processing: Limits on loss
(pp. 231–257). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Molenaar, P. C. M. (1986). On the impossibility of acquiring more
powerful structures: A neglected alternative. Human Develop-
ment, 29, 245–251.
Molenaar, P. C. M., Boomsma, D. I., & Dolan, C. V. (1991). Genetic
and environmental factors in a developmental perspective. In D.
Magnusson, L. R. Bergman, G. Rudinger, & B. Törestad (Eds.),
Problems and methods in longitudinal research: Stability and
change (pp. 250–273). Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Molenaar, P. C. M., Boomsma, D. I., & Dolan, C. V. (1993). Genetic
and environmental factors in a developmental perspective. In
D. Magnusson, L. R. Bergman, G. Rudinger, & B. Törestad (Eds.),
Problems and methods in longitudinal research: Stability and
change (pp. 250–273). Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Molenaar, P. C. M., Huizenga, H. M., & Nesselroade, J. R. (2003).
The relationship between the structure of interindividual and in-
traindividual variability: A theoretical and empirical vindication
of development systems theory. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lin-
denberger (Eds.), Understanding human development: Dialogues
with life span psychology (pp. 339–360). Boston: Kluwer Aca-
demic.
Moss, H. A., & Susman, E. J. (1980). Longitudinal study of personal-
ity development. In O. G. Brim Jr. & J. Kagan (Eds.), Constancy
and change in human development (pp. 530–595). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Mroczek, D. K., & Spiro, R. A., III. (2003). Modeling intraindividual
change in personality traits: Findings from the Normative Aging
Study. Journals of Gerontology, 58B, P153–P165.
Müller-Brettel, M., & Dixon, R. A. (1990). Johann Nicolas Tetens: A
forgotten father of developmental psychology? International Jour-
nal of Behavioral Development, 13, 215–230.
Neely, A. S., & Bäckman, L. (1993). Long-term maintenance of gains
from memory training in older adults: Two 31⁄ 2 -year follow-up
studies. Journal of Gerontology, 48, 233–237.
Nelson, C. A. (2006). Neurobehavioral development in the context of
biocultural co-constructivism. In P. B. Baltes, P. Reuter-Lorenz,
& F. Rösler (Eds.), Lifespan development and the brain: The per-
spective of biocultural co-constructivism (pp. 61–81). Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Nesselroade, C. S., & Schmidt McCollam, K. M. (2000). Putting the
process in development processes. International Journal of Behav-
ioral Development, 24(3), 295–300.
Nesselroade, J. R. (1991). Interindividual differences in intraindivid-
ual change. In L. M. Collins & J. L. Horn (Eds.), Best methods for
the analysis of change: Recent advances, unanswered questions, fu-
ture directions (pp. 92–105). Washington, DC: American Psycho-
logical Association.
Nesselroade, J. R. (2002). Elaborating the differential in differential
psychology. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 37, 543–561.
Nesselroade, J. R. (2002). Elaborating the differential in differential
psychology. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 37, 543–561.
Nesselroade, J. R., & Baltes, P. B. (1974). Adolescent personality de-
velopment and historical change: 1970–1972. Monographs of the
Society for Research in Child Development, 39.
Nesselroade, J. R., & Baltes, P. B. (Eds.). (1979). Longitudinal re-
search in the study of behavior and development. New York: Aca-
demic Press.
Nesselroade, J. R., & Ghisletta, P. (2003). Structuring and measur-
ing change over the life span. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Linden-
berger (Eds.), Understanding human development: Dialogues
with life span psychology (pp. 317–337). Boston: Kluwer
Academic.
Nesselroade, J. R., & Reese, H. W. (Eds.). (1973). Life span develop-
mental psychology: Methological issues. New York: Academic Press.
Nesselroade, J. R., & Thompson, W. W. (1995). Selection and related
threats to group comparisons: An example comparing factorial
structures of higher and lower ability groups of adult twins. Psy-
chological Bulletin, 117, 271–284.

Neugarten, B. L. (1969). Continuities and discontinuities of psy-
chological issues into adult life. Human Development, 12,
121–130.
Neyer, F. J., & Asendorpf, J. B. (2001). Personality-relationship
transaction in young adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 81, 1190–1204.
Nurmi, J.-E. (1992). Age differences in adult life goals, concerns,
and their temporal extension: A life course approach to future-
oriented motivation. International Journal of Behavioral Develop-
ment, 15, 487–508.
Nyberg, L., Sandblom, J., Jones, S., Neely, A. S., Petersson, K. M.,
Ingvar, M. I., et al. (2003). Neural correlates of training-related
memory improvement in adulthood and aging. Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, USA, 100(23), 13728–13733.
Oberauer, K., & Kliegl, R. (2001). Beyond resources: Formal models
for complexity effects and age differences in working memory.
European Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 13, 187–215.
Oettingen, G. (1996). Positive fantasy and motivation. In P. M. Goll-
witzer & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action: Linking
cognition and motivation to action (pp. 236–259). New York:
Guilford Press.
Oettingen, G. (1997). Die psychologie des zukunftsdenkens [Psy-
chology of thinking about the future]. Göttingen, Germany:
Hogrefe.
Ogilvie, D. M., Rose, K. M., & Heppen, J. B. (2001). A comparison of
personal project motives in three age groups. Basic and Applied
Social Psychology, 23, 207–215.
Osiewacz, H. D. (1995). Molekulare mechanismen biologischen al-
terns [Molecular models of biological aging]. Biologie in unserer
Zeit, 25, 336–344.
Overton, W. F., & Reese, H. W. (1973). Models of development:
Methodological implications. In J. R. Nesselroade & H. W. Reese
(Eds.), Life span developmental psychology: Methodological issues
(pp. 65–86). New York: Academic Press.
Park, D. C., Polk, T. A., Park, R., Minear, M., Savage, A., & Smith,
M. R. (2004). Aging reduces neural specialization in ventral vi-
sual cortex. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
USA, 101, 13091–13095.
Parke, R. D., Ornstein, P. A., Rieser, J. J., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1991).
Editors’ introduction to the APA Centennial Series. Developmen-
tal Psychology, 28, 3–4.
Pascual-Leone, J. (1970). A mathematical model for the transition rule
in Piaget’s developmental stages. Acta Psychologica, 32, 301–342.
Pascual-Leone, J. (1983). Growing into human maturity: Toward a
metasubjective theory of adulthood stages. In P. B. Baltes & O. G.
Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 5,
pp. 117–156). New York: Academic Press.
Pasupathi, M., Staudinger, U. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2001). Seeds of
wisdom: Adolescents’ knowledge and judgment about difficult
life problems. Developmental Psychology, 37, 351–361.
Pedersen, N. L. (1991). Behavioral genetic concepts in longitudinal
analyses. In D. Magnusson, L. R. Bergman, G. Rudinger, & B.
Törestad (Eds.), Problems and methods in longitudinal research:
Stability and change (Vol. 5, pp. 236–249). Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Pedersen, N. L., & Reynolds, C. A. (2002). Stability and change in
adult personality: Genetic and environmental components. Euro-
pean Journal of Personality, 16, 77–78.
Perlmutter, M. (1988). Cognitive potential throughout life. In J. E.
Birren & V. L. Bengtson (Eds.), Emergent theories of aging
(pp. 247–268). New York: Springer.
References 659
Pervin, L. (2001). A dynamic systems approach to personality. Euro-
pean Psychologist, 6(3), 172–176.
Pervin, L., & John, O. (1999). Handbook of personality: Theory and
research (2nd ed.). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Perz, C. A., DiClemente, C. C., & Carbonari, J. P. (1996). Doing the
right thing at the right time? The interaction of stages and
processes of change in successful smoking cessation. Health Psy-
chology 15(6), 462–468.
Peterson, C., Seligman, M. E. P., Yurko, K. H., Martin, L. R., &
Friedman, H. S. (1998). Catastrophizing and untimely death. Psy-
chological Science, 9, 127–130.
Petersson, K. M., & Reis, A. (2006). Characteristics of illiterate and
literate cognitive processing: Implications of brain–behavior co-
constructivism. In P. B. Baltes, P. Reuter-Lorenz, & F. Rösler
(Eds.), Lifespan development and the brain: The perspective of bio-
cultural co-constructivism (pp. 279–305). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Piaget, J. (1970). Piaget’s theory. In P. H. Mussen (Ed.), Carmichaels
manual of child psychology (pp. 703–732). New York: Wiley.
Piaget, J. (1971). Biologie et connaissance: Essai sur les relations
entre les régulations organiques et les processes cognitifs [Biology
and knowledge: An essay on the relations between organic regula-
tions and cognitive processes]. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. (Original work published in French, 1967)
Piaget, J. (1972). Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adult-
hood. Human Development, 15, 1–12.
Piaget, J. (1980). Les formes elementaires de la dialectique [Elemen-
tary forms of dialectic]. Paris: Gallimard.
Plessner, H. (1965). Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch: Ein-
leitung in die philosophische Anthropologie. Berlin, Germany: W.
de Gruyter.
Plomin, R. (1994). Genetics and experience: The interplay between
nature and nurture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Plomin, R., & Caspi, A. (1999). Behavioral genetics and personality.
In L. A. Pervin & O. P. John (Eds.), Handbook of personality the-
ory and research (Vol. 2, pp. 251–276). New York: Guilford Press.
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & Loehlin, J. C. (1977 ). Genotype-
environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of
human behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 309–322.
Plomin, R., & Thompson, L. (1988). Life span developmental behav-
ioral genetics. In P. B. Baltes, D. L. Featherman, & R. M. Lerner
(Eds.), Life span development and behavior (Vol. 8, pp. 1–31).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Porges, S. W., & Doussard-Roosevelt, J. A. (1997). The psychophysi-
ology of temperament. In J. D. Noshpitz (Ed.), The handbook of
child and adolescent psychiatry (pp. 250–268). New York: Wiley.
Porges, S. W., Doussard-Roosevelt, J. A., Portales, A. L., & Suess, P. E.
(1994). Cardiac vagal tone: Stability and relation to difficulties in
infants and 3-year-olds. Developmental Psychology, 27, 289–300.
Pressey, S. L., Janney, J. E., & Kuhlen, R. G. (1939). Life: A psycho-
logical survey. New York: Harper.
Prigogine, I., & Stengers, I. (1984). Order out of chaos. New
York: Bantam.
Pulkkinen, L., & Caspi, A. (Eds.). (2002). Paths to successful devel-
opment: Personality in the life course. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Quetelet, A. (1835). Sur l’homme et de développememt de ses facultés.
Paris: Bachelier.
Quetelet, A. (1842). A treatise on man and the development of his fac-
ulties. Edinburgh, Scotland: Chambers.
660 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Raz, N. (2000). Aging of the brain and its impact on cognitive perfor-
mance: Integration of structural and functional findings. In
F. I. M. Craik & T. A. Salthouse (Eds.), The handbook of aging
and cognition (2nd ed., pp. 1–90). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Raz, N., Lindenberger, U., Rodrique, K. M., Kennedy, K. M., Head,
D., Williamson, A., et al. (2005). Regional brain changes in aging
healthy adults: General trends, individual differences, and modi-
fiers. Cerebral Cortex, 15, 1676–1689.
Reese, H. W. (1994). The data /theory dialectic: The nature of scien-
tific progress. In S. H. Cohen & H. W. Reese (Eds.), Life span de-
velopmental psychology: Methodological contributions (pp. 1–27).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Reese, H. W., & Lipsitt, L. P. (1970). Experimental child psychology.
New York: Academic Press.
Reese, H. W., & Overton, W. F. (1970). Models of development and
theories of development. In L. R. Goulet & P. B. Baltes (Eds.),
Life span developmental psychology: Research and theory
(pp. 115–145). New York: Academic Press.
Reinert, G. (1970). Comparative factor analytic studies of intelli-
gence throughout the life span. In L. R. Goulet & P. B. Baltes
(Eds.), Life span developmental psychology: Research and theory
(pp. 476–484). New York: Academic Press.
Reinert, G. (1979). Prolegomena to a history of life span developmen-
tal psychology. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span
development and behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 205–254). New York: Aca-
demic Press.
Reinert, G., Baltes, P. B., & Schmidt, G. (1966). Kritik einer Kritik
der Differenzierungshypothese der Intelligenz. Zeitschrift für Ex-
perimentelle und Angewandte Psychologie, 13, 602–610.
Resnick, L. B., Levine, J. M., & Teasley, S. D. (Eds.). (1991). Per-
spectives on socially shared cognition. Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Reuchlin, M. (1978). Processus vicariants et différences individu-
elles [Vicariant processes and individual differences]. Journal de
Psychologie, 2, 133–145.
Reuter-Lorenz, P. A. (2002). New visions of the aging mind and brain.
Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 6, 394–400.
Riediger, M., & Freund, A. M. (in press). Focusing and restricting:
Two aspects of motivational selectivity in adulthood. Psychol-
ogy and Aging.
Riediger, M., Freund, A. M., & Baltes, M. M. (2005). Managing life
through personal goals: Intergoal facilitation and intensity of goal
pursuit in younger and older adulthood. Journal of Gerontology:
Psychological Sciences, 60B, 84–91.
Riediger, M., Li, S.-C., & Lindenberger, U. (in press). Selection, op-
timization, and compensation (SOC) as developmental mecha-
nisms of adaptive resource allocation: Review and preview. In J.
E. Birren & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of
aging (6th ed.). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Riegel, K. F. (1958). Ergebnisse und probleme der psychologischen
alternsforschung [Conclusions and problems of psychological
aging research.]. Vita Humana, 1, 52–64 and 111–127.
Riegel, K. F. (1973). Developmental psychology and society: Some
historical and ethical considerations. In J. R. Nesselroade &
H. W. Reese (Eds.), Life span developmental psychology: Method-
ological issues (pp. 1–23). New York: Academic Press.
Riegel, K. F. (1976). The dialectics of human development. American
Psychologist, 31, 689–700.
Riley, M. W. (1987). On the significance of age in sociology. Ameri-
can Sociological Review, 52, 1–14.
Riley, M. W., Johnson, M., & Foner, A. (Eds.). (1972). Aging and so-
ciety: A sociology of age stratification (Vol. 3). New York: Sage.
Roberts, B., & Caspi, A. (2003). The cumulative continuity model of
personality development: Striking a balance between continuity
and change in personality traits across the life course. In U. M.
Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Understanding human de-
velopment: Dialogues with life span psychology (pp. 183–214).
Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Roberts, B. W., & DelVecchio, W. F. (2000). The rank-order consis-
tency of personality traits from childhood to old age: A quantita-
tive review of longitudinal studies. Psychological Bulletin, 126,
3–25.
Ross, M. (1997). Validating memories. In N. L. Stein, P. A. Ornstein,
B. Tversky, & C. Brainerd (Eds.), Memory for everyday and emo-
tional events (pp. 49–82). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ross, M., & Bühler, R. (2001). Identity through time: Constructing
personal pasts and futures. In A. Tesser & N. Schwarz (Eds.),
Blackwell handbook in social psychology: Intrapersonal processes
(pp. 518–544). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Rothbart, M. K. (2001). Temperament and human development. In
N. J. Smelser & P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia
of the social and behavioral sciences (pp. 15586–15591). New
York: Elsevier.
Rothbart, M. K., & Bates, J. E. (1998). Temperament. In W. Damon
(Editor-in-Chief ) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child
psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality development
(5th ed., pp. 619–700). New York: Wiley.
Rott, C., & Thomae, H. (1991). Coping in longitudinal perspective:
Findings from the Bonn Longitudinal Study on Aging. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Gerontology, 6, 23–40.
Rowe, J. W. (1997). Editorial: The new gerontology. Science, 278, 367.
Rowe, J. W., & Kahn, R. L. (1987). Human aging: Usual and success-
ful. Science, 237, 143–149.
Rutter, M. (1987). Resilience in the face of adversity: Protective fac-
tors and resistance to psychiatric disorder. British Journal of Psy-
chiatry, 147, 598–611.
Rutter, M., & Rutter, M. (1993). Developing minds: Challenge and
continuity across the life span. New York: Basic Books.
Rybash, J. M., Hoyer, W. J., & Roodin, P. A. (1986). Adult cognition
and aging: Developmental changes in processing, knowing, and
thinking. New York: Pergamon Press.
Ryder, N. B. (1965). The cohort as a concept in the study of social
change. American Sociological Review, 30, 843–861.
Ryder, R. G. (1967). Birth to maturity revisited: A canonical reanaly-
sis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 7, 168–172.
Ryff, C. D. (1984). Personality development from the inside: The sub-
jective experience of change in adulthood and aging. In P. B.
Baltes & O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life span development and behav-
ior (Vol. 6, pp. 249–279). New York: Academic Press.
Ryff, C. D. (1989a). Beyond Ponce de Leon and life satisfaction: New
directions in quest of successful aging. International Journal of
Behavioral Development, 12, 35–55.
Ryff, C. D. (1989b). Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on
the meaning of psychological well-being. Journal of Personality
and Social Psychology, 57, 1069–1081.
Ryff, C. D. (1991). Possible selves in adulthood and old age: A tale of
shifting horizons. Psychology and Aging, 6, 286–295.
Ryff, C. D., & Keyes, C. L. M. (1995). The structure of psychological
well-being revisited. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
69, 719–727.

Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L. (1996). Statistical
learning by 8-month-old infants. Science, 274(5294), 1926–1928.
Salthouse, T. A. (1984). Effects of age and skill in typing. Journal of
Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 345–371.
Salthouse, T. A. (1991). Theoretical perspectives on cognitive aging.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Salthouse, T. A. (1995). Refining the concept of psychological com-
pensation. In R. A. Dixon & L. Bäckman (Eds.), Compensating
for psychological deficits and declines (pp. 21–34). Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Salthouse, T. A. (1996). The processing-speed theory of adult age
differences in cognition. Psychological Review, 103, 403–437.
Salthouse, T. A. (2003). Interrelations of aging, knowledge, and cog-
nitive performance. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lindenberger
(Eds.), Understanding human development: Dialogues with life
span psychology (pp. 265–287). Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Salthouse, T. A., Hambrick, D. Z., Lukas, K. E., & Dell, T. C. (1996).
Determinants of adult age differences on synthetic work perfor-
mance. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 2, 305–329.
Salthouse, T. A., & Kail, R. (1983). Memory development throughout
the life span: The role of processing rate. In P. B. Baltes (Ed.),
Life span development and behavior (Vol. 5, pp. 89–116). New
York: Academic Press.
Salthouse, T. A., & Meinz, E. J. (1995). Aging, inhibition, working
memory, and speed. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sci-
ences, 50B, 297–306.
Sanford, E. C. (1902). Mental growth and decay. American Journal of
Psychology, 13, 426–449.
Scarr, S. (1993a). Biological and cultural diversity: The legacy of
Darwin for development. Child Development, 64, 1333–1353.
Scarr, S. (1993b). Genes, experience, and development. In D. Mag-
nusson & P. Casaer (Eds.), Longitudinal research on individual de-
velopment: Present status and future perspectives (pp. 26–50).
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How people make their own envi-
ronments: A theory of genotype environment effects. Child Devel-
opment, 54, 424–435.
Schadewaldt, W. (1975). Nachwort zu Elektra [Epilogue to Electra].
Stuttgart, German: Reclam.
Schaie, K. W. (1965). A general model for the study of developmental
problems. Psychological Bulletin, 64, 92–107.
Schaie, K. W. (1970). A reinterpretation of age-related changes in
cognitive structure and functioning. In L. R. Goulet & P. B.
Baltes (Eds.), Life span developmental psychology: Research and
theory (pp. 485–507). New York: Academic Press.
Schaie, K. W. (1989). The hazards of cognitive aging. Gerontologist,
29, 484–493.
Schaie, K. W. (1994). The course of adult intellectual development.
American Psychologist, 49, 304–313.
Schaie, K. W. (1996). Intellectual development in adulthood: The Seat-
tle Longitudinal Study. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schaie, K. W. (2005). Developmental inf luences on intelligence: The
Seattle Longitudinal Study. New York: Oxford University Press.
Schaie, K. W., & Baltes, P. B. (1975). On sequential strategies in de-
velopmental research: Description or explanation? Human Devel-
opment, 18, 384–390.
Schaie, K. W., Maitland, S. B., Willis, S. L., & Intieri, R. C. (1998).
Longitudinal invariance of adult psychometric ability factor
structures across 7 years. Psychology and Aging, 13, 8–20.
References 661
Schaie, K. W., & Willis, S. L. (1993). Age difference patterns of psy-
chometric intelligence in adulthood: Generalizability within and
across ability domains. Psychology and Aging, 8, 44–55.
Schaie, K. W., Willis, S. L., Hertzog, C., & Schulenberg, J. E. (1987).
Effects of cognitive training on primary mental ability structure.
Psychology and Aging, 2, 233–242.
Schaie, K. W., Willis, S. L., & Pennak, S. (2005). An historical
framework for cohort differences in intelligence. Research in
Human Development, 2(1&2), 43–67.
Scheier, M. F., & Carver, C. S. (1987). Dispositional optimism and
physical well-being: The inf luence of generalized outcome ex-
pectancies on health. Journal of Personality, 55, 169–210.
Schindler, I., & Staudinger, U. M. (2005a). Life span perspectives on
self and personality: The dynamics between the mechanics and
pragmatics. In W. Greve, K. Rothermund, & D. Wentura (Eds.),
The adaptive self: Personal continuity and intentional self-
development (pp. 3–30). Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe & Huber.
Schindler, I., & Staudinger, U. M. (2005b). Obligatory and optional
personal life investments in old age. Manuscript submitted for
publication.
Schmidt, L. R. (1971). Testing the limits im Leistungsverhalten:
Möglichkeiten und Grenzen. In E. Duhm (Ed.), Praxis der klinis-
chen Psychologie (Vol. 2, pp. 9–29). Göttingen, Germany:
Hogrefe & Huber.
Schneider, W., & Bjorklund, D. F. (2003). Memory and knowledge
development. In D. Kuhn & Siegler (Eds.), Handbook of child
psychology: Vol. 2. Cognition, perception, and language
(pp. 467–521). New York: Wiley.
Schneirla, T. C. (1957). The concept of development in comparative
psychology. In D. B. Harris (Ed.), The concept of development
(pp. 78–108). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Schooler, C., Mulatu, M. S., & Oates, G. (1999). The continuing ef-
fects of substantively complex work on the intellectual function-
ing of older workers. Psychology and Aging, 14, 483–406.
Schulz, R., & Heckhausen, J. (1996). A life span model of successful
aging. American Psychologist, 51, 702–714.
Schwarz, N., & Bohner, G. (1996). Feelings and their motivational
implications: Moods and the action sequence. In P. M. Gollwitzer
& J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The psychology of action (pp. 119–145).
New York: Guilford Press.
Schwarz, N., & Strack, F. (1999). Reports of subjective well-being:
Judgmental processes and their methodological implications. In
D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), Well-being: The
foundation of hedonic psychology (pp. 61–84). New York: Russell
Sage Foundation.
Sears, P. S., & Barbee, A. H. (1977). Career and life satisfactions
among Terman’s gifted women. In J. Stanley, W. George, & C.
Solano (Eds.), The gifted and the creative: A fifty-year perspective
(pp. 28–65). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Settersten, R. A., Jr. (2005). Toward a stronger partnership between
life-course sociology and life span psychology. Research in
Human Development, 2(1).
Sherry, D. F., & Schacter, D. L. (1987). The evolution of multiple
memory systems. Psychological Review, 94, 439–454.
Shrager, J., & Johnson, M. H. (1996). Dynamic plasticity inf luences
the emergence of function in a simple cortical array. Neural Net-
works, 9, 111–129.
Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Siegler, R. S. (1989). Mechanisms of cognitive development. Annual
Review of Psychology, 40, 353–379.
662 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Siegler, R. S., & Crowley, K. (1991). The microgenetic method: A di-
rect means for studying cognitive development. American Psy-
chologist, 46, 606–620.
Siegler, R. S., & Crowley, K. (1994). Constraints on learning in non-
privileged domains. Cognitive Psychology, 27, 194–226.
Simon, H. A., & Chase, W. G. (1973). Skill in chess. American Scien-
tist, 61, 394–403.
Simonton, D. K. (1988). Age and outstanding achievement: What do
we know after a century of research? Psychological Bulletin,
104, 251–267.
Simonton, D. K. (1989). The swan-song phenomenon: Last-works ef-
fects for 172 classical composers. Psychology and Aging, 4, 42–47.
Singer, J. L. (1984). The private personality. Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin, 10, 7–30.
Singer, T., Lindenberger, U., & Baltes, P. B. (2003). Plasticity of
memory for new learning in very old age: A story of major loss?
Psychology and Aging, 18, 306–317.
Singer, T., Seymour, B., O’Doherty, J., Kaube, H., Dolan, R. J., &
Frith, C. D. (2004). Empathy for pain involves the affective but
not the sensory components of pain. Science, 303, 1157–1162.
Singer, T., Verhaeghen, P., Ghisletta, P., Lindenberger, U., & Baltes,
P. B. (2003). The fate of cognition in very old age: Six-year longi-
tudinal findings in the Berlin Aging Study. Psychology and Aging,
18, 318–331.
Singer, W. (1995). Development and plasticity of cortical processing
architectures. Science, 270, 758–764.
Singer, W. (2003). The nature–nurture problem revisited. In U. M.
Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Understanding human de-
velopment: Dialogues with life span psychology (pp. 437–447).
Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Skinner, B. F. (1966). The phylogeny and ontogeny of behavior. Sci-
ence, 153, 1205–1213.
Skinner, E. A. (1996). A guide to constructs of control. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 71, 549–570.
Skinner, E. A., & Connell, J. P. (1986). Control understanding:
Suggestions form a developmental framework. In M. M. Baltes &
P. B. Baltes (Eds.), The psychology of control and aging
(pp. 35–69). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Small, B. J., Hertzog, C., Hultsch, D. F., & Dixon, R. A. (2003). Sta-
bility and change in adult personality over 6 years: Findings
from the Victoria Longitudinal Study. Journals of Gerontology,
58B, 166–176.
Smith, F., Fagan, J. F., & Ulvund, S. E. (2002). The relation of recog-
nition memory in infancy and parental socioeconomic status to
later intellectual performance. Intelligence, 30, 247–259.
Smith, J. (1999). Life planning: Anticipating future life goals and
managing personal development. In J. Brandtstädter & R. M.
Lerner (Eds.), Action and self-development: Theory and research
through the life span (pp. 223–255). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Smith, J. (2003). The gain-loss dynamic in life span development: Im-
plications for change in self and personality during old and very
old age. In U. M. Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Under-
standing human development: Dialogues with life span psychology
(pp. 215-–241).
Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1993). Differential psychological aging:
Profiles of the old and very old. Ageing and Society, 13, 551–587.
Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1997). Profiles of psychological function-
ing in the old and oldest old. Psychology and Aging, 12,
458–472.
Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1999). Trends and profiles of psychological
functioning in very old age. In P. B. Baltes & K. U. Mayer (Eds.),
The Berlin Aging Study: Aging from 70 to 100 (pp. 197–226). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Smith, J., & Freund, A. M. (2002). The dynamics of possible
selves in old age. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sci-
ences, 57B, P492–P500.
Smith, J., Staudinger, U. M., & Baltes, P. B. (1994). Occupational
settings facilitative of wisdom-related knowledge: The sample
case of clinical psychologists. Journal of Consulting and Clinical
Psychology, 62, 989–1000.
Smith, L. B., & Thelen, E. (2003). Development as a dynamic system.
Trends in Cognitive Science, 7(8), 343–348.
Sorensen, A. B., Weinert, F. E., & Sherrod, L. (Eds.). (1986). Human
development and the life course: Multidisciplinary perspectives.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Sowarka, D., & Baltes, P. B. (1986). Intelligenzentwicklung. In
W. Sarges & R. Fricke (Eds.), Psychologie für die Erwachsenen-
bildung-Weiterbildung (pp. 262–272). Göttingen, Germany:
Hogrefe & Huber.
Spelke, E., Vishton, P., & von Hofsten, C. (1995). Object percep-
tion, object-directed action, and physical knowledge in infancy.
In M. S. Gazzaniga (Ed.), The cognitive neurosciences
(pp. 165–179). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Staudinger, U. M. (1996). Wisdom and the social-interactive founda-
tion of the mind. In P. B. Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Inter-
active minds: Life span perspectives on the social foundation of
cognition (pp. 276–315). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Staudinger, U. M. (1999a). Older and wiser? Integrating results on
the relationship between age and wisdom-related performance.
International Journal of Behavioral Development, 23(3),
641–664.
Staudinger, U. M. (1999b). Social cognition and a psychological ap-
proach to an art of life. In F. Blanchard-Fields & T. Hess (Eds.),
Social cognition, adult development and aging (pp. 343–375). New
York: Academic Press.
Staudinger, U. M. (2000). Viele Gründe sprechen dagegen und trotz-
dem fühlen viele Mnschen sich wohl: Das Paradox des subjektiven
Eohlbefindens [Many reasons speak against it, nevertheless many
people are happy: The paradox of subjective well-being]. Psychol-
ogische Rundschau, 51, 185–197.
Staudinger, U. M. (2001). Life ref lection: A social-cognitive analysis
of life review. Review of General Psychology, 5, 148–160.
Staudinger, U. M. (2005). Personality and aging. In M. Johnson, V. L.
Bengtson, P. G. Coleman, & T. Kirkwood (Eds.), Cambridge
handbook of age and ageing. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Staudinger, U. M. (in press). Personality and aging. In M. Johnson,
V. L. Bengtson, P. G. Coleman, & T. Kirkwood (Eds.), Cambridge
handbook of age and ageing. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Staudinger, U. M., & Baltes, P. B. (1996). Interactive minds: A facil-
itative setting for wisdom-related performance? Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 71, 746–762.
Staudinger, U. M., Bluck, S., & Herzberg, P. Y. (2003). Looking back
and looking ahead: Adult age differences in consistency of di-
achronous ratings of subjective well-being. Psychology and
Aging, 18, 13–24.
Staudinger, U. M., Dörner, J., & Mickler, C. (2005). Self-insight: Mea-
surement, validation and plasticity. Manuscript in preparation.

Staudinger, U. M., & Fleeson, W. (1996). Self and personality in old
and very old age: A sample case of resilience? Development and
Psychopathology, 8, 867–885.
Staudinger, U. M., Freund, A. M., Linden, M., & Maas, I. (1999).
Self, personality, and life management: Psychological resilience
and vulnerability. In P. B. Baltes & K. U. Mayer (Eds.), The
Berlin Aging Study: Aging from 70 to 100 (pp. 302–328). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Staudinger, U. M., & Kunzmann, U. (2005). Positive adult personal-
ity development: Adjustment and/or growth? European Psycholo-
gist, 10, 320–329.
Staudinger, U. M., & Lindenberger, U. (Eds.). (2003). Understanding
human development: Life span psychology in exchange with other
disciplines. Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Staudinger, U. M., Lopez, D., & Baltes, P. B. (1997). The psychome-
tric location of wisdom-related performance: Intelligence, per-
sonality, and more? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin,
23, 1200–1214.
Staudinger, U. M., Maciel, A. G., Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1998).
What predicts wisdom-related performance? A first look at per-
sonality, intelligence, and facilitative experiential contexts. Euro-
pean Journal of Personality, 12, 1–17.
Staudinger, U. M., Marsiske, M., & Baltes, P. B. (1993). Resilience
and levels of reserve capacity in later adulthood: Perspectives from
life span theory. Development and Psychopathology, 5, 541–566.
Staudinger, U. M., Marsiske, M., & Baltes, P. B. (1995). Resilience
and reserve capacity in later adulthood: Potentials and limits of
development across the life span. In D. Cicchetti & D. Cohen
(Eds.), Developmental psychopathology: Vol. 2. Risk, disorder, and
adaptation (pp. 801–847). New York: Wiley.
Staudinger, U. M., & Pasupathi, M. (2000). Life span perspectives on
self, personality, and social cognition. In F. I. M. Craik & T. A.
Salthouse (Eds.), The handbook of aging and cognition (2nd ed.,
pp. 633–688). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Staudinger, U. M., & Schindler, I. (2005). Personal life investment: A
window on adaptation across the life span. Manuscript submitted
for publication.
Staudinger, U. M., Smith, J., & Baltes, P. B. (1992). Wisdom-related
knowledge in a life review task: Age differences and the role of
professional specialization. Psychology and Aging, 7, 271–281.
Sternberg, R. J. (1985). Beyond IQ: A triarchic theory of human intel-
ligence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J. (1998). A balance theory of wisdom. Review of Gen-
eral Psychology, 2, 347–365.
Sternberg, R. J. (2004). Words to the wise about wisdom? Human De-
velopment, 47, 286–289.
Sternberg, R. J., & Jordan, J. (Eds.). (2005). A handbook of wisdom:
Psychological perspectives. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sternberg, R. J., Wagner, R. K., Williams, W. M., & Horvath, J. A.
(1995). Testing common sense. American Psychologist, 50, 912–927.
Sterns, H. L., & Dorsett, J. G. (1994). Career development: A life
span issue. Experimental Aging Research, 20, 257–264.
Strelau, J., & Angleitner, A. (Eds.). (1991). Explorations in tempera-
ment: International perspectives on theory and measurement. New
York: Plenum Press.
Suls, J., & David, J. P. (1996). Coping and personality: Third time’s
the charm? Journal of Personality, 64, 993–1005.
Suls, J., David, J. P., & Harvey, J. H. (1996). Personality and coping:
Three generations of research. Journal of Personality, 64, 711–735.
References 663
Taylor, S. E., & Brown, J. D. (1988). Illusion and well-being: A social
psychological perspective on mental health. Psychological Bul-
letin, 103, 193–210.
Taylor, S. E., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (1995). Effects of mindset on
positive illusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
69, 213–226.
Taylor, S. E., Neter, E., & Wayment, H. A. (1995). Self-
evaluation processes. Personality and Social Psychology Bul-
letin, 21(12), 1278–1287.
Tetens, J. N. (1777). Philosophische Versuche über die menschliche
Natur und ihre Entwicklung. Leipzig, Germany: Weidmanns
Erben und Reich.
Thaler, D. S. (2002). Design for an aging brain. Neurobiology of
Aging, 23, 13–15.
Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (1998). Dynamic systems theories. In W.
Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of
child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development
(pp. 563–635). New York: Wiley.
Thomae, H. (1959). Entwicklungspsychologie [Developmental psy-
chology]. Göttingen, Germany: Hogrefe & Huber.
Thomae, H. (Ed.). (1979). The concept of development and life span
developmental psychology. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.),
Life span development and behavior (Vol. 2, pp. 282–312). New
York: Academic Press.
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tomarken, A. J., Davidson, R. J., Wheeler, R. E., & Kinney, L.
(1992). Psychometric properties of resting anterior EEG asymme-
try: Temporal stability and internal consistency. Psychophysiol-
ogy, 29, 576–592.
Trivers, R. L. (1985). Social evolution. Menlo Park, CA: Benjamin /
Cummings.
Turkheimer, E., Haley, A., Waldron, M., D’Onofrio, B., & Gottes-
man, I. I. (2003). Socioeconomic status modifies heritability of
IQ in young children. Psychological Science, 14(6), 623–628.
Vaidya, J. G., Gray, E. K., Haig, J., & Watson, D. (2002). On the tem-
poral stability of personality: Evidence for differential stability
and the role of life experience. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 83, 1469–1484.
Vaillant, G. E. (1990). Avoiding negative life outcomes: Evidence
from a forty-five year study. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes
(Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences
(pp. 332–355). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Vaillant, G. E. (1993). The wisdom of the ego. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Valsiner, J., & Lawrence, J. A. (1997). Human development in culture
across the life span. In J. W. Berry, P. R. Dasen, & T. S.
Saraswathi (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (Vol. 2,
pp. 69–106). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Verhaeghen, P., Marcoen, A., & Goossens, L. (1992). Improving
memory performance in the aged through mnemonic training: A
meta-analytic study. Psychology and Aging, 7, 242–251.
Verhaeghen, P., & Salthouse, T. A. (1997). Meta-analyses of age-
cognition relations in adulthood: Estimates of linear and non-
linear age effects and structural models. Psychological Bulletin,
122, 231–249.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Waddington, C. H. (1975). The evolution of an evolutionist. Edin-
burgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press.
664 Life Span Theory in Developmental Psychology
Waterman, A. S., & Archer, S. L. (1990). A life span perspective on
identity formation: Developments in form, function, and process.
In P. B. Baltes, D. L. Featherman, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Life
span development and behavior (Vol. 10, pp. 29–57). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Weinert, F. E., & Perner, J. (1996). Cognitive development. In
D. Magnusson (Ed.), The life span development of individuals:
Behavioural, neurobiological and psychosocial perspectives
(pp. 207–222). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Weir, M. W. (1964). Developmental changes in problem-solving
strategies. Psychological Review, 71, 473–490.
Welford, A. T. (1984). Between bodily changes and performance:
Some possible reasons for slowing with age. Experimental Aging
Research, 10, 73–88.
Wellman, H. M. (2003). Enablement and constraint. In U. M.
Staudinger & U. Lindenberger (Eds.), Understanding human de-
velopment: Dialogues with life span psychology (pp. 245–263).
Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Werner, E. E. (1995). Resilience in development. Current Directions
in Psychological Science, 4, 81–85.
Werner, H. (1926). Einführung in die Entwicklungspsychologie.
München, Germany: Barth.
Werner, H. (1948). Comparative psychology of mental development.
New York: International Universities Press.
Whitbourne, S. K. (1987). Personality development in adulthood and
old age: Relationships among identity style, health, and well-
being. Annual Review of Gerontology and Geriatrics, 7, 189–216.
Whitbourne, S. K., & Waterman, A. S. (1979). Psychosocial develop-
ment during the adult years: Age and cohort comparisons. Devel-
opmental Psychology, 15, 373–378.
White, R. W. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of com-
petence. Psychological Review, 66, 297–333.
White, S. H. (1992). G. Stanley Hall: From philosophy to develop-
mental psychology. Developmental Psychology, 28, 25–34.
Wiese, B. S., Freund, A. M., & Baltes, P. B. (2002). Subjective career
success and emotional well-being: Longitudinal predictive power
of selection, optimization and compensation. Journal of Voca-
tional Behavior, 60, 321–335.
Wiese, B. S., & Schmitz, B. (2002). Studienbezogenes Handeln im
Kontext eines entwicklungspsychologischen Meta-Modells.
Zeitschrift für Entwicklungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psy-
chologie, 34, 80–94.
Wilkening, F., & Anderson, N. H. (1990). Representation and diagno-
sis of knowledge structures in developmental psychology. In N. H.
Anderson (Ed.), Contributions to information integration theory
(pp. 45–80). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Willis, S. L. (1990). Contributions of cognitive training research to
understanding late life potential. In M. Perlmutter (Ed.), Late-
life potential (pp. 25–42). Washington, DC: Gerontological Soci-
ety of America.
Willis, S. L. (2001). Methodological issues in behavioral intervention
research with the elderly. In J. E. Birren (Ed.), Handbook of the
psychology of aging (5th ed., pp. 78–108). San Diego, CA: Aca-
demic Press.
Willis, S. L., & Baltes, P. B. (1980). Intelligence in adulthood and
aging: Contemporary issues. In L. W. Poon (Ed.), Aging in the
1980’s: Psychological issues (pp. 260–272). Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Willis, S. L., & Nesselroade, C. S. (1990). Long-term effects of
f luid ability training in old-old age. Developmental Psychology,
26, 905–910.
Wood, J. V. (1996). What is social comparison and how should we
study it? Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 22, 520–537.
Woodruff, D. S., & Birren, J. E. (1972). Age changes and cohort
differences in personality. Developmental Psychology, 6,
252–259.
Wortman, C. B., & Silver, R. C. (2001). The myths of coping with loss
revisited. In M. S. Stroebe & R. O. Hansson (Eds.), Handbook of be-
reavement research: Consequences, coping, and care (pp. 405–429).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Yates, E., & Benton, L. A. (1995). Biological senescence: Loss of
integration and resilience. Canadian Journal on Aging, 14,
106–120.
Zuckerman, M. (1995). Good and bad humors: Biochemical bases of
personality and its disorders. Psychological Science, 6, 325–332.
CHAPTER 12
The Life Course and Human Development
GLEN H. ELDER JR. and MICHAEL J. SHANAHAN
THE EMERGENCE OF LIFE-COURSE THEORY: A
HISTORICAL ACCOUNT 668
Concepts of Human Development across the Life Span 670
How Lives Are Socially Organized: Roles, Cycles,
and Age 672
Age and Life Course 673
BASIC CONCEPTS AND PERSPECTIVES OF THE
INDIVIDUAL LIFE COURSE 679
Social Pathways, Cumulative Processes, and the
Individual Life Course 680
Trajectories, Transitions, and Turning Points 684
Selection, Endogeniety, and Contextual Effects 687
LIFE TRANSITIONS AND HISTORICAL CHANGE 689
The study of the life course and human development
flourished during the closing decades of the twentieth
century, extending across substantive and theoretical
boundaries (Mortimer & Shanahan, 2003), and now ap-
pears in many subfields of the behavioral sciences. With
this change has come an increasing appreciation for link-
ages between changing contexts and human development.
Context refers to the social embedding of individuals and
often calls for the study of longitudinal, historical, and
spatial variations. Human development entails patterns of
growth and adaptation that extend from birth to death.
Conceptual breakthroughs associated with the life-
course framework, coupled with the dramatic growth of
longitudinal studies, have generated more research and
We thank Ross Parke, Avshalom Caspi, and Richard Lerner,
who provided thoughtful reviews to the first edition of this
chapter (Elder, 1998a). The senior author is indebted to the
Spencer Foundation for a Senior Scholar Fellowship. The
staff of the Carolina Population Center provided valuable as-
sistance in preparing the first and second editions of the
chapter. We are particularly indebted to Lilly Shanahan for
her thorough review of the second edition.
665
Linking Mechanisms 689
Paradigmatic Principles of Life-Course Theory 691
Contributions of Life-Course Theory to the Study of
Human Development 700
INTEGRATING BIOLOGICAL MODELS WITH THE
LIFE COURSE: A PROMISING FRONTIER 701
Mechanisms of Gene-Environment Interaction 702
Gene-Environment Interactions in the Life Course 703
Future Directions for the Life Course and
Behavioral Genetics 705
CONCLUSIONS 706
REFERENCES 707
knowledge than ever before about behavioral adapta-
tions in real-world settings. We are also increasingly
aware of individuals as agents of their own lives. New
avenues of research have opened, and the future offers
exciting promise for understanding how dynamic views
of context and the person—including biological dimen-
sions—interact to influence achievements, physical and
psychological well-being, and social involvements.
To grasp the magnitude of this change, consider stud-
ies of person and society in the 1960s. In his widely read
The Sociological Imagination, C. Wright Mills (1959)
encouraged “ the study of biography, of history, and of
the problems of their intersection within social struc-
ture” (p. 149). Mills started with the individual and
asked what features of society produce such a person.
He argued that the seemingly “personal problems” of
one’s biography are better understood as repercussions
of broad social tensions. He had few empirical examples,
however, and was not concerned with dynamic views of
person and context. Rather, he focused on types of soci-
ety and adult behavioral patterns, with little recognition
of social change, development and aging, or even human
diversity. Indeed, longitudinal studies of human lives
666 The Life Course and Human Development
were an uncommon subject of study, particularly in their
social and historical contexts. The concept of the life
course had not yet appeared in the scholarly literature
and was not addressed in the seminars of leading gradu-
ate programs.
The unfolding story of life-course theory up to the
present owes much to a set of pathbreaking studies that
were launched more than 60 years ago at the Institute of
Child Welfare (now Human Development) at the Univer-
sity of California in Berkeley: the Oakland Growth
Study ( birth years 1920 to 1921) and the Berkeley
Growth and Guidance Studies ( birth years 1928 to
1929). When these studies began, no one could have
imagined what they eventually would mean for the field
of human development. The investigators did not envi-
sion research that would extend into the adult years of
study members, let alone into the later years of old age.
There were many reasons for this limited perspective.
Except for support from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller
Foundation, substantial funds for longitudinal studies
were virtually nonexistent. In addition, the idea of adult
development had not yet captured the attention of behav-
ioral scientists. A mature field of adult development and
aging was still decades away from becoming a reality.
Nonetheless, these considerations did not restrict the
studies from continuing into the adult years and middle
age. The Institute of Human Development contacted the
members of the Oakland Growth Study for interviews
in the early and late 1950s, and another follow-up,
scheduled in 1972 to 1973, joined the lives of all study
members, some parents, and offspring, in an intergener-
ational framework.
By the 1970s, Jack Block (1971), with the assistance
of Norma Haan, had completed a pioneering longitudi-
nal study focused on continuity and change in personal-
ity from early adolescence to the middle years in the
lives of the Oakland and Berkeley Study members. Also
during the 1970s, George Vaillant (1977) followed a
panel of Harvard men (students recruited between 1939
and 1942) into the middle years of adulthood, assessing
mechanisms of defense and coping. Another study at
the Institute of Human Development (Elder, 1974/1999)
placed the lives of the Oakland Growth Study members
in the Great Depression and traced the influence
of hardship on family life, careers, and health up to
midlife. To cap off this active decade, investigators at
the Berkeley Institute completed a multifaceted study
that revealed patterns of continuity and change in social
roles, health, and personality, with a distinctive empha-
sis on life patterns across the middle years (Eichorn,
Clausen, Haan, Honzik, & Mussen, 1981). Both histori-
cal cohort comparisons and intergenerational connec-
tions were part of this project.
At Stanford University, a research team headed by
Robert Sears actively followed members of the Lewis
Terman sample of talented children into their later
years. This was the oldest, active longitudinal study at
the time, with birth years extending from 1903 to the
1920s. By the 1990s, the project had assembled 13
waves of data spanning 70 years (Holahan & Sears,
1995), and research had begun to reveal the historical
imprint of the times on the study members’ lives (Elder,
Pavalko, & Hastings, 1991), from the 1920s to the post
World War II years and into later adulthood (Crosnoe &
Elder, 2004; Shanahan & Elder, 2002).
This extension of the early child samples to the adult
years provided initial momentum to the scientific study
of adult development and sharpened awareness of the
need for a different research paradigm that would give
attention to human development beyond childhood and
to contexts beyond the family. What social routes to
adulthood promoted behavioral continuity or change
from the early years of life? Which ones enabled prob-
lem children to turn their lives around and become ef-
fective adults? Child-based models of development had
little to offer because they did not address development
and aging in the adult life course and were not con-
cerned with changing social contexts. For the most part,
studies of continuity and change from childhood to the
adult years were limited to evidence of correlational
patterns between measures at time 1 and time 2 (Jones,
Bayley, Macfarlane, & Honzik, 1971). The intervening
years and their mechanisms remained a “ black box.”
Little, if anything, could be learned about linking events
and processes from such analysis.
Kagan and Moss (1962), for example, studied the Fels
children from “ birth to maturity” by using correlation
coefficients to depict behavioral stability across the
years, but this approach ignored the diverse paths that
youth take into adult life. By age 23, some of the respon-
dents followed a path to college, full-time employment,
and marriage, and others entered military service or
mixed employment and education. The timing of such
transitions was important in determining their meaning
and implications. For example, adolescent marriage and
parenting are coupled with more social and economic

constraints than the same transitions occurring accord-
ing to a normative timetable, but late family formation
maximizes economic advantages and minimizes the dis-
ruptive effect of young children. However, these consid-
erations of context and timing—so richly descriptive of
lives—were of little interest. In large part, this inatten-
tion reflected the view that continuity of behaviors and
psychological dispositions required little explanation
aside from the label “stability.”
Empirical studies of children into their adult and
midlife years revealed major limitations to conventional
knowledge of human development, which, in turn, posed
major challenges for the future study of behavior:
• To replace child-based, growth-oriented (“ontoge-
netic”) accounts of development with models that
apply to development and aging over the life course
• To think about how human lives are organized and evolve
over time, exhibiting patterns of constancy and change
• To relate lives to an ever-changing society, with em-
phasis on the developmental effects of social change
and transitions
As a whole, these challenges revealed a view of
human development that was advocated by proponents of
a contextualized psychology (e.g., Cairns & Cairns,
Chapter 3, this Handbook, this volume) and many
decades earlier by the Chicago school of sociology (Ab-
bott, 1997), especially by William I. Thomas. With the
close of the nineteenth century and through the first
decades of the twentieth century (a time of massive
changes in U.S. society), Thomas made a persuasive
case for studying change as “experiments of nature” in
the lives of immigrants and children. Inspired by
Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America (1918–1920), researchers began to use
life-record data to investigate the impact of social
change. Before most of the innovative longitudinal stud-
ies had been launched, Thomas urged, in the mid 1920s,
that priority be given to the “longitudinal approach to
life history” (Volkart, 1951, p. 593). He claimed that
studies should investigate “many types of individuals
with regard to their experiences and various past peri-
ods of life in different situations” and follow “groups of
individuals in the future, getting a continuous record of
experiences as they occur.”
Social transformations of the twentieth century
raised many questions about historical variations in fam-
ily life and contexts beyond the family, including schools
The Life Course and Human Development 667
and communities. In the classic Middletown studies
(Lynd & Lynd, 1929, 1937), findings on families during
the 1920s seemed to have little relevance to family life in
the Great Depression. Life-course theory emerged in the
1960s in response to these issues and to the challenge of
an aging population and the rapid growth of longitudinal
studies. In the terminology of this chapter, the life course
refers most broadly to a theoretical orientation (or para-
digm) that encourages the study of changing lives in
changing contexts. To use Robert Merton’s (1968) dis-
tinction, a theoretical orientation establishes a common
field of inquiry by defining a framework that guides re-
search in terms of problem identification and formula-
tion, variable selection and rationales, and strategies of
research design and analysis.
Based in large measure on sociocultural theories of
age and social relations (Elder, 1975; Neugarten, 1968;
Ryder, 1965), the life course as a concept refers to a se-
quence of socially defined, age-graded events and roles
that defines, in large measure, the contours of biography.
A sociocultural perspective gives emphasis to the social
meanings of age. Birth, puberty, and death are biological
facts, but their meanings in the life course are social
facts or constructions. Age distinctions are expressed in
expectations about the timing and order of a transition,
whether early, on time, or late. The life course can be
historically linked to specific transitions and to the
meanings of cohort status (Riley, Johnson, & Foner,
1972). Birth year locates people in specific birth co-
horts and thus according to particular social changes.
The first author encountered such ideas about age and
life course in the 1960s, just after arriving at the Insti-
tute of Human Development (UC Berkeley, 1962) to
work with sociologist John Clausen on the Oakland
Growth Study. The dramatic changes of families and in-
dividual lives across the 1930s focused his energies on
the patterning of lives and links to a changing socioeco-
nomic system. Codes that captured trajectories were
needed for people’s lives instead of the conventional
codes for status at one point in time such as family so-
cioeconomic status (SES) and personal achievement or
failure. The link between age and time provided an im-
portant step in this direction such as age-patterned
events. This perspective on life changes suggested a way
of thinking about the social construction of individual
lives, along with ideas from the life-history tradition of
the early Chicago School of Sociology. Thus, Children of
the Great Depression (Elder, 1974/1999) represents the
668 The Life Course and Human Development
published version of this initial effort to fashion a life-
course framework.
Since its inception, life-course studies have ex-
panded their purview beyond historical variations to
include dynamic patterns of context in cohorts. These
studies reveal remarkable diversity in cohorts with re-
spect to poverty experiences and economic fortunes,
residential mobility and the composition of neighbor-
hoods, family structure and household membership,
and experiences shaped by diverse stressors, employ-
ment patterns, and immigration (Shanahan, Sulloway,
& Hofer, 2000). Each life is marked by social change in
these respects, and the life-course framework has
proved useful in studying how these dynamisms shape
lives and how the social aggregate of individual life
patterns affect social institutions.
We begin this chapter by viewing the emergence of
life-course thinking as a response to some of the chal-
lenges we have noted, particularly those that stem from
following children into middle and old age. Life-span
ideas in developmental psychology, life-cycle theory of
role sequences, and concepts of the age-graded life
course were prominent in this conceptual enterprise. By
the end of the 1970s, a new synthesis, relating theory on
relationships and age, achieved a theoretical orientation.
The basic concepts and distinctions of life-course
theory are surveyed in the next section, with emphasis
on the individual life course, its institutionalized path-
ways, developmental trajectories, and transitions. In ad-
dition, paradigmatic themes of life-course theory are
identified and illustrated by research projects. The
themes include human agency and choice making in the
construction of lives, the timing of lives, linked or inter-
dependent lives, and human lives in historical time and
place. This account explores distinctive contributions of
life-course theory to studies of children, adolescents,
and young adults. The concluding section features newly
emerging developments in life-course study, with an em-
phasis on biological perspectives, and a promise of a
theoretical framework that combines biology, social and
cultural influences, and psychology.
THE EMERGENCE OF LIFE-COURSE
THEORY: A HISTORICAL ACCOUNT
Over the past 30 years, advances in life-course theory
and research have come from many quarters across the
behavioral and social sciences, identifying important
problems and defining approaches from sociology
(Elder, 1974/1999, 1975, 1985; Riley et al., 1972), de-
mography (Ryder, 1965), history (Hareven, 1978, 1982;
Modell, 1989), anthropology (Kertzer & Keith, 1984),
and both ecological (Bronfenbrenner, 1979) and life-
span developmental psychology (Baltes & Baltes, 1990).
Major examples include:
• Recognition of a life-course perspective on human de-
velopment, extending from birth to maturity, and the
rapid growth of longitudinal studies that link child-
hood and the adaptations of later life (Phelps, Fursten-
berg, & Colby, 2002; Young, Savola, & Phelps, 1991).
• Life-history calendars for the collection of retrospec-
tive accounts of life events (Caspi et al., 1996; Freed-
man, Thornton, Camburn, Alwin, & Young-DeMarco,
1988).
• New appreciation for the necessity of longitudinal,
contextually rich data (Hofer & Sliwinski, 2002; Lit-
tle, Bovaird, & Marquis, in press); appropriate statis-
tical techniques; and structural and dynamic, person-
and variable-centered approaches (e.g., Bergman,
Magnusson, & El-Khouri, 2003; Collins & Sayer,
2001; Little, Schnabel, & Baumert, 2000).
• Cross-disciplinary models of collaboration (Elder,
Modell, & Parke, 1993), particularly with psychology
and history, but now extending to exciting develop-
ments in subfields devoted to the study of physical and
emotional well-being (Halfon & Hochstein, 2002;
Hertzman & Power, 2003; Kuh, Ben-Shlomo, Lynch,
Hallqvist, & Power, 2003). This chapter draws liber-
ally from these sources in exploring the relevance of
contemporary progress for studies of child, adoles-
cent, and adult development.
• A growing awareness that, beyond history and the
differing experiences of cohorts, social change may
refer to dynamic contextual patterns experienced
within cohorts through diverse life histories (Shana-
han et al., 2000). Further, many contextual features
are correlated, and their synergistic interactions are
critical to understanding time and place.
As is seen, these developments have relevance for the
study of the individual life course, its relation to chang-
ing social and historical conditions, and its implications
for developmental processes. In this respect, life-course
theory has much in common with interactionist think-
 The Emergence of Life-Course Theory: A Historical Account 669

ing—which emphasizes interactions between person
and context (see Magnusson & Stattin, Chapter 8, this
Handbook, this volume)—but it also attends to the orga-
nization and reorganization of social structures and
pathways through life. As might be expected, life-course
theory shares many objectives and concepts with the
ecology of human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979;
Bronfenbrenner & Morris, Chapter 14, this Handbook,
this volume), including a multilevel concept of the envi-
ronment, from micro to macro. Life-course models also
share the ambition of life-span developmental psychol-
ogy in rethinking the nature of human development and
aging (Baltes, 1994; Baltes, Lindenberg, & Staudinger,
Chapter 11, this Handbook, this volume), but with par-
ticular attention to links between changing contexts and
lifelong development.
The principal traditions that led to life-course theory
are illustrated in Figure 12.1: life-span concepts of de-
velopment, social relations, and age and temporality.
The first strand ( life-span concepts of human devel-
opment) includes references to the pioneering work of
Erik Erikson’s (1950, 1963) psychosocial stages of de-
velopment and Paul Baltes’s (1997) process of selective
optimization with compensation. In addition, Richard
Lerner (1982, 1991) has stressed the relative plasticity
and agency of the aging organism (see also Schaie, 1965,
with emphasis on the later years of aging), the multidi-
rectionality of life-span development, and the lifelong
interaction of person and social context. The concept of
developmental task, perhaps first delineated by Robert
Havighurst (1949), also represents a way of viewing de-
velopment across life stages. The concept alerts the ana-
lyst to the possibility that specific experiences may be
highly salient at different points in life, although empir-
ical evidence for distinct psychosocial stages is not com-
pelling. The perceived or defined life course can change
with aging through successive life reviews in which the
past is assessed in light of the present. Staudinger (1989)
has focused on “life review” as a way of studying intel-
lectual development across the life span.
The second strand (social relations) includes the
early work of W. I. Thomas on life histories (Thomas &
Znaniecki, 1918–1920), G. H. Mead on socialization
and the self (1934), Everett Hughes on work and the self
(1971), Kurt Lewin on power dependence relations
(1948), and L. S. Vygotsky on language, the self, and so-
cial relationships (1978; see also Clausen, 1968; Parke,
Ornstein, Rieser, & Zahn-Waxler, 1994). The develop-
ment of social role and self theories belongs in this tra-
dition, and features the writings of sociologist Robert

Life-Span Concepts of Development Life Cycle and the Generations Age and Temporality

Psychosocial stage, adult stages Life cycle of social roles, Anthropology of age, age-grades,
of development generational succession expectations, concepts of age
status identity, proscriptive and
Multi-directionality of development Social roles, status, role-playing prescriptive age norms

Cumulative advantage, disadvantage Role transitions and sequences History of childhood and the family

Selective optimization with compensation
Life review, autobiographical memory
Person-Context Interaction
Socialization as role/social learning
Intergenerational relations, exchange
Social networks, capital
Cohorts - Birth cohorts and
social change, structural lag
Age and life-course variations
Transitions and trajectories

Life Course Theory

1960s to present

Figure 12.1 The emergence of life-course theory (1960s to present): research traditions and their concepts.
670 The Life Course and Human Development
Merton on role sets and reference groups (1968), Morris
Rosenberg (1979) on self-esteem, and Urie Bronfen-
brenner on socialization (1970), to name a few. The
field of intergenerational relations has expanded from
two to three and even four generations, with important
contributions to an understanding of three generations
from Reuben Hill (1970), Vern Bengtson and Laufer
(1974), James Jackson (2000) and his three-generation
study of African Americans, and Ross Parke (Parke &
Ladd, 1992).
A number of topics illustrate distinctive contribu-
tions to a third strand (the study of age and temporality
in lives). These include the early contributions to age-
grading by social and cultural anthropologists and the
pioneering analysis of birth cohorts and generational
units by Karl Mannheim in the 1920s (Elder, 1975).
Also covered is Bernice Neugarten’s work on the social
psychology of age and the innovative sociological con-
tributions of Matilda Riley and her collaborators. De-
mographers Uhlenberg (1974) and Hogan (1981) have
produced creative analyses of cohort life patterns and
age-grading. In social history, Hareven (1978, 1982)
and Modell (1989), among others, have made imagina-
tive contributions to a historical understanding of the
life course. The study of age expectations and time-
tables in adolescent development is nicely illustrated
by Silbereisen’s programmatic study of youth affected
by German reunification (e.g., Silbereisen & Schmitt-
Rodermund, 1995; Silbereisen & Wiesner, 2000, 2002).
We turn now to a survey of each strand of influence
on life-course theory.
Concepts of Human Development across the
Life Span
A number of efforts in the psychological sciences were
made during the post-World War II years to link child
and adult developmental trajectories to social structure
and changes in society, though typically from the per-
spective of a maturing or aging organism. Research
questions did not ask about the implications of environ-
mental change for the developing individual. Erik Erik-
son’s (1950, 1963) theory of psychosocial stages was
formulated with an eye to cultural variations, but he
also largely saw the social system and culture from the
vantage point of the developing organism. Likewise,
Daniel Levinson’s (1978) The Seasons of a Man’s Life
outlined a theory of life structure that ignored varia-
tions in social structure and culture over historical time
in which psychosocial transitions were affixed to age as
if immutable to institutional change, such as the mid-
life transition between ages 40 and 45. For Erikson,
Levinson, and other ontogenetic theorists, the starting
point was a sequence of stages through which all per-
sons must pass.
This perspective views the social context as a “scene
or setting” through which the person—loaded with his
or her “natural predispositions”—must pass. By con-
trast, the life-course paradigm views the interplay of so-
cial context and the organism as the formative process,
making people who they are. Individuals do not “de-
velop according to their natures” but, rather, they are
continually produced, sustained, and changed by their
social context (see Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter,
Chapter 5, this Handbook, this volume). Indeed, Mitter-
auer (1993) observes that, in many times and places, his-
torians find little evidence of Erikson’s stages.
Proponents of life-span developmental psychology (a
field of inquiry first identified by name in 1969) ad-
dressed the challenges of such a circumscribed view by
seeking a concept of development and aging across the
life span that emphasizes cultural influences and
learned experiences or skills in patterns of aging. In
theory, historical and cultural variations emerged as
particularly influential sources of adult adaptations
and development. As Baltes (1979) observed, “It ap-
pears that restricting developmental events to those
which have the features of a biological growth concept
of development is more of a hindrance than a help”
(p. 265).
Paul Baltes (1993, 1994) has been a major figure in
the conceptual articulation of life-span development
since the 1960s. More than most proponents of this per-
spective, he has interacted with life-course ideas and
distinctions over the decades (see Baltes et al., Chapter
11, this Handbook, this volume). The following proposi-
tions on life-span development are not new in them-
selves but they add up to a distinctive perspective:
• Life-span development results from lifelong adaptive
processes in which some are cumulative and continu-
ous, and others are discontinuous and innovative,
showing little connection to prior events or processes.
• Ontogenetic development is local, specific, and time-
bound, so it is never fully adaptive. There is no pure
advance or loss in development.
• Age-graded influences are most important in the de-
pendency years, childhood/adolescence and old age,
 The Emergence of Life-Course Theory: A Historical Account
but history-graded and nonnormative influences are
most consequential across the early and middle years
of adulthood.
• Changes occur in relation to positive and negative
events, gains, and losses, with the likelihood of ex-
pected losses increasing. Biological resources decline
over the life span, but cultural resources may in-
crease such as the cultivation of wisdom.
• Life-span development entails selection, optimization,
and compensation. These mechanisms seek to maxi-
mize gains and minimize losses or declines. Selective
optimization with compensation represents a “life-
span model of psychological management that de-
scribes how individuals can deal with the dual faced
nature of human aging and the ubiquitous, age-
related shift toward a less positive balance of gains
and losses” (Baltes, 1993, p. 590).
The way these mechanisms or strategies work in
later life is illustrated by an interview with the concert
pianist Arthur Rubenstein. When asked how he re-
mained a successful pianist in his late years, Ruben-
stein referred to three strategies: “(1) he performed
fewer pieces, (2) he now practiced each more fre-
quently, and (3) he introduced more ritardandos in his
playing before fast segments, so that the playing
sounded faster than it was” (Baltes, 1993, p. 590). The
strategy of selection is illustrated by Rubenstein’s con-
centration on fewer pieces, the more frequent practice
illustrates the use of optimization, and the increasing
reliance on contrast in speed exemplifies a strategy of
compensation.
This psychological model of successful aging has rel-
evance for successful development at all ages including
childhood and adolescence. Adaptations in adolescence
can be viewed through the guidelines of selective opti-
mization in which gains are maximized and risks,
losses, or deprivations are minimized. Youth select ac-
tivities in which they are competent (i.e., athletics, aca-
demics, or street life) and optimize benefits through an
investment of resources, time, energy, and relationships.
Marsiske, Lang, Baltes, and Baltes (1995, pp. 35–36)
rightly claim that selective optimization with compen-
sation is best understood as a metamodel for life-span
development because it applies broadly to aspects of the
“developmental person-context matrix.” Life-span de-
velopmentalists, such as Baltes, Schaie, and others, have
undoubtedly enriched our thinking about development
and aging across the life course, and they have given
671
some attention to the role of social, cultural, and histor-
ical forces in developmental processes.
However, concepts of life-span development gener-
ally fail to apprehend social structure as a constitutive
force in development. The problem stems from the life-
span framework’s conceptualization of context, which
refers to age-graded, history-graded, or nonnormative
influences: Age-graded influences shape individual de-
velopment in largely normative ways for all persons,
history-graded influences shape development in differ-
ent ways for different cohorts, and nonnormative influ-
ences reflect idiosyncrasies (e.g., losing a leg in an
accident). Such a view has been unduly restrictive in
two senses. First, within-cohort variability largely re-
flects nonnormative influences, which are not easily
subject to scientific study (Dannefer, 1984). As a result,
the social basis for within-cohort differences becomes a
residual category. Second, as Mayer (2003) has noted,
life-span psychology views historical and nonnormative
influences as idiographic (i.e., unique, nonrepeating),
leaving only age-graded influences, which are thought to
be largely based in biology and age norms.
Because the larger social forces that lead to age
norms are of little interest, within-cohort regularities
in behavior are explained solely by personal attributes
( biology and internalized norms). In the final analysis,
the study of contextual influences in cohorts is ham-
pered because it produces largely invariant patterns
through such age-graded influences, or it cannot be
studied because of its seemingly random nature. De-
spite these conceptual difficulties, life-span studies
are beginning to investigate links between broader so-
cial contexts and individual functioning (e.g., Heck-
hausen, 1999).
The important issue to recognize is that there is not
one optimum point of entry for studying human develop-
ment across the life span (see also Shanahan & Porfeli,
2002). Indeed, the multilevel nature of human develop-
ment invites different points of entry (each with specific
research questions) ranging from cultures and social
institutions to the human organism. Entry points fre-
quently link or cross adjacent levels in the developmen-
tal process. Studies commonly employ different entry
points in the same research, although framed by a cen-
tral question. Thus, a project motivated by the impact
of rural change on children’s social and emotional de-
velopment should be framed by an initial focus on some
aspect of this social process such as the degree of eco-
nomic hardship and displacement. Inquiry would explore
672 The Life Course and Human Development
the process by which this change makes a difference in
children’s developmental experience. Parts of this study
might also investigate the determinants of specific emo-
tional or social outcomes and relevant protective re-
sources in the family, a point of entry that centers on the
developmental status of the child. Still other entry
points might begin with the interchange of parents and
child or with sibling relationships. Each point could be-
come a framing statement for an independent study.
How Lives Are Socially Organized: Roles,
Cycles, and Age
The second column of Figure 12.1 refers to how an indi-
vidual’s life pattern is structured by multiple role se-
quences and their transitions. These transitions into and
out of social roles across the life span entail both social
and personal changes in status and identity (Glaser &
Strauss, 1971). In their field studies, anthropologists
have referred to a patterned role sequence from birth
to death as a “life cycle” (Kertzer & Keith, 1984).
Changes in major roles, such as from youth to marriage
and parenthood, generally represent changes in a social
stage across the life cycle.
In concept, the life cycle views life organization
through social relationships, particularly kin relation-
ships, and generational succession. A dominant concept
of the life span from the early 1900s up to the 1960s,
life cycle generally referred to a sequence of social roles
among individuals and families. A more precise social
meaning of life cycle is a sequence of stages in parent-
ing, from the birth of children through their departure
from the home to their own children. The role sequence
refers to a reproductive process that always applies to
human populations. In a life cycle of generational suc-
cession, newborns are socialized to maturity, give birth
to the next generation, grow old, and die. The “cycle” is
repeated from one generation to the next in a human
population (O’Rand & Krecker, 1990).
Life cycles as reproductive cycles vary greatly in the
pace of their revolutions. Early childbearing, shortly
after menarche, accelerates the cycle and shortens the
distance between the generations. When the eldest
daughter has a child before the age of 13, her mother
may become a grandmother before the age of 30 and a
great-grandmother before the age of 50. A sequence of
early childbearing across the generations weakens the
generational and age basis for family authority and
social control. By contrast, late childbearing slows
the cycle and minimizes age similarities across adjacent
generations. In a rapidly changing world, parents,
grandparents, and children share less culture and his-
torical experience.
The life cycle concept incorporates both socializa-
tion and social control processes. The predominant roles
of a life stage lock people into a set of normative expec-
tations and informal sanctions that provide direction
and discipline. Commitments to a line of action arise
over time through obligations to significant others
(Becker, 1961, 1964). Stable role relationships ensure a
measure of personal stability, just as entry into such re-
lationships can stabilize a person’s life and minimize
involvement in unconventional and dangerous activities.
Sampson and Laub (1993) observed, in their sample of
men from a low-income urban sample, that adult bonds
to conventional figures and lines of activity defined a
route of escape from delinquency for a substantial num-
ber of men with a childhood history of delinquency and
economic disadvantage.
During the familistic post-World War II years, the
life cycle became well known as the family cycle through
the writings of Paul Glick and Reuben Hill; a set of or-
dered stages of parenthood defined primarily by varia-
tions in family composition and size (Elder, 1978).
Major transition points included courtship, engagement,
marriage, birth of the first and last child, the children’s
transitions in school, departure of the eldest and
youngest child from the home, and marital dissolution
through the death of one spouse. Family life in this era
provided a better fit to this sequence of roles than it does
today. Marriage and parenting have been uncoupled to a
considerable extent (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). Children are
increasingly born prior to marriage or outside of mar-
riage altogether. In the United States, the prevalence of
divorce has led to multiple families in a person’s life
and to the likelihood that most children will experience
a single parent household before they enter adulthood.
The life-cycle concept and its family-cycle version
usefully knit together the full array of life stages and
generations. They also provide insight into processes of
socialization and social control over the life span that
link the developing person and his or her career. And
yet, the life cycle’s focus on reproduction and parenting
has limited value as a way of viewing the lives and de-
velopmental trajectories of children and adults because
it does not apply to never married, nonparent, or di-
vorced persons, all of whom have become increasingly
common (e.g., Fussell, 2002). The focus on a single ca-
 The Emergence of Life-Course Theory: A Historical Account
reer also ignores the realities of multiple careers, and
each person generally occupies multiple roles at the
same time (whether spouse and parent or spouse and
employee), but these concurrent roles are not part of
the life cycle’s scope. Consequently, the life or family
cycle did not orient research to the management or coor-
dination of multiple roles such as marriage and work.
By the end of the 1960s, a prime era for life-cycle re-
search, a survey by Young and Willmott (1973) con-
cluded that studies of work and family had proceeded
along separate paths with no significant effort to exam-
ine their interdependencies. This contrasts rather strik-
ingly today with the flourishing study (with an emphasis
on interlocking trajectories) of work and family relations
(Blair-Loy, 2003; Crouter, Maguire, Helms-Erikson, &
McHale, 1999; Drobnic, Blossfeld, & Rohwer, 1999;
Moen, 2003; van der Lippe & van Dijk, 2002).
In addition, the life cycle is insensitive to temporal
location and matters of timing. The concept depicts a
sequence of social roles and transitions. Social roles are
ordered but are not temporally located in a person’s life.
In the case of the family cycle, for example, each stage
of parenting could be arrayed in a sequence but would
not be bound by age or the temporal markers that come
with a perspective on the age-graded life course. A life-
cycle model of a person’s life might locate marriage be-
fore the first birth, but it would not indicate whether the
marriage occurred at 20 or 40 years. Sequence models
thus provide only part of the story on life context.
The kinship term of generation is part of a life-cycle
perspective and shares its blindness to temporality.
Members of an ancestral generation do not occupy a
common historical location relative to events and long-
range trends. A parent generation, for example, may
have birth years that span 30 years, a period that could
include eras of economic depression, global war, and
peace in the twentieth century. The greater the time
span, the more diverse the historical experience of the
generation. With these points in mind, it is apparent that
generational role or position cannot offer a precise way
of connecting people’s lives to the changes in society.
Indeed, intergenerational studies are generally distin-
guished by their insensitivity to historical time or loca-
tion; generations are frequently studied in the timeless
realm of the abstract.
Temporal limitations of this kind are generally char-
acteristic of models based on role theory. Ebaugh’s
study of role exits (1988) makes this limitation very
clear. The concept of “role exit ” involves a change of
673
identity in terms of the new role and its predecessor, but
Ebaugh makes no explicit reference to timing across the
life span or to historical time. Judging from the analysis,
one might conclude that it is not consequential whether
an illness and death involves a child or a grandparent,
whether family separation occurs in one’s 20s or 50s, or
whether a lay-off occurs at the beginning or the end of
one’s productive work life. On the contrary, the evi-
dence suggests that timing matters because social
timetables, age norms, and age-graded sanctions influ-
ence individuals.
In summary, role sequences and identity change, so-
cialization and social control, the life-cycle perspec-
tive, and generations are conceptual elements of a
relationship view of life patterns and organization that
dates back to the nineteenth century. One of the earli-
est proponents of this view, sociologist W. I. Thomas,
used life-record data to study the emigration of Polish
peasants to European and U.S. cities around the turn of
the century (Thomas & Znaniecki, 1918–1920). In this
pioneering work, described as “ the greatest single
study done thus far by an American sociologist ” (Nis-
bet, 1969, p. 316), the lives of immigrants embodied
the discontinuities of the age; they were socialized for
a world that had become only a memory. The societies
they left and entered—the Old World and the New—
presented contrasting lines of genesis or primary se-
quences of social roles for individual adaptation and
development. Matters of social and historical time are
clearly relevant to this project, and yet, Thomas and
Znaniecki were largely insensitive to them.
For many years, the relationship and life-cycle per-
spective offered a valuable way of thinking about the so-
cial patterning and interdependence of lives, although
limited in a number of respects. During the 1960s, this
approach began to converge with new understandings of
age to form life-course models that combined the
virtues of both theoretical traditions: linked lives across
the life span and generations, and temporality through
an age-graded sequence of events and social roles, em-
bedded in a changing world. In addition, these models
were informed by life-span concepts of human develop-
ment that underscored the agency of individuals in the
social construction of their lives and life courses.
Age and Life Course
The importance of the 1960s in linking these theoretical
traditions had much to do with the appearance of new
674 The Life Course and Human Development
thinking about age, including an appreciation for its di-
verse meanings and consequences (see third column of
Figure 12.1). These new thoughts include an emphasis on
subjective experiences with the age structures of society
and the individual’s own construction of a life course, as
expressed in the pioneering work of Bernice Neugarten
(Neugarten, 1996; Neugarten & Datan, 1973). In the Uni-
versity of Chicago’s Committee on Human Development,
post-World War II studies, such as the Kansas City proj-
ect, were more successful than other efforts at the time in
linking human development through the adult years to the
social structures in which people lived. For example,
Neugarten and Peterson (1957) observed a relationship
between age-linked concepts of self and life stage by so-
cioeconomic position. Working-class people were older
when they entered the self-defined middle years of life,
compared to upper-status people. Neugarten contributed
to this early work by connecting socioeconomic careers
to adult psychology, role transitions, and generations. We
return to these important contributions in the context of
age-based perspectives on the life course. Through the
innovative work of Norman Ryder (1965) and Matilda
Riley (Riley et al., 1972), a more developed articulation
of the relation between historical time and lives was pro-
posed, as expressed through membership in age cohorts
and successive age strata. For the first time, this work
joined two relatively independent lines of research on age
(Elder, 1975): (1) sociocultural and (2) cohort-historical.
Sociocultural Patterns in Human Experience
The relevance of age for a sociocultural understanding
of life organization has evolved over many decades of
ethnographic study by anthropologists, as in research on
age-grading and age-set societies (Kertzer & Keith,
1984). This work has generally focused on age struc-
tures in culture; however, the new inquiry explored indi-
vidual experiences of age and age-grading, giving fresh
insights to the social and psychological variability of
people’s lives.
Contrary to a structural view of age patterns in cul-
tures (Eisenstadt, 1956; Kertzer & Keith, 1984), studies
began to show that people of the same age do not march
in concert across major events of the life course; rather,
they vary in the pace and sequencing of their transitions
and they do so in ways that have real consequences for
family pressures, child socialization, and personal well-
being. This variation also appears in accounts of differ-
ential aging among people who follow different social
trajectories.
During the late 1950s and early 1960s, Bernice Neu-
garten directed a research program that featured a con-
cept of normative timetables and individual deviations
from such expectations (Neugarten & Datan, 1973). The
timetable of the life course refers to social age, as de-
fined by people’s expectations regarding events. In the-
ory, age expectations specify appropriate times for
major transitions, and violations of these expectations
may lead to punitive responses from others. There is an
appropriate time for entering school, leaving home, get-
ting married, having children, and retiring from the
labor force. Neugarten, Moore, and Lowe (1965) ob-
served a high degree of consensus on age norms across
some 15 age-related characteristics in samples of middle-
class adults. The data reveal general agreement among
men and women on the appropriate age for a woman to
marry and support the hypothesis that informal sanc-
tions are associated with relatively early and late mar-
riage. Moreover, the women were aware if they were on
time, late, or early with respect to marriage and other
major role transitions.
Although subsequent studies have extended this line
of research (Settersten & Mayer, 1997), relatively little
is known about age expectations and their boundaries
and related sanctions; thus, doubts have been raised
about age norms (Marini, 1984). These topics deserve
far more attention than they have received to date.
Some notions about the proper phasing of the life
course take the form of cognitive descriptions or pre-
dictions rather than normative accounts, whether pre-
scriptive or proscriptive. However, the process by
which these descriptions or age expectations are con-
structed, transmitted, and learned remains largely un-
explored territory.
For many decades, age-grades or categories were in-
ferred as possessing common significance without evi-
dence of their meaning to the individuals involved. At
what point do young children take the perspective of a
student? When do young adults begin to take an adult
standpoint and view themselves accordingly? Is the
main transition point for an adult perspective marriage,
the birth of a child, or stable employment? Such ques-
tions were of interest in Neugarten’s research program,
and she broke new ground in testing the proposition that
life stage is partially a function of one’s socioeconomic
status and career.
In the mid-1950s, Neugarten found that men in the
lower-economic strata were likely to perceive a more
rapid passage through the major age divisions of life
 The Emergence of Life-Course Theory: A Historical Account
than did middle-class men: Maturity, middle age, and
old age come earlier at a lower-economic strata, owing
perhaps to class-linked occupational demands and
stresses (Neugarten & Peterson, 1957). The man who
relies on mental skills in a sedentary occupation fore-
sees a relatively long period of productivity, while the
man who works with his hands expects a relatively
short span of productive activity, followed by retire-
ment. This research is one of the earliest contributions
to what is now called a “constructionist perspective on
the life course” with its emphasis on human agency and
choice making.
Age distinctions order social roles (e.g., the sociocul-
tural perspective of the Neugarten studies), but they also
order people through age or birth cohorts. Cohorts have
long been common to demographic research on marriage,
fertility, and divorce. However, these cohort studies
were not carried out with an interest in the life course.
Age Cohorts in Lives
Important theoretical work on the link between life
patterns and changes in society began to appear in the
1960s, featuring Ryder’s influential essay on “ The Co-
hort as a Concept in the Study of Social Change.” The
most comprehensive pioneering work was authored by
Matilda Riley and her colleagues in Aging and Society
(Riley et al., 1972). Riley and her colleagues viewed
age as a basis of stratification in historical experience
and in role sequences across the life course. “Whereas
socioeconomic strata are ranked to form a social hier-
archy, age strata are typically ordered by time ( hence,
are more akin to geological strata)” (p. 23). Birth year
indicates historical time, and chronological age ac-
quires the meanings of social timing and life stage.
Birth cohorts provide a link between historical change
and the life course.
Birth year or date of entry into a system (such as
school graduation or marriage) locates the individual
according to historical time and related social changes:
With age peers in the cohort, this person is exposed to a
particular segment of historical experience as he or she
moves across the sequence of age-graded roles. To grasp
the meaning and implications of birth year and cohort
membership, the analyst specifies the distinctive histor-
ical events and processes at the time, as well as charac-
teristics of the cohort such as its size and composition.
These characteristics are themselves a consequence of
historical changes in birth and death rates, immigration,
and migration.
675
Adjacent birth cohorts are most sharply differenti-
ated during rapid change, and represent a vehicle of
social change when cohort differences arise. As succes-
sive cohorts encounter the same historical event, they
do so at different stages in their life course. This means
that adjacent cohorts bring different life experiences to
the change. Consequently, the impact of the event is
contingent on the life stage of the cohort at the point of
change. Ryder (1965) stressed this “life-stage princi-
ple” in his account of cohort differences in the life
course. As each cohort encounters a historical event,
whether depression or prosperity, it “is distinctively
marked by the career stage it occupies” (p. 846). Exam-
ples include the differential age of military entry
among U.S. veterans who served in World War II. The
age range spanned 20 years: Some recruits had just left
high school while others were in their mid-30s with
families and careers.
From this vantage point, historical influence in life
experience can take different forms in cohort studies.
One form is expressed as a cohort effect when social
change differentiates the life patterns of successive co-
horts such as the older and younger “children of the
Great Depression” who were born in the 1920s. Consis-
tent with the life-stage principle, younger children, and
especially the boys, were most adversely influenced by
the economic stresses of the economic collapse (Elder,
1974/1999). Cohort differences were also expressed in
the prevalence of a behavior or practice such as life-
course reorganization or the proportion exposed to
trauma in World War II.
A cohort effect may also be expressed in a changing
social mechanism, as expressed in the transition to
parenthood across four birth cohorts of White women
in upstate New York, United States (Forest, Moen, &
Dempster-McClain, 1995): 1907 to 1918, 1919 to
1923, 1924 to 1928, and 1929 to 1933. The first cohort
came of age during the Great Depression, the second
moved into adulthood during World War II, the third
made the transition in the early post-World War II
years, and the fourth became parents during the 1950s.
The study found employment before marriage to be a
primary source of childbearing delay for women in the
first two cohorts. However, in the younger cohorts,
educational advancement played a significant role in
the delay of the first birth, far more than premarital
employment. Advanced education was becoming
increasingly important in the lives of women, including
women’s return to school following marriage and
676 The Life Course and Human Development
the birth of children, especially in the third and fourth
cohorts.
In addition to cohort effects, history takes the form
of a period effect when the influence of a historical
change is relatively uniform across successive birth co-
horts. Rodgers and Thornton (1985) conclude that
“most of the changes in marriage rates observed during
this century are the consequences of period character-
istics” (p. 21) rather than of differences between co-
horts. They draw the same conclusion about rates of
marital dissolution and instability: “ the big picture is
one of overwhelming historical effects that influenced
all subgroups of the population substantially and sur-
prisingly equally” (p. 29). On divorce, they refer espe-
cially to the rising level up to the 1930s, the decline in
the Great Depression era, a rapid recovery to the ex-
traordinary peak of divorce in the mid-1940s, and to
the upward trend during the 1960s and 1970s. The
precise factors in these period variations remain to be
determined.
Efforts to disentangle these effects (cohorts and pe-
riod) and those associated with maturation or aging
have not advanced knowledge on historical change in
lives. Cohort studies seldom address questions that
specify a type of social change or the process that makes
a difference. Life-span studies, for example, may assign
environmental change to an error term or view cohorts
as a test of the generational boundaries of behavioral
outcomes, as in cohort sequential designs (Baltes,
Cornelius, & Nesselroade, 1979). However, even when
history is substantively important for understanding de-
velopmental change, this influence is likely to be opera-
tionalized as a period or cohort effect that provides no
clue as to the precise nature of the process.
Another approach to historical change—the compari-
son of cohort subgroups—rests on the empirically docu-
mented assumption that members of each birth cohort
are exposed differentially to trends and events. Not all
children who lived through the Great Depression were
exposed to severe hardships, and not all veterans of
World War II were exposed to heavy combat. In the
Great Depression, families did not uniformly experience
the economic decline, and family hardship did not affect
all subgroups of children in the same way (Elder,
1974/1999). Though variations by subgroups in specific
birth cohorts represent a significant advance over cohort
comparisons, even more valuable is a focus on exposure
to a particular contextual or historical change. This
strategy has more to offer in developmental and life-
course implications because research is directed to the
explication of a specific change process such as family
adaptations to migration.
Cohort membership has specific implications for
lives when a particular cohort size is paired with avail-
able economic opportunities. Richard Easterlin (1980)
has pursued this issue in his account of postwar change
in the work lives of men. His point of departure was the
link between the supply of younger men and their rela-
tive economic position, and between changing cohort
size relative to options and life chances. Other things
being equal, the greater the relative supply of young
male workers, the weaker their relative economic sta-
tus and gains. Before 1960, the relatively small birth
cohorts of younger men experienced a wide range of
advancement opportunities, and their relative eco-
nomic position (compared with older men) increased
significantly. After 1960, the “ baby boom” cohorts
began entering the young adult category, producing a
labor surplus and restricting economic progress.
The behavior of these birth cohorts was symptomatic
of the “relative economic squeeze” they encountered.
The economic position of young men has deteriorated
relative to that of older men, family formation has been
delayed by increasing numbers of young adults, and the
employment rate of young women has increased more
rapidly than that of older women. Among young adult
cohorts during this period, an upward trend in the di-
vorce, suicide, and crime rates is observed, as well as a
leveling off in the college enrollment rate, which has
climbed steadily since the 1940s. Research inspired by
Easterlin has led to mixed results, however, suggesting
that the model may be over-simplified (Pampel & Pe-
ters, 1995).
In part, this simplification reflects a problem shared
by cohort studies as a whole: when theory and research
focus on the cohort level, the linking mechanisms be-
tween lives and changing times are difficult to pin down.
Cohorts can be merely “ black boxes” with no informa-
tion on causal dynamics and linkages. Behavioral differ-
ences between cohorts also do not readily yield an
understanding of the social or historical factors that ac-
count for them. Speculation frequently takes the place of
disciplined explication. The problem with cohort studies
has much to do with exposure of people in a birth cohort
to varied environmental changes. Thus, some grade
school children are exposed to the economic stress of a
 The Emergence of Life-Course Theory: A Historical Account
plant closing, and other children are insulated from such
stresses. In response to this social heterogeneity, more
studies are investigating specific types of differential
social change in birth cohorts.
Before surveying one of these studies conducted by
Reuben Hill, we sum up the temporality of age by iden-
tifying meanings that have special relevance to human
development: the ages of life or lifetime, the diverse
meanings of social time, and historical time. Life time is
indexed by chronological age and refers to the stage or
position in the developmental-aging process. From a de-
velopmental standpoint, age alerts the investigator to
subgroups that are differentially vulnerable to particu-
lar types of social change. The lifetime meaning of age
requires specification of the variables it represents. So-
cial time, such as the age patterned sequence of events,
includes “ family time” across stages of parenting and
the generations. A normative concept of family time in-
dicates an appropriate time for leaving home, for mar-
riage, and for bearing children. Last, historical time
refers to a person’s location in history; membership in a
birth cohort indicates this location.
Life Cycle and Life Course
In any period of theoretical transition, both old and new
models guide research. We see this mix of old and new
in the 1960s. Hill’s (1970) three-generation study is a
case in point. The grandparent generation married be-
fore 1915 and the parent generation between the 1920s
and mid-1930s. Hill made significant contributions to
the life-cycle model in essays on the family cycle and
development, and he launched this multigenerational
study to pursue issues of intergenerational continuity
and change. However, the dramatic social changes at the
time underscored the historical imprecision of genera-
tional membership by placing the older and younger
members of each generation in different historical
epochs. Couples from the parent generation who mar-
ried in the 1920s had significantly more children than
those who married in the depressed 1930s. The two
groups were found to be sufficiently different in life
course to constitute samples of different populations.
The heterogeneity of generations on historical expe-
rience has led some analysts to identify cohorts in each
one, and Hill used this modification in his own work. He
investigated strategies of family management, which in-
cluded the timing of marriage and parenthood, the spac-
ing of children, the husband’s and wife’s entry and
677
reentry into the labor force, and the timing of material
acquisitions. Consistent with a life-course model, he
noted that in periods of rapid change, “each generational
cohort encounters at marriage a unique set of historical
constraints and incentives which influence the timing of
its crucial life decisions, making for marked genera-
tional dissimilarities in life cycle career ” (1970, p. 322).
The middle generation in Hill’s study followed this pat-
tern of cohort differentiation.
In one sense, the generational dimension of life-cycle
analysis has helped to contextualize the individual life
course by emphasizing the social dynamic of “linked
lives”—parents and children, husband and wife, grand-
parents and grandchildren, siblings and friends. Parents
and grandparents are not merely present at a stage in
life, but rather appear as lifelong associates. From this
vantage point, the life-cycle model made adult develop-
ment especially relevant to an understanding of child de-
velopment, an important insight that has not been fully
realized in studies of children. Personal or social change
in parents has developmental consequences for children;
conversely, change in the behavior of children can alter
the behavior and psychology of parents (Crouter &
Booth, 2003). In concept, children become active agents
of their own life course.
This life-cycle contribution to the life-course proj-
ect appears in a longitudinal study of Californians
from the Oakland Growth sample that were born in the
early 1920s, passed through adolescence in the de-
pressed 1930s, and were subject to the labor needs of
World War II (Elder, 1974/1999). The central question
concerned the effects of the Great Depression on the
lives and development of the Oakland children. An in-
tergenerational framework seemed entirely appropriate
for addressing this question, with an emphasis on the
process by which economic hardship made a difference
in the lives of children by changing family processes
and socialization.
But the dramatic changes of life experience from the
1920s into the late 1930s raised questions that could
not be addressed by the perspective. The effect of
change depended on many things including their expo-
sure to the event, their age or developmental stage, and
the age of their parents. Fast-changing economic and
family circumstances called for relating them to the
ages of parents and children. These observations made
the distinctions of birth cohort and life stage especially
relevant:
678 The Life Course and Human Development
At the time of maximum hardship in the early 30s, the Oak-
land children were well beyond the dependency state of early
childhood, with its consequences for intellectual and emo-
tional development, and they reached the age of majority
after opportunities had improved through nationwide mobi-
lization for war. Persons born 10 years before the Oakland
children would have entered the labor force during the worst
phase of the economic collapse, while the welfare of persons
in the 1929 cohort would have been entirely dependent on
conditions in their families. (Elder, 1974/1999, p. 16)
Family adaptations to economic hardship became a
set of linkages between the economic collapse of the
1930s and the developmental experience of children. In
place of static concepts of family life, the study turned
to notions of the family economy and its multiple actors
as a way of thinking about the economic crisis and its
implications for children. Through linked relationships
and actors, changing economic roles and status shaped
the experience of children. Thus, children who acquired
paid jobs in the community became more socially inde-
pendent than other youth.
An appraisal of growing up in the Great Depression re-
quired knowledge of life paths to adulthood, such as edu-
cation, marriage, work-life advancement, and military
service. Some youth escaped hardship through early work
and military service, others through higher education and
marriage. However, some outcomes have more to do with
their timing than with mere occurrence: Marriage is an
example. Hardship favored early marriage by diminishing
the chances of higher education and by making home life
unappealing. Likewise, developmental theory suggested
that the early work experience of adolescents would ac-
celerate their thinking about work and the timing of their
entry into adult work roles.
These and other conceptual issues made theoretical
distinctions concerning the age-graded life course espe-
cially useful to the study. Consider the sequence of
events that link early adolescent work experience and
adult work. Family hardship increased the involvement of
boys in gainful employment and, through this experience,
advanced their social independence and sensitivity to
matters of vocation. This sensitivity took the form of an
early vocational focus and work commitment that led to
work lives, which effectively countered any educational
handicap of family hardship, even among the sons of
working class parents. In the end, family income losses
did not adversely affect the occupational standing of
the Oakland men or the status that the Oakland women
achieved through marriage.
As noted in this account, Children of the Great De-
pression (Elder, 1974/1999) began with concepts of the
life cycle and relationship tradition, such as role se-
quences and generation, but soon turned to the analytic
meanings of age for linking family and individual expe-
rience to historical change (especially birth cohort and
life stage), and for identifying trajectories across the life
course, using a concept of age-graded events and social
roles. Both theoretical strands provide essential features
of life-course theory on matters of time, context, and
process. The life course is age-graded through institu-
tions and social structures and embedded in relation-
ships that constrain and support behavior. In addition,
people are located in historical settings through birth
cohorts and they are linked across the generations by
kinship and friendship. The 25th anniversary edition of
Children of the Great Depression (Elder, 1974/1999) in-
cludes another chapter, which compares the Oakland co-
hort in life patterns to that of a younger birth cohort, the
Berkeley Guidance study members, born in 1928 to
1929. The Berkeley males were more adversely affected
by Depression hard times than all other gender/cohort
subgroups in the comparison.
Contemporary theory on the life course and its social
dimensions thus differs from perspectives of an earlier
era by joining the life cycle processes of social relation-
ships with the temporality and contextual aspects of
age. For examples of this shift, we need only compare
Thomas and Znaniecki’s The Polish Peasant in Europe
and America (1918–1920) with its analysis of genera-
tions and lineages in a relatively timeless, abstract realm,
to the birth cohort, age-graded life course, and intergen-
erational themes of Family Time and Industrial Time
(Hareven, 1982)—a study of successive worker cohorts
and their families in a large textile mill with declining
economic prospects during the 1920s and 1930s. Though
explicitly historical, The Polish Peasant does not locate
the immigrants according to birth year and historical set-
ting, nor does it describe their life stage at the time of
their emigration. Hareven’s study provides these mark-
ers and uses them to assess the implications of industrial
change for worker families (parents and children) in the
textile city of Manchester, New Hampshire.
Through the integration of social relationship con-
cepts and age-based distinctions, along with life-span
concepts of the person and human organism (see Figure
12.1), the life course became a vital, expanding field of
inquiry in the 1970s and 1980s. Both the individual life
course and a person’s developmental trajectory are inter-
 Basic Concepts and Perspectives of the Individual Life Course
connected with the lives and development of others. Life-
course theory thus took issue with life-span studies that
viewed human development as an unfolding process,
which was not coactive with social and cultural processes
in historical time. However, it is responsive to Lerner’s
(1991, p. 27) call for more attention to contextual vari-
ability, and continues to be an emerging perspective on
developmental science (Cairns, Elder, & Costello, 1996;
see also Ford & Lerner, 1992; Thelen & Smith, Chapter
6, this Handbook, this volume) that extends across system
levels and disciplines.
The contextual perspective of the life-course frame-
work has much in common with Urie Bronfenbrenner’s
ecology of human development, now called bio-ecological
theory (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994), but it differs in
emphasis on the temporal dimension of historical, fam-
ily, and life contexts. Bronfenbrenner’s Ecology of Human
Development (1979) proposed a multilevel view of the
sociocultural environment, from macro to micro, but it
did not include a temporal perspective on individual de-
velopment across changing environments. In life-course
studies, this perspective includes age-graded social tra-
jectories or pathways as well as historical contexts.
Some years later, after making a case for the person-
process-context model, Bronfenbrenner (1989, p. 201)
noted a major lacuna in his work that also applied to
Lewin’s original thinking—the dimension of time. To
correct this limitation, he proposed the general concept
of “chronosystem,” with its three interacting compo-
nents over time: (1) the developing person, (2) the chang-
ing environment, and (3) their proximal processes.
Although this concept has not been widely adopted,
the ecological perspective itself has generated many
contextual studies of child development (Moen, Elder, &
Lüscher, 1995; see also Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
Chapter 14, this Handbook, this volume).
Human development in life-course theory represents a
process of organism-environment transactions over time
in which the organism plays an active role in shaping
its own development. The developing person is viewed as
a dynamic whole, not as separate strands, facets, or do-
mains such as emotion, cognition, and motivation. The
course of development is embedded in a dynamic system
of social interchanges and interdependencies across and
within levels. As noted by Bronfenbrenner (1996), this
dynamic in life-course theory is illustrated well by the in-
terlocking lives and developmental trajectories of family
members who are influenced differentially by their
changing world.
679
We turn now to some basic concepts and perspectives
that center on the individual life course and develop-
mental processes.
BASIC CONCEPTS AND PERSPECTIVES OF
THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE COURSE
The individual life course and its relation to develop-
mental trajectories represent a common meeting ground
for life-course theory and developmental science, with
its “perspective on individual functioning that empha-
sizes the dynamic interplay among processes that oper-
ate across time frames, levels of analysis, and contexts”
(Cairns et al., 1996). Building on advances since the
1960s, life-course theory has uniquely forged a concep-
tual bridge between developmental processes, the life
course, and ongoing changes in society based on the
premise that age places people in the social structure
and in particular birth cohorts.
To understand this conceptual bridge, we turn to ele-
mentary concepts. First, we begin with multiple levels
of the life course, ranging from institutionalized path-
ways to cumulative patterns of context that shape the
individual life course. Second, other important temporal
concepts, such as trajectory, transition, and turning
point, are taken up with particular emphasis on the
properties of social transitions. Third, we focus on link-
ing mechanisms that have proven highly useful in the
study of contextual influences. Beginning with studies
of children who were born before the Great Depression,
research has revealed a set of mechanisms that link con-
text and the individual life course. These mechanisms
help to flesh out the conceptual meaning of more gen-
eral principles of the life course.
The central role of agency in the shaping of lives was
evident in these early studies, and subsequent research
has highlighted its connections to social context. While
the concept of agency encompasses many phenomena—
particularly when viewed through psychological con-
structs such as motivations, values and aspirations, and
personality—its full significance in life-course theory
is found in its dynamic interplay with social location
(Hitlin & Elder, in press). Finally, we consider issues
surrounding selection, which refers to the factors that
lead people to contexts and experiences (Caspi, 2004).
Every empirical study of lives enters an ongoing system
of exchanges between person and context. Selection and
related concepts acknowledge this complexity and
encourage heightened sensitivity to the challenges that
680 The Life Course and Human Development
surround the identification of contextual influences.
Paradigmatic themes of life-course theory draw on
these elementary concepts in highlighting distinctive
conceptual orientations such as the relation between
changing times and lives.
Social Pathways, Cumulative Processes, and the
Individual Life Course
Social pathways and cumulative patterns represent dy-
namic views of context. Pathways typically refer to se-
quences of social positions in and between organizations
and institutions. Institutionalized pathways generally
have specified time boundaries, what Merton (1982,
1984) has called “socially expected durations.” The legis-
lated ages at maturity for voting and marriage can be
viewed as marking off an accepted duration of depen-
dency. Social pathways are generally age-graded and thus
identify relatively early, on-time, and late transitions.
Children who are held back in school become aware of
their lagging status on the educational ladder (Alexander,
Entwisle, & Dauber, 1994), and company managers talk
about the relation between age and grade in prospects for
promotion to senior rank (Sofer, 1970, p. 239).
In addition to their age-graded nature, pathways
structure the direction that people’s lives can take.
Pallas (2003, p. 168–169) observes that pathways have
distinct features that govern how strongly people’s tra-
jectories and behaviors are shaped including, for exam-
ple, the number of options a pathway leaves open in the
future, the extent of mobility that is likely to be experi-
enced, stigma and extrinsic rewards, and the importance
of personal choice. Some pathways provide future op-
portunities and chances for upward mobility based on
personal motivation, while others effectively block
promising avenues irrespective of one’s efforts.
Pathways are also multilevel phenomena reflecting
arrangements in place at levels of culture, the nation-
state, social institutions and organizations, and locale.
To varying degrees, people work out their life course in
established or institutionalized pathways. At the macro
end of this multilevel system, governments generally es-
tablish pathways (Leisering, 2003). At micro levels, in-
stitutional sectors (economy, education, etc.) or local
communities (school systems, labor markets, and neigh-
borhoods) guide the pathways. Each system level, from
macro to micro, socially regulates, in part, the decision
and action processes of the life course, producing areas
of coordination or discord and contradiction (e.g., mar-
riage, divorce, and adoption laws). At the primary level
of the individual actor, some decision pressures and con-
straints are linked to federal regulation, some to the so-
cial regulations of an employer, and some to state and
community legislation.
Mayer (1986) had the nation-state in mind when he
identified important societal mechanisms, “ which im-
pose order and constraints on lives” (pp. 166–167).
These include the cumulative effects of delayed transi-
tions, institutional careers, the historical circum-
stances associated with particular cohorts, and state
intervention. Growth of the state in social regulation
counters the potentially fragmenting effects of social
differentiation. At the individual level, the state “legal-
izes, defines and standardizes most points of entry and
exit: into and out of employment, into and out of marital
status, into and out of sickness and disability, into and
out of education. In doing so the state turns these tran-
sitions into strongly demarcated public events and acts
as gatekeeper and sorter ” (p. 167). These are what
Buchmann (1989, p. 28) properly calls events in “ the
public life course.”
Multilevel accounts of the life course are well illus-
trated with cross-national studies of the transition to
adulthood (Settersten, Furstenberg, & Rumbaut, 2005),
particularly in relation to the social pathways from sec-
ondary school to work (Kerckhoff, 2003; Marshall,
Heinz, Krueger, & Verma, 2001). In Great Britain, sec-
ondary school-leavers can follow a path to work that
consists of technical training programs or schools that
provide credentials for a particular craft. With the free-
dom to make a wide range of choices, students also miss
opportunities and desirable job placements. Far more
structure is provided working-class German youth in a
secondary-level system that in theory joins industrial
training and education in an apprenticeship system. In
principle, placement in a skilled craft is assured for
youth who complete their apprenticeships. In Japan, oc-
cupational recruitment typically occurs in schools from
the secondary-level to higher education, and the hiring
firm provides specific job training, not the schools or
craft institutes. American adolescents encounter the
least amount of articulation between schooling and
workplace. Vocational training in secondary schools is
not closely linked to specific industries, their recruit-
ment, and skill needs. In many less-developed countries,
youth are forced to leave school early to support their
families; in turn, their lowered educational attainment
results in low wages, which forces their children to leave
school early as well (Shanahan, Mortimer, & Krueger,
2002). This intergenerational cycle of disadvantage il-
 Basic Concepts and Perspectives of the Individual Life Course
lustrates how pathways from school to work can repro-
duce across the generations.
In societies, role sequences become established or in-
stitutionalized in the culture with the passage of time.
With respect to work, for example, Spilerman (1977)
has used the term career lines to refer to pathways de-
fined by the differentiated and aggregated work trajec-
tories or histories of individuals. In his view, career
lines are “shaped by the nature of industry structures
(e.g., occupational distribution, mode of recruiting into
upper status slots such as promotion from below versus
hiring from outside the firm) and by the institutional de-
mography of the labor market ” (p. 552). In an expanding
market, these career lines extend across company and
industry boundaries. Career lines vary in their receptiv-
ity to different times of entry: The trades frequently re-
quire early entry through a training program in contrast
to the less age-graded nature of public school teaching
and service occupations. The selection and timing of ca-
reer entry are major determinants of subsequent earn-
ings and work trajectories.
Prior to entry into work, however, young people en-
counter educational pathways. Studies of the educa-
tional system in the United States reveal that these
pathways begin very early in life and that their effects
cumulate to produce marked differences among stu-
dents and workers. Thus, drawing on data from the
Beginning School Study in Baltimore, Entwisle, Alexan-
der, and Olson (2003) have documented educational
pathways that begin to take form in the first grade. In a
school where 88% of the students were on subsidy,
every first grade student received a failing mark in read-
ing in the first quarter. In low-SES schools more gener-
ally, the average first grade reading score was 1.64
( below a C), in contrast to students in high-SES schools,
who averaged 2.15 (above a C). They also report that,
even controlling for family background and standard-
ized test scores, Black children received lower first
grade reading and math scores, and these racial differ-
ences were subsequently magnified.
While students of all races and socioeconomic groups
benefited from schooling to the same degree, low-SES
students’ reading ability decreased during the summer
vacation, while high-SES students’ reading improved.
Given initial differences in reading and math ability and
these invidious summer trends, Entwisle et al. (2003)
concluded that “ the long-term persistence of early rank-
ings means that inequities visible in the first grade
translate into deficits all along the line” (p. 239). In-
deed, recent studies drawing on this sample show that
681
first grade attributes—including temperamental factors,
grades, and standardized test scores—predict educa-
tional attainments at age 22 as well as similar factors
measured at age 16 (Entwisle, Alexander, & Olson,
2005). Interestingly, parental influence, assessed in
high school, greatly underestimates the effects that par-
ents have on their children’s attainments because much
of it has already been converted into school outcomes.
Kerckhoff ’s (1993) study of connections between
school and work in Great Britain also shows patterns of
divergence. Regarding achievements, he nevertheless
finds continuity in students’ place in the school system
over time. Thus, early placement in an elite primary
school is associated with the “ high road” to the univer-
sity. A low-status placement is frequently associated
with the opposite path for students. At each stage of
schooling, differences are magnified, with the transition
from junior to secondary school producing the greatest
deflection. In young adulthood, at age 23, one’s occupa-
tional prestige reflects a set of cumulative structural in-
fluences that originated early in the life course.
By considering pathways, we understand more com-
pletely the choices and actions that shape individual life
courses and their developmental implications. Accord-
ing to this perspective, the individual life course is de-
termined over time by the general and specific dictates
of social pathways. For the very young child, these path-
ways often begin, in large measure, with the residential
and socioeconomic histories of parents. Small differ-
ences cumulate over time and, by young adulthood, re-
sult in significant differences in achievements and
prospects. As with educational pathways, research is be-
ginning to show how career lines form at a young age
and lead to diverging patterns. For example, sociologists
have typically viewed the first job for pay after school
completion as the onset of one’s work career, but studies
are now identifying how earlier work experiences, start-
ing at least in high school, bear on future achievements
and attainments (Mortimer, 2003).
Ideally, studies of the developmental consequences of
life-course change take into account the potential con-
straints and options associated with particular path-
ways. However, the realities of research are expressed in
a disciplinary division of labor. Sociologists (Mayer,
2004) and historians make use of a multilevel view of
the life course in their historical and comparative stud-
ies. Both attend to issues of contextual variation. As his-
torian E. P. Thompson once said, “ the discipline of
history is above all a discipline of context ” (Goldthorpe,
1991, p. 212). Developmentalists in psychology may
682 The Life Course and Human Development
center on the impact of life-course change (Noack,
Hofer, & Youniss, 1995) or simply ignore it altogether,
usually the latter. At least up to the 1990s, the typical
longitudinal study of social development among chil-
dren, as published in Child Development, measured the
socioeconomic environment only at the beginning of the
research (Elder & Pellerin, 1995). Articles still recom-
mend the use of atemporal indicators that provide a
snapshot of families and children at a point in time, de-
spite growing evidence that the dynamic features of
families often are of consequence for children’s well-
being and achievements (Shanahan et al., 2000).
Social pathways encompass cumulative processes,
which refer to long-term patterns of experiences that
sustain behavioral continuity or lead to change. Some
cumulative processes reflect social experiences of long
duration. The concept of duration refers to the span of
time between changes in state. The full implications of
long and short exposures to a situation depend on the na-
ture of the situation itself. For example, is divorce pre-
ceded by a lengthy period of family conflict? Little is
known about the qualitative nature of experiences of
long and short durations, though a lengthy involvement
tends to increase behavioral continuity through acquired
obligations, investments, and habits (Becker, 1964). The
longer the duration of marriage, for example, the greater
the chances for marital permanence (Cherlin, 1993); al-
ternatively, marital happiness is likely to decline at all
marital durations, with accelerated declines occurring
during the earliest and latest years of marriage (Van-
Laningham, Johnson, & Amato, 2001). The connection
between marital permanence and the length of marriage
has much to do with shared material assets (Booth,
Johnson, White, & Edwards., 1986), which often pre-
vent divorce in spite of marital unhappiness (White &
Booth, 1991). Much more needs to be known about the
quality of marriages of differing durations and their de-
velopment implications (Hetherington, 1999).
Duration of unemployment also increases the risk of
permanent unemployment. The latter may involve ac-
quired ties to the unemployed as well as a de-skilling
process in developing the incapacity to work. Indeed,
many forms of social class and economic hardship en-
dure. In two British birth cohorts, Schoon and her col-
leagues (2002) found “a stark chaining or continuity
of risk factors” such that parental social class power-
fully predicts material deprivations through childhood,
adolescence, and into young adulthood. Yet, great diver-
sity in socioeconomic experiences has been observed
through the life course, producing complex patterns of
durations. To adequately understand the covariations
between diverse spells and development, we need to
know more about duration in interpersonal and develop-
mental processes.
A particularly telling example of the complexity of
durations and their potential meaning is found in Mor-
timer’s (2003) St. Paul longitudinal study of adolescent
employment. With monthly educational and employment
data, Mortimer and her colleagues developed a typology
of work patterns through high school based on duration
(whether the student worked more than 18 months
through the 48 months of high school) and intensity
(during periods of employment, whether the student
worked, on average, more than 20 hours per week). Mor-
timer, Staff, and Oesterle (2003) showed that ninth
graders with higher educational promise—as indicated
by grades and aspirations—opted for less intensive
work. Low intensity workers were also more likely to
save their earnings for college. In turn, “steady workers”
( high duration, low intensity) are more likely to earn a
BA degree within 9 years of high school graduation than
high duration-high intensity workers. Indeed, among
students with low levels of educational promise, those
who chose a steady work pattern were more likely to re-
ceive their BA than their low promise, high duration-
high intensity counterparts. Such findings suggest that
work of differing durations and intensity has distinct
meanings and consequences and highlight the mislead-
ing nature of cross-sectional studies.
The duration of children’s exposure to poverty is like-
wise complex. Although poverty durations in the early
life course have been linked to numerous indicators of
psychosocial adjustment and achievement—including
cognitive development (G. J. Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, &
Klebanov, 1994), delinquency (Jarjoura, Triplett, &
Brinker, 2002), and, perhaps to a lesser extent, emotional
outcomes (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997)—little is
known about the mechanisms that account for such rela-
tionships. The challenge of understanding how the dura-
tion of poverty coincides with developmental experiences
is complicated by the patterns of deprivation observed in
national samples.
Between ages 1 and 17, about one-third of American
children will spend at least 1 year in poverty (Rank &
Hirschl, 1999). Of individuals experiencing poverty,
about half of Blacks and one-third of Whites will fall
into poverty in 5 or more of the next 10 years (Stevens,
1999). Bane and Ellwood (1986) conclude that “ the av-
erage poor black child today appears to be in the midst
of a poverty spell which will last almost 2 decades”
 Basic Concepts and Perspectives of the Individual Life Course
(p. 21). However, most poverty spells turned out to be
comparatively shorter, owing in large measure to
markedly improved earnings (Bane & Ellwood, 1986).
Slightly more than 40% of poverty spells in the Bane
and Ellwood analysis ended within a single year. About
70% were over within a period of 3 years. In addition to
the potentially complex patterns of poverty over the life
course, the first transition into poverty—particularly if
unexpected—may be especially damaging to children’s
well-being (Oh, 2001).
Besides the duration of poverty, time spent in various
social classes may also be important to well-being and
achievement but, once again, temporal patterns of social
class may be complex. McDonough, Duncan, Williams,
and House (1997) showed that low income (i.e., less
than $20,000 per household) that persisted 4 to 5 years
raised the risk of mortality among adults significantly
when compared to households experiencing this income
level for a transitory period. Middle-income adults,
however, are at increased risk for mortality if their in-
come fluctuates appreciably over a 5-year period. Draw-
ing on the British Birth Cohort of 1958, Power, Manor,
and Matthews (1999) show that lifetime patterns of so-
cial class ( based on father’s occupational status at birth,
and then one’s own occupational status) predict poor
health at age 33. The risk of poor health increased for
men in the most advantaged (4%) to the least advantaged
(19%) lifetime SES groups (see also Mare, 1990).
The duration effects for socioeconomic stressors may
be nonlinear, in which case a tipping point is reached be-
fore an adverse outcome is observed. Additional time
spent in deprivation may lead to a nonlinear increase in
distress. For example, Wadsworth, Montgomery, and Bart-
ley (1999) observed that British men who experienced a
long period of unemployment (exceeding 3 consecutive
years) reported less healthy profiles subsequently, al-
though this effect was not observed for lesser durations.
Durations of poverty, low income, and other forms of
socioeconomic disadvantage are likely to be related to a
wide range of indicators of adjustment and achievement,
although very little is known about the linking mecha-
nisms. One plausible mechanism is exposure to stressors
and the availability of supports and coping mechanisms.
While material resources undoubtedly shape the stress
process (Link & Phelan, 1995), a detailed understand-
ing of how temporal patterns of social class link to
stressors, supports, and coping mechanisms remains
largely unaddressed. The quality of one’s paid work is
another plausible candidate linking social class with
long-term outcomes.
683
Characteristics of paid work are known to be associ-
ated with psychological and physical functioning, al-
though little research has investigated temporal patterns
of work characteristics. A notable exception is Amick
and his colleagues (2002), who report that men who
spend their work lives in jobs with low levels of control
have a 43% increase in chance of death when compared
with men who have jobs with high levels of control over
their work life. Thus, multiple aspects of social class are
likely to matter for well-being, but such relationships
depend on the duration of experiences.
Many cumulative processes refer not to the duration
of a particular social circumstance but rather to the trig-
gering of chains of interrelated events, which have sig-
nificant implications for later well-being and attainment
(Rutter, 1989). Behavioral continuities across the life
course are likely to be found in social interactions that
are sustained by their consequences (cumulative) and by
the tendency of these styles to evoke maintaining re-
sponses from the environment (reciprocal; Caspi, Bem,
& Elder, 1989). In cumulative continuity, both individ-
ual dispositions and family values are likely to favor the
choice of compatible environments, and this reinforces
and sustains the match. Thus, antisocial youth tend to
affiliate with other problem youth, and their interaction
generally accentuates their behavior, producing over
time what might be described as cumulative disadvan-
tages (Cairns & Cairns, 1994; Sampson & Laub, 1997;
Simmons, Burgeson, Carlton-Ford, & Blyth, 1987).
Among problem youth from inner-city neighborhoods,
those who were most negative toward their life chances
lacked the support of close kin and friends, did not have
a supportive older sibling, and were most likely to be in-
volved with deviant friends (Furstenberg, Cook, Eccles,
Elder, & Sameroff, 1999).
Reciprocal continuity refers to a continuous inter-
change between person and environment in which reac-
tion forms action and then by another cycle of action and
reaction. As with cumulative continuity, the net result of
reciprocal continuity is the cumulation of experiences
that tend to maintain and promote the same behavioral
outcome. Baldwin (1895) refers to such interchanges
as “circular functions” in ontogeny. The ill-tempered
outburst of an adolescent may provoke a cycle of
parental rage and aggression, a widening gulf of irrita-
tion, and, finally, parental withdrawal, which reinforces
the adolescent’s initial aggression (Pepler & Rubin,
1991). Over time, the interactional experiences of ag-
gressive children can establish attitudes that lead them
to project interpretations on new social encounters and
684 The Life Course and Human Development
relationships, thereby ensuring behavior that affirms the
expected behavior. Aggressive children generally expect
others to be hostile and thus behave in ways that elicit
hostility, confirming their initial suspicions and rein-
forcing their behavior.
A growing body of evidence points to cumulative
processes linking early social experiences—particu-
larly forms of inequality—and later health and well-
being (Power & Hertzman, 1997). Drawing on the
Dunedin sample, for example, Poulton and his col-
leagues (2002) show that childhood socioeconomic sta-
tus ( based on occupational categories) is an important
predictor of physical health at age 26 even with adult so-
cioeconomic position controlled. Children growing up
in households marked by low socioeconomic conditions
have poorer health—defined, for example, by the body-
mass index and cardio-respiratory fitness—when com-
pared with children who grow up in high socioeconomic
households, regardless of their adult socioeconomic
status. The cumulative mechanisms that link such early
experiences with later physical well-being are not
well documented, although plausible mechanisms in-
clude health-related behaviors (van de Mheen, Stronks,
Looman, & Mackenbach, 1998).
Can cumulating processes that lead to poor outcomes
be neutralized by subsequent experiences? The possibil-
ity is not often entertained, and the answer is likely to
depend on the processes being studied, their temporal
properties, and indicators of well-being and achievement
at issue. However, the question reflects the interest in
dynamic views of context and contingency that life-
course analysis promotes. Research shows, for example,
that marital transitions involving the loss of a partner
are associated with declines in adult health. Can subse-
quent remarriage improve matters? It likely does
(Willitts, Benzeval, & Stansfeld, 2004), but its salutary
effects appear to diminish with the number of prior mar-
ital transitions (Barrett, 2000).
Similarly, unemployment is thought to diminish
adult health and subsequently the family support of
children. In what circumstances will reentry into the
labor market lead to improvements in well-being?
Drawing on a representative sample of English and
Welsh working men, Bartley and Plewis (2002) exam-
ined the effects of occupational category and unem-
ployment status in 1971, 1981, and 1991—covering
most of the men’s working lives—on long-term illness.
Unemployment in 1971 and 1981 and occupational
class at all three time points had independent effects on
illness, providing powerful evidence for cumulative ef-
fects. By implication, recent employment compensates,
at least in part, for prior spells of unemployment, as
does improvements in one’s occupational status (see
Poulton et al., 2002).
Experiences may cumulate because social circum-
stances are largely stable or lead to “ functionally equiv-
alent ” relationships with people and involvements with
organizations and institutions. In the latter case, chains
of interrelated experiences all encourage the same be-
havioral outcomes.
Trajectories, Transitions, and Turning Points
Social pathways and cumulations of experience present
temporally sensitive descriptions of context. Trajecto-
ries provide a dynamic view of behavior and achieve-
ments, typically over a substantial part of the life span.
Transitions refer to a change in state or states such as
when youth leave home. A substantial change in the
course of a behavioral trajectory, often during transi-
tions, may represent a turning point.
Trajectories and transitions are elements of estab-
lished pathways, their individual life courses, and devel-
opmental patterns. Among individuals, social roles evolve
over an extended span of time, as in trajectories of work
or family; and they change over a short time span. The
latter may be marked by specific events such as children
entering school for the first time, completing the first
grade successfully, and graduating from high school.
Each transition, combining a role exit and entry, is em-
bedded in a trajectory that gives it specific form and
meaning. Thus, work transitions are core elements of a
work-life trajectory, and births are important markers
along a parental trajectory.
Trajectories and transitions refer to processes that are
familiar in the study of work careers and life events. The
language of careers has a distinguished history in the
field of occupations and the professions, and it still rep-
resents one of the rare languages that depict a temporal
dimension or process. Career lines, as pathways, refer to
sequences of positions, while careers, as trajectories,
refer to coinciding behaviors and achievements. Work
careers have been defined as disorderly and orderly, and
achievements have been represented as career advance-
ment, whether early or late, rapid or slow (Wilensky,
1960). The term career has also been applied to the tra-
jectories of marriage and parenthood (Hill, 1970). All of
these uses fall in the more inclusive definition of a life-
 Basic Concepts and Perspectives of the Individual Life Course
course trajectory. The term does not prejudge the direc-
tion, degree, or rate of change in its course.
A developmental trajectory refers to change and con-
stancy in the same behavior or disposition over time, but
consistency of measurement may be difficult to achieve
in many cases, especially in the measurement of aggres-
sion and dependency (Kagan & Moss, 1962). Neverthe-
less, trajectories of intraindividual change tell a
different story from life stories based on cross-section
analysis, and this concept is compatible with widely
shared views of development (Molenaar, Huizenga, &
Nesselroade, in press; Tremblay, 2004). Further, the
modeling of trajectories has become increasingly so-
phisticated, offering the analyst increasing options for
thinking about patterns of change (e.g., Collins & Sayer,
2001; T. E. Duncan, Duncan, S. Strycker, Li, & An-
thony, 1999; Singer & Willett, 2003).
Developmental trajectories are also integral to life-
course theory, especially when they are studied as inter-
dependent with the changing dynamics of social
trajectories. In a four-wave study of early adolescents,
based on growth-curve models, Ge and his colleagues
(Ge, Lorenz, Conger, Elder, & Simons, 1994) found that
(a) the trajectories of depressive symptoms increased
sharply among White girls, surpassing the symptom
level of boys at age 13; ( b) the increase for girls was
linked to their exposure to an increasing level of nega-
tive events; and (c) the initial warmth and supportive-
ness of a mother minimized the subsequent risk of
depressed states and negative events among daughters.
Studies such as these have inspired many efforts to in-
terrelate developmental trajectories and context, al-
though frequently neglecting the changing nature of
social circumstance.
Increasing attention is being devoted to the study of
classes of behavioral trajectories based on the supposi-
tion that people may be qualitatively distinct in their de-
velopmental patterns (Bauer & Curran, 2004; Nagin,
1999; Nagin & Tremblay, 2001). According to this per-
spective, the population is heterogeneous with respect to
behavioral trajectories; as such, distinct subgroups can
be identified, and their covariates examined. For exam-
ple, Moffitt (1993; see also Moffitt, Caspi, Harrington,
& Milne, 2002) hypothesized that aggregate patterns in
antisocial behavior conceal two distinct groups: (1) A
small percentage of youth engaged in antisocial behavior
at every stage of life (“life-course persistent ”), and (2) a
larger percentage of youth engaged in antisocial behav-
ior during adolescence only (“adolescence-limited”). In-
685
deed, drawing on semiparametric models, researchers
have uncovered evidence for unique trajectories of anti-
social behavior (e.g., Nagin & Land, 1993). With greater
use of such models there has been increasing apprecia-
tion for methodological issues (see Bauer & Curran,
2003 and accompanying exchanges; Eggleston, Laub, &
Sampson, 2004; Nagin, 2004) and theoretical nuance
(Nagin & Paternoster, 2000) that complicate the search
for qualitatively distinct types of behavioral trajecto-
ries. Nevertheless, this approach raises exciting possibil-
ities for linking behavioral patterns with change and
stability in context and experience.
The multiple role trajectories of life patterns de-
scribe strategies of coordination or synchronization.
Various demands compete for the individual’s or fam-
ily’s scarce resources such as time, energy, and money.
Goode (1960) argues that an individual’s set of relation-
ships is both “ unique and overdemanding,” requiring
strategies that minimize demands by scheduling and
rescheduling transitions where possible. To cope with
simultaneous, linked trajectories, the scheduling of
events and obligations becomes a basic task in managing
resources and pressures. The needs of children and fi-
nancial requirements, for example, play important roles
in determining work and leisure options.
The meaning of a transition has much to do with its
timing in a trajectory. Consider the case of parenthood:
the earlier the event, the greater the risk of social and
health disadvantages for mother and child (Furstenberg,
Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987). Early life transitions can
have developmental consequences by affecting subsequent
transitions, even after many years and decades have
passed. They do so through behavioral consequences that
set in motion cumulative advantages and disadvantages,
with radiating implications for other life domains. A Bal-
timore study of adolescent mothers who were followed
from 1966 to 1984 (Furstenberg et al., 1987), shows that
variations in personal resources (e.g., IQ) during adoles-
cence affected their economic success by influencing how
they timed and ordered early events from marriage to ed-
ucation or employment. From the vantage point of this
study, the quality of transition experiences early in life
may foretell the likelihood of successful and unsuccessful
adaptation to later transitions across the life course.
Transitions to parenthood during adolescence in the
Baltimore panel raise another important general distinc-
tion: Life transitions can be thought of as a succession
of mini-transitions or choice points. The transition from
marriage to divorce is not simply a change in state, but
686 The Life Course and Human Development

begins with disenchantment and extends across divorce
threats, periods of separation, and the filing of divorce
papers. Different causal factors may operate at each
phase of the process. The “origin” influences that in-
crease the risk of disenchantment are likely to differ
from those that sustain the process toward marital disso-
lution. In like manner, we can think of the transition to
motherhood in adolescence as a multiphasic process in
which each phase is marked by a choice point with op-
tions and social constraints.
For example, young women may choose to engage in
premarital sex or not, to use contraception or not, to
seek an abortion or not, and to marry the father or not.
Only a handful of options lead to an illegitimate birth.
After the birth of a child, young women face other deci-
sions, such as whether to ask for their mothers’ help in
child care or to put the child up for adoption, to marry or
to remain single, or to pursue educational and employ-
ment possibilities or to enter the welfare system. The
implications of having an illegitimate birth vary accord-
ing to the options chosen. Some opportunities blend well
in favoring positive outcomes: They represent an adap-
tive strategy, while others do not.
Figure 12.2 presents a series of transitions that can
lead to unwed motherhood, as sketched from the Balti-
more study. Each choice point occurs at a different state
in a young girl’s life and thus could involve varied life-
course dynamics and explanations. The process of be-
coming an adolescent mother requires sexual activity,
failure to use, or ineffective use of, contraception, and,
once pregnant, the decision to bear and raise the child.
Across these stages of the process, an agency “ has sev-
eral possible points at which to target its interventions;
at initiation of sexual activity, at contraception use, or,
at the resolution of a pregnancy” (Hofferth, 1987, p. 78).
The significance of this formulation becomes apparent
when we return to a time when unwed motherhood was
viewed simply as one transition, a concept that obscured
the strategic points of preventive intervention along the
life course. Given their multiphasic nature, many transi-
tions cover relatively long periods. The female pubertal
transition, for example, begins before menarche and may
last well beyond it. As Dorn and her colleagues (Dorn,
Susman, & Ponirakis, 2003) observe, “Although menar-
che itself is an event (the first bleed), the integration of
our findings of pre- and postmenarcheal hormone vari-
ability support a conceptualization of menarche as an in-
tegral part of a longer-term biological process” (p. 300).
Similarly, the transition to adulthood—as indicated by
demographic markers—begins when youth complete
school, which occurs at age 17 or 18 for most American
youth, and ends with family formation, which may take
place in the mid-30s, if at all (Fussell & Furstenberg,
2005). Developmentalists tend to view transitions as dis-

Premarital sexual experience

among young, never-married females Nonexperience

Sex without contraceptives Contraceptive protection

Pregnancy Not Pregnant

Decision to have child out of wedlock Abortion or marriage

Decision not to marry after birth Marriage following birth

Unwed motherhood

Figure 12.2 The life course of unwed motherhood. As adapted from “Family Transitions, Cycles, and Social Change” (p. 41),
by G. H. Elder Jr., in Family Transitions, P. A. Cowan and M. Hetherington (Eds.), 1991, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Reprinted with
permission.
 Basic Concepts and Perspectives of the Individual Life Course
crete events that occur in a relatively short period and,
consequently, very little is known about the sequence of
minitransitions leading to full transitions.
The two faces of a transition—leaving a state and en-
tering a new state—can have different causal explana-
tions, as when divorce is followed by remarriage.
Moreover, “leaving a state” is part of the individual’s
history that shapes the meaning of the new role or situa-
tion (Wheaton, 1990). Leaving a conflicted, violent
marriage would cast single status as a stress-relieving
status. The meaning and developmental implications of
a transition depend on the timing of the change relative
to norms and cognitive expectations. Judging from stud-
ies conducted to date (McLanahan & Sorensen, 1985;
Wortman & Silver, 1990), widowhood is most distress-
ing for young women, a time when the event is least ex-
pected or normative. By comparison, job loss during
young adulthood is relatively common, and entails less
of an emotional risk than in the later years.
The apparent contrast between institutionalized tran-
sitions and personal, idiosyncratic “ transition experi-
ence” can misrepresent reality. In many cases, life
transitions are an institutionalized status passage in the
life course of birth cohorts and a personalized transition
for individuals with a distinctive life and social history.
The latter may represent an individual working out of the
former. These faces of a transition apply to the norma-
tive transitions of life, from birth to school entry, mar-
riage, parenthood, and retirement. Transitions of this
kind may seem more predictable and structured than
nonnormative events, but all transitions can be sorted ac-
cording to their structuredness or degree of external reg-
ulation, duration, timing, predictability, and novelty.
Life transitions into different environments facilitate
this process by representing potential turning points in a
trajectory for a troubled life course. Such turning points
are sometimes referred to as “ knifing off ” past experi-
ences, which can allow for new opportunities and behav-
ioral patterns. One example of a turning point is the
desistance from criminal activity, a “ knifing off experi-
ence” that involves a transition into new situations that
provide monitoring, social supports, growth experi-
ences, and the emergence of a new self-identity (Laub &
Sampson, 2003). Military service, gainful employment,
and marriage are all new role commitments that provide
opportunities for a break from the past and social inte-
gration (see also Bouffard & Laub, 2004).
A further example of turning points—this time in an
educational trajectory—is found in a study of feeder pat-
687
terns into high school. In the American school system,
pathways between middle school and high school are
structured in different ways, affecting the proportion of
one’s middle school classmates who attend the same high
school. Schiller’s (1999) study of how differing feeder
patterns affect subsequent grades is revealing. Among
students receiving mostly Cs in middle school, high
school math grades decrease as the proportion of one’s
classmates in the same high school increases. The reverse
is true among students receiving mostly As in middle
school: High school math grades increase as the propor-
tion of one’s classmates in the same high school in-
creases. As Schiller notes, when middle school students
disperse into many high schools, opportunities seem to
open up for students at the bottom, as peer networks are
disrupted. Consistent with a turning point, the old social
world is knifed off and new opportunities for growth and
identity change present themselves.
The concept of turning point also applies to the partic-
ular way people view their life trajectory—a subjective
account of lived experience involves some degree of
change in situation, behavior, or meaning. Maruna and his
colleagues’ (2001) exceptional interview study of desis-
tance among ex-convicts is one of a few research efforts
to investigate the changing nature of the self during a
turning point. Important themes in the life narratives of
desisters include acknowledging past crimes, understand-
ing their genesis, and recasting the self as in control and
with newfound purpose. Clausen (1995) has used de-
tailed analyses of life histories to assess the subjective
turning points of people who have been part of a longitu-
dinal study for 60 or more years. Based on this work, he
concludes that “one’s life does not have to take a different
direction for a person to feel that a turning point has oc-
curred. But one must have a feeling that new meanings
have been acquired, whether or not life experiences are
much changed” (p. 371).
The challenge to life-course study is to understand
the linkages among changing pathways and transitions,
life patterns, and developmental trajectories. A useful
first step in this direction leads to mechanisms that link
context and the individual life courses. Our next topic of
basic concepts and distinctions.
Selection, Endogeneity, and Contextual Effects
Life-course analysis investigates the dynamic features
of social contexts and seeks to understand the relevant
mechanisms by which time and place shape human
688 The Life Course and Human Development
development. Any study of context and behavior must
address the complex processes by which people select
and otherwise experience specific environments in the
first place (Caspi, 2004). Consider life-events, which
numerous studies identify as potent stressors. Virtually
all research on life-events views them as causes of dis-
tress (e.g., depressive symptoms) with very little appre-
ciation that (a) distress can increase the likelihood of
encountering life-events, and ( b) various circumstances
( hypothetically, for example, working conditions, so-
cioeconomic status) may cause both life-events and de-
pressive symptoms. By failing to account for these
exogenous processes, the estimated effect of life-events
is likely to be biased. Moreover, this task involves im-
portant issues of theory as well as methods.
Thoits’s (1994) study of life-events and mastery is
instructive. Drawing on two measurement occasions,
she classified the stress associated with major life-
events in the workplace and in one’s romantic life as (a)
solved, ( b) unsolved but attempted to solve, and (c) un-
solved and did not try. Scores on a mastery scale at Time
1 were highest at Time 2 for adults who reported no
problematic situations. Scores diminished significantly
for adults who encountered life-events and solved them
but were lowest for people who encountered life-events
and did not solve them. Mastery predicted the subse-
quent experience of life-events and attempts to resolve
their attendant distress. Similarly, Shanahan and Bauer
(2005) show that low levels of mastery in high school in-
crease the likelihood of life-events after graduation,
which in turn diminish mastery in young adulthood. In-
deed, growing evidence suggests that internalizing and
externalizing symptoms increase the likelihood of en-
countering stressors (Aseltine, Gore, & Gordon, 2000;
Hoffman & Cerbone, 1999; Kim, Conger, Elder, &
Lorenz, 2003; Leadbeater, Kuperminc, Blatt, & Herzog,
1999). By implication, failure to account for such initial
differences might well overstate the true magnitude of
the effect of such stressors on personal well-being.
More generally, the challenge of preexisting differ-
ences that lead people to contexts and promote behav-
ioral outcomes is pervasive in the study of human
development. Thus, high school students tend to enter
college environments that “are consistent ” with their
personal characteristics (Alwin, Cohen, & Newcomb,
1991), assortative processes create homophily in form-
ing friendships and heterosexual pairs (Caspi & Her-
bener, 1990), and risk takers in military service are
likely to end up in combat units (Gimbel & Booth, 1996).
Transitions of this kind generally accentuate the behav-
ioral effect of the selected dispositions, producing
greater individual differences and heterogeneity be-
tween groups. Cairns and Cairns (1994, p. 117) observe
that social selection and accentuation go together in peer
group formation. Once a group is formed in terms of se-
lected attributes (e.g., aggressivity), the selected behav-
iors are accentuated. This process has obvious social
implications when unruly behavior is involved and makes
identifying “peer effects” particularly difficult.
Much research has examined the effects of paid work
during high school on grades, neglecting the possibility
that less academically engaged students may choose to
work longer hours. Adjusting for such a selection pro-
cess, the effect of work hours on grades is negligible or
insignificant (Schoenhals, Tienda, & Schneider, 1998;
Warren, LePore, & Mare, 2000; see also Paternoster,
Bushway, Brame, & Apel, 2003, for the case of paid
work and antisocial behaviors). The issue can also be
viewed in experimental terms: When preexisting differ-
ences between people cannot be ruled out by random as-
signment (e.g., differing levels of school engagement),
the “pure effect ” of the experimental manipulation
(e.g., hours per week of paid work during high school)
on the outcome (e.g., grades during high school) cannot
be determined with certainty.
In some instances, the problem can be addressed with
highly revealing randomized trials. What, for example,
are the implications of residential change? Perhaps mov-
ing from poor urban areas to more advantaged neighbor-
hoods improves the lives of children. Do they profit
from the change? The question is difficult to answer
given that certain types of families—those possessing
more resources—would be likely to move in the first
place. Yet, a randomized study of the question became
possible with the Moving to Opportunity (MTO)
demonstration project, which has operated in five U.S.
cities (Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, and
New York) since 1994 (see Katz, Kling, & Liebman,
2001; Ludwig, Duncan, & Hirschfield, 2001). Families
were eligible to participate if they had children and
lived in public housing or Section 8 housing with a
neighborhood poverty rate of 40% or more. Interested
families who applied were randomly assigned to one of
three groups: the experimental group (which received
rent vouchers for housing in low poverty areas), a Sec-
tion 8 comparison group (which received unrestricted
rent vouchers), and a control group (which did not re-
ceive rent vouchers). The design is especially helpful in

learning about how neighborhoods affect well-being be-
cause, in normal circumstances, specific types of fami-
lies live in specific types of neighborhoods, which
makes it difficult to disentangle the contributions of
families and neighborhoods.
In the typical move to a middle-class, European-
American suburb, the African American mothers and their
children were involved in radically different worlds with
higher behavioral expectations and typically European-
American age-mates. If unemployed before the move,
African American mothers who moved to the suburbs
were more likely to find jobs and to engage in job
searches, when compared to the city movers. In the
follow-up, the suburban minority students more often
followed a college track and attended a 2- or 4-year col-
lege. If not in college, they were nearly twice as likely as
city movers to be employed full-time with pay greater
than the minimum wage and job benefits. The suburban
adolescents were also far more likely to be engaged
daily in activities with European-American students,
despite racial threats and harassment.
Before and after comparisons show that the transi-
tion improved life chances, at least for the females.
Four to 7 years after baseline, girls’ mental health im-
proved, although boys’ problem behaviors may have
worsened as a result of their families’ receiving the
MTO offer to move (G. J. Duncan, Clark-Kauffman, &
Snell, in press). Girls in the experimental group also re-
ported less risky behavior and better educational out-
comes, while males exhibited more risky behaviors and
physical health problems (Kling & Liebman, 2004). The
lack of advantage for boys in the MTO experimental
group is difficult to explain, although Kling and Lieb-
man speculate that boys in the experimental group may
have experienced stereotypes, relinquished fewer ties
to their old neighborhoods, and settled into peer groups
that exerted negative influences. Rabinowitz and
Rosenbaum (2000) provide valuable developmental in-
sights on these transition experiences in their account
of Chicago’s Gautreaux program, with its goal of en-
abling families to leave public housing for suburbs and
city neighborhoods that were better off financially.
In many instances, randomized trials such as the
MTO are not possible or offer imperfect solutions
themselves (Kaufman, Kaufman, & Poole, 2003). In
such cases, statistical models may be helpful in deter-
mining unbiased effects of social context. Yet, no sta-
tistical solution is without assumptions and drawbacks
(e.g., Bound, Jaeger, & Baker, 1995, on instrumental
Life Transitions and Historical Change 689
variable estimation). More important, the issue can
also be viewed through life-course theory. As George
(2003) notes, selection and endogeniety are less a
methodological nuisance than another way of describ-
ing ideas that have long been central to life-course the-
ory, particularly pathways and agency. In a life course,
contextual experiences most likely reflect prior cir-
cumstances. Such prior conditions and experiences
represent a substantive interest of life-course research,
although they can also be viewed as potential threats to
identifying the relationship between present circum-
stances and behavior.
LIFE TRANSITIONS AND
HISTORICAL CHANGE
We have identified properties of life transitions that
specify a way of thinking about social change and its
psychosocial effects. According to this account, social
change refers to a broad range of transitional phenomena
such as residential change. Additional contributions to
this perspective come from mechanisms that link transi-
tions and life patterns to historical change, such as the
Great Depression and World War II, and to paradigmatic
principles that define the life course as a theoretical ori-
entation. These mechanisms include the notion of life
stage and its social roles, the social imperatives of new
roles or situations, the cycle of losing and regaining a
sense of personal control in changing situations, and the
accentuation of individual dispositions in changing envi-
ronments. Each of these mechanisms involves interde-
pendent lives. The paradigmatic principles draw on
these mechanisms in charting the perspective of life-
course study—the principles of lifelong development
and aging, human agency in making choices, the impor-
tance of timing in lives, linked lives, and historical time
and place (Elder, 1998b). These principles represent
more general theoretical themes that collectively define
the analytical scope of life-course theory.
Linking Mechanisms
Linking mechanisms refer to the processes by which
social change and behavioral development are interre-
lated. They were originally documented in Children of
the Great Depression (Elder, 1974/1999), a study of co-
horts born at opposite ends of the 1920s and occupied
different life stages when the economy collapsed. The
690 The Life Course and Human Development
life-stage principle, noted above, suggests that young
people of different ages are likely to be exposed to a dif-
ferent slice of history. Indeed, the Oakland children
passed through adolescence during the worst years of
the Great Depression, but the Berkeley children became
teenagers in World War II. Consequently, job scarcity,
financial pressures, and emotional stress represented
defining features of the Oakland cohort’s transition
from childhood to young adulthood. By contrast, mem-
bers of the Berkeley cohort were exposed to the “empty
households” of World War II when parents worked from
sun up to sun down in home front industries.
By encountering the Great Depression and other his-
torical events at different times in life, the Oakland and
Berkeley cohorts have different stories to tell about their
childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. The particular
sequence and timing of prosperity, economic depression,
and war distinguishes the developmental experiences of
the two birth cohorts. The concept “goodness of fit ” in
the match of person-environment is an important feature
of the life-stage principle and its implications for human
development (see Eccles & Midgley, 1989, p. 9).
Consider the Berkeley males who entered the Great
Depression when they were highly dependent on family
nurturance and vulnerable to family instability. Eco-
nomic hardship came early in their lives and represented
a prolonged deprivational experience, from the economic
valley of the 1930s to the war years and departure from
home. By comparison, the Oakland males were older and
more independent when hardship hit their families. They
assumed important roles in the household economy and
entered adulthood with a more crystallized idea of their
occupational goals. Despite some handicaps in education,
they managed to end up at midlife with a slightly higher
occupational rank. The life stage of the Oakland males
represented a better fit in the match between person and
environment when compared to the Berkeley males.
The vulnerability of the younger Berkeley boys is con-
sistent with the results of other studies, which show that
family stressors are especially pathogenic for males in
early childhood (e.g., Rutter & Madge, 1976). How can
we explain the accomplishments of the older Oakland
males up to middle age? One explanation is that they as-
sumed valuable economic and household roles amid fam-
ily hardships. Family experience of this kind enhanced
their social independence and reduced their exposure to
family conflict. Another explanation centers on the mili-
tary experience of most of these young men. Service in the
military made higher education more possible through the
GI Bill and frequently led to a supportive marriage.
Another linking mechanism involves situational imper-
atives, the behavioral demands or requirements of a new
situation. The more demanding the situation, the more in-
dividual behavior is constrained to meet role expectations.
In emergency family situations, helpful responses become
an imperative for members, as in hard-pressed families
during the worst years of the Great Depression. Rachman
(1979) refers to these imperatives as “required helpful-
ness.” The Oakland children were old enough in the early
1930s to be called on to meet the increased economic and
labor needs of their family, and a large number managed
to earn money on paid jobs and to help in the household.
This money was often used to cover traditional family
concerns such as school expenses.
In deprived families, girls generally specialized in
household chores, while boys were more often involved
in paid jobs. This gender difference made girls more de-
pendent on the family and generally fostered greater au-
tonomy among boys. Adolescent jobs in the 1930s
typically included what might be regarded as odd jobs in
the adult world, from waiting on tables and clerking to
delivering newspapers and running errands. Employ-
ment of this kind may seem developmentally insignifi-
cant, though it carried the important implication that
people counted on them—they mattered. Indeed, staff
observers rated the working boys as more energetic and
efficacious than other boys on a set of scales. The flow
of influence was no doubt reciprocal. The more industri-
ous were likely to find jobs and success in work that
would reinforce their ambition. With additional chores
at home, working boys experienced something like
the obligations of adult status. To observers who knew
them, they appeared to be more adult-oriented in values,
interests, and activities when compared to other youth.
Boys who managed both household chores and paid
jobs were most likely to think about the future and es-
pecially about a career. In adulthood, these youth were
more apt to have achieved a measure of clarity and self-
assurance in their work career when compared to other
males. They also settled more quickly on a stable
line of work and displayed less floundering during their
20s. Apart from level of education, this work life has
much to do with the occupational success and work
ethic of men who grew up in deprived families during
the 1930s. The response of these young people to De-
pression imperatives had enduring consequences for
their lives and values.
The developmental significance of adaptations to the
imperatives of new and challenging situations is ex-
pressed across the life course and in other cultures.

Consider the reunification of West and East Germany,
which produced dramatically new worlds, “almost from
one day to the next, new laws, new institutions, and a
new economic system governed the lives of the people of
East Germany” (Pinquart & Silbereisen, 2004, p. 290).
For the young, the school system changed almost
overnight and students soon faced a dramatically differ-
ent economy as well. Silbereisen launched a project to
study these changes and their developmental effects
soon after the collapse of East Germany—a cohort of
East and West Germans from age 13 to 29 in 1991, fol-
lowed up by a 1996 survey. Adaptations to the unifica-
tion process were slow in coming among respondents in
the study, and especially among those from former East
Germany such as young women of lower status. They re-
ported later family transitions and financial self-
support in 1996, when compared to the West Germans.
Situational imperatives are elements of new situa-
tions that characterize control cycles, which, as de-
scribed by W. I. Thomas (see Elder & Caspi, 1988),
refer to changing relations between expectations and re-
sources that affect a sense of personal control. A loss of
control stems from a process in which resources fall
below expectations. This change motivates efforts to re-
store control by adjusting expectations, resources, or
both in terms of their relation. During the Great Depres-
sion, heavy income loss tended to affect children, some-
times adversely, through family adaptations to such
deprivation in the Great Depression. These include the
reduction of family expenditures, the employment of
more family members, and the lowering of living stan-
dards (Elder, 1974/1999). Equilibrium in these finan-
cially strained families was achieved when expectations
matched resources. The psychology of this cyclical pro-
cess is well described by what Brehm and Brehm call
“reactance” (1982). Feelings of reactance occur when-
ever one or more freedoms or expectations are elimi-
nated or threatened. Such emotions spur efforts to
regain or preserve control. “It is the threat to control
(which one had) that motivates an attempt to deal with
the environment ” (p. 375). Once control is achieved, ex-
pectations may be raised, thereby setting in motion an-
other round of equilibrating initiatives.
The final mechanism, known as the accentuation dy-
namic, relates transition experiences to the individual’s
life history of past events, acquired dispositions, and
meanings. When a transition heightens a prominent at-
tribute that people bring to the new role or situation, we
refer to the change as an accentuation effect. Entry into
new roles or situations is frequently selective, and the ac-
Life Transitions and Historical Change 691
centuation dynamic tends to amplify selection behaviors.
From this perspective, early transitional experiences be-
come prologues for adult transitions that increase hetero-
geneity over the life course. We see this development in
longitudinal studies of divorce and their increasing atten-
tion to the behavioral changes initiated by it across the
life course and the generations (Amato, 2000; Amato &
Cheadle, 2005). In children, as well as adults, the divorce
transition appears to accentuate dispositions that were
present well before the event itself. For example, boys
with behavior problems after a divorce were frequently
engaged in problem behavior before the divorce.
Selection and social causation processes are inter-
woven in this accentuation process. Quinton and associ-
ates (Quinton, Pickles, Maughan, & Rutter, 1993) show
this process in the history of a conduct disordered boy.
Conduct disorder is associated with conflicted, dysfunc-
tional parenting. Children in these environments were
most at risk of choosing deviant friends when parents
were in conflict. A harmonious family sharply reduced
this risk. The next step involved the selection of a de-
viant partner, a process that occurred through a deviant
peer network. For girls, and especially those not in-
clined to plan, early pregnancy resulted from a deviant
boyfriend. More future-oriented youth managed to avoid
this outcome and were better able to establish stable re-
lations with nondeviant mates.
As a whole, these linking mechanisms—life stage, sit-
uational imperatives, control cycle, and the accentuation
dynamic—represent different understandings of the con-
nections among individual lives, developmental trajecto-
ries, and the changing social world. They are embedded
in a theoretical framework defined by paradigmatic prin-
ciples of the life course where they specify the dynamics
at work. Consider, for example, the first principle on
human development and aging as lifelong processes. New
transitions along the life course establish different life
stages and tend to accentuate the dispositions people
bring to the situation with its social imperatives in shap-
ing behavior. A life transition also entails some loss of
personal control and motivates efforts to regain it.
Paradigmatic Principles of Life-Course Theory
The following principles emerged from studies of Chil-
dren of the Great Depression (Elder, 1974/1999), subse-
quent research, and the complex interplay of intellectual
and social forces at the time that stressed the impor-
tance of placing human development in a lifelong
context (Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003). Collectively,
692 The Life Course and Human Development
they define the life course as a theoretical orientation
that provides a framework for studying phenomena at the
nexus of social change, social pathways, and develop-
mental trajectories. We begin with the principle of life-
span development.
The Principle of Life-Span Development: Human
Development and Aging Are Lifelong Processes
Over the years, the life span has been represented as a
sequence of life stages, from infancy and early child-
hood to old age. Each stage became an age-specific do-
main for specialized study. However, we recognize now
that developmental and aging processes are most fully
understood from a lifelong perspective (Kuh, Power,
Blane, & Bartley, 1997). Behavior patterns at midlife
are not only influenced by current circumstances and by
the anticipation of the future, but also by prenatal and
early childhood experiences. The biomarkers of predis-
ease pathways extend back to the early years (Singer &
Ryff, 2001) and, perhaps, even reflect intrauterine expe-
riences shaped by the mother’s context and experiences.
Long-term studies are documenting the relationship be-
tween late-life adaptation and the formative years of
life-span development. These include the national longi-
tudinal studies of birth cohorts in Great Britain, marked
by birthdates of 1946, 1958, 1970, and 2000. They are
all scheduled to be followed into the later years of life
(Ferri, Bynner, & Wadsworth, 2002). Such long-term
longitudinal studies are still rare.
This temporal frame poses major challenges as well as
exciting opportunities. The longer a life is studied, the
greater the risk of exposure to social change. The lives of
people in their 80s or 90s are thus most likely to reflect
the particular contours of a changing society. Longitudi-
nal data archives generally lack adequate information on
change in social relationships, social organizations, and
residential ecologies. However, the availability of geo-
graphic codes with coordinates that map households for
users of large data sets now enable investigators to assess
contextual changes and their effects on lives.
Another challenge posed by the principle of lifelong
development and aging centers on the question of why
some behavioral patterns persist while others fade.
What influences play a role in this change? We are just
beginning to identify mechanisms that drive patterns of
continuity and change. For example, Caspi and Bem
(1990) identify three modes of interaction between per-
son and situation that have relevance to individual conti-
nuity and change: (1) evocative, (2) reactive, and (3)
proactive interactions. Evocative interactions refer to
the process by which an individual’s appearance, behav-
ior, or personality elicits distinctive responses from oth-
ers. Reactive interactions refer to people who encounter
the same situation but interpret and respond to it differ-
ently. Examples include academic failure and the sepa-
ration of parents, and their variable meaning at different
life stages. Proactive interactions refer to the selection
of environments such as friendships.
Transitional experiences across the life course in-
volve individual initiatives, situational constraints and
opportunities, the dispositions and prior experiences
that people bring to new situations, and the influence of
others. Though many factors influence lives, young peo-
ple play an important role in constructing their own lives
though the choices they make.
The Principle of Human Agency: Individuals
Construct Their Own Life Course through
Choices and Actions They Take within the
Opportunities and Constraints of History and
Social Circumstance
Elements of human agency have been prominent in stud-
ies of lives (see Haidt & Rodin, 1999; Thomas &
Znaniecki, 1918–1920) and are central to studies that
relate lives to broader social contexts. People make
choices in constrained situations that enable them to
exert a measure of control over their life course. These
choices ensure a degree of loose coupling between social
transitions and life stages. Even during the economic
turmoil and distress of the 1930s, mothers found jobs
amid scarce options, while many of their children car-
ried responsibilities in the home and community. When
deprived parents moved their residence to cheaper quar-
ters and sought alternative forms of income, they were
involved in a process of “ building a new life course.”
One part of this process appears in the response of
young people to needs in the family economy. As noted
earlier, they were called on to meet the increased eco-
nomic and labor needs of deprived households, and a
large number managed tasks in the family and earned
money on paid jobs.
The initiative of Depression youth from financially
strained families is much the same among contemporary
youth in an Iowa longitudinal study of rural hardship
(Elder & Conger, 2000). This pioneering study began in
the late 1980s with 451 farm and small town adolescents
and their families in the north central region of Iowa,
United States. The adolescents are now in their late 20s.

Children of deprived rural families in this region as-
sumed more responsibilities such as unpaid chores and
work on the farm. Boys and girls also sought paid work
when faced by the time and labor pressures of both large
households and economically distressed farm families.
Whether living on a farm or not, working adolescents
tended to describe themselves as industrious and effica-
cious, more so than other youth. Many of these young
people would eventually have to seek their fortunes in
other communities, and we know that the movers were
among the more capable members of the younger rural
generation. Youth with migration intentions had done
well in school, but they perceived dismal life chances in
their local region.
Choice making in migration is vividly expressed in
Hagan’s (2001) account of American war resisters dur-
ing the Vietnam War, and their troubled decision to take
the “northern passage” to Toronto, Canada, a legal sanc-
tuary from the American selective service system.
Nearly 10,000 men chose to defy the military draft and
the counsel of their families, and some made this jour-
ney with female friends. A majority continued their
protest of the war along the way and in their northern
community. Though many years removed from the Viet-
nam crisis, former war resisters (a majority of whom
still reside in Canada) remembered the emotional com-
plexity and discord of their decision process. War re-
sisters made their decision to settle in Canada after
countless appeals and protests, knowing the moral
stigma of their action in the American public. Inter-
views recall this traumatic time and the process by
which “each decision against service in the war ” con-
structed a deviant path from the perspective of Ameri-
can society. This was a different path from that followed
by siblings. They were more likely to be employed in
human service and artistic professions, and they ended
up with lower earnings, but this inequality stemmed
more from their prolonged involvement in war protests
and the world of activism, which also altered their sense
of self and relationships with family and friends.
Does “planfulness” make a difference in the quality of
life choices and agency? In American Lives (1993), John
Clausen focused on this question, with emphasis on the
formative adolescent years of Californians who were
members of the Oakland and Berkeley Guidance Studies.
He hypothesized that competent adolescents who think
about the future with a sense of personal efficacy are
more effective in making sound choices and in imple-
menting them during the transition to adulthood. These
Life Transitions and Historical Change 693
more “planful decisions” lead to greater success in work
and family through adulthood. Planful competence was
defined by three dimensions: (1) self-confidence, (2) de-
pendability, and (3) intellectual investment. A competent
adolescent is equipped with the self-discipline to pursue
chosen goals and has the ability to evaluate personal ef-
forts accurately as well as the intentions and actions of
others, using an informed knowledge of self, others, and
plausible options. Clausen found that the highly compe-
tent males in adolescence were most likely to achieve
a successful start through education, occupational ca-
reers, and family, apart from the influence of IQ and
class background. Moreover, this beginning anticipated
achievements across the life course, even into the 60s.
The young men with a planful competence were more
likely to have stable marriages and careers and tended to
find satisfaction and fulfillment during their final
decades. The planfully competent also ranked highest on
the stability of their personality across the years.
Do these findings reflect the special circumstances
of the study members’ early adult years—the beginning
of World War II and an unparalleled era of prosperity?
Postwar benefits for veterans encouraged them to obtain
a college education, but what if we stepped back a
decade of two so that both a Great Depression and
global war loomed ahead? To do this, we turned to the
Lewis Terman data archive (Holahan & Sears, 1995), a
longitudinal study of the brightest Californians. This
study of talented children was launched in the 1920s, a
time when California’s economy seemed to offer unlim-
ited opportunity. Half of the children were born before
1911, the other half by the early 1920s. By selecting
only the most able of California’s children for the study,
Terman could direct his attention to great promise and
the expected rise of talent to positions of accomplish-
ment and leadership.
But history changed this trajectory (Shanahan &
Elder, 2002; Shanahan, Elder, & Miech, 1997). The
older cohort had completed most of its post-high school
education by the stock market crash and looked ahead to
a stagnant and declining labor market, while the younger
men faced the prospects of going to college in the later
years of the Depression decade. Lacking good job
prospects, a substantial number of the older men stayed
in graduate school, extending their list of degrees. By
contrast, World War II reduced significantly the educa-
tional opportunities of the younger men, while having no
impact on the education of the older men who were well
past the college years.
694 The Life Course and Human Development
With these different historical paths in mind, it is not
surprising that planful competence in adolescence had
much greater relevance for the future of the younger
men, when compared to the older cohort. The planful-
ness of the older men in adolescence had no effect
on their chances for advanced education and career
achievement. In large part, this outcome reflects the
process of “ warehousing” in which the young prolong
their stay in school during economically troubled times.
School persistence had less to do with personal motiva-
tion than with a way of getting out of hardship situa-
tions. Life constraints and the timing of careers shape
the choices of human agency.
The Principle of Timing: The Developmental
Antecedents and Consequences of Life
Transitions, Events, and Behavior Patterns Vary
according to Timing in a Life Course
Lifelong processes of human development and human
agency underscore ways of thinking about the timing of
lives and their social contexts. As Bernice Neugarten
(1968) has shown in her pioneering work, people do not
march through life in concert. They tend to vary by the
age at which they pass through life transitions—when
they begin and complete their schooling, enter a first job,
establish an independent domicile, share a household
with a friend, marry, have children, see children leave
home, and lose their first parent. They also vary in when
they perceive themselves as young, middle age, and old.
In Children of the Great Depression (Elder, 1974/
1999), some members of their cohort entered marriage
before their twentieth birthday, while others were still
unmarried a decade later. Early marriage tended to pro-
duce life disadvantages, from socioeconomic hardship to
the loss of education. Early childbearing had similar
consequences. All of these age variations or differences
can make a difference by setting in motion a dynamic of
cumulative events and processes. To illustrate this point,
we turn to the ages at which children experience the
breakup of their family and engage in behaviors that ini-
tiate a sequence of disadvantage.
No time is a good time for a child’s loss of a parent
through separation or divorce, but the child’s age when
such change occurs can make an important difference in
its consequences. To address the impact of a single-par-
ent household, Krein and Beller (1988) matched mother-
daughter and mother-son samples from the National
Longitudinal Surveys to investigate three relevant hy-
potheses: (1) the transition to single-parent status is
most damaging during the early preschool years, owing
to heavy time demands; (2) duration of residence lessens
the educational achievement of offspring by diminishing
social resources; and (3) boys are likely to be more im-
paired by the change than girls, owing to modeling
processes (see also McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). Al-
though Krein and Beller designed precise measures of
the age and length of time a child lived in a single-parent
household, the reports of family structure are retrospec-
tive because the mothers were interviewed between the
ages of 30 and 44. The offspring were interviewed when
they were 14 to 24 years. However, such retrospective
reports are reasonably accurate.
The study found that timing mattered, along with du-
ration and gender: (a) the adverse effect on education
was much greater for the preschool versus the later
years, ( b) the adverse effect increased with the number
of years a child spent in a single-parent household, and
(c) the adverse effect was more negative for males than
for females. The strongest and most consistent timing
and duration effects were obtained among White males,
with family income controlled. Black females and men
were next in line on effects, followed at some distance by
White females. Whether family income was controlled,
the timing and duration of living in a single-parent house-
hold mattered least for White females. The meaning of
this result was not pursued in the study, although these
young daughters of single-parent mothers may be pro-
tected by maternal support and the model of a self-
sufficient woman. Little is known about the actual life
history of family structure and the timing of a child’s
exposure to different phases.
Social disadvantage though family dissolution, er-
ratic parenting, and low socioeconomic status plays an
important role in channeling youth toward involvement
in antisocial behavior (Sampson & Laub, 1993). The
early timing of this involvement increases the risk of a
persistent pattern of such behavior. Thirty-five years
ago Lee Robins (1966) found that antisocial boys were
likely to enter unskilled jobs and experience spells of
unemployment, short work weeks, and an unstable mar-
riage. More recently, a study of ill-tempered boys in the
Berkeley Guidance Study found them to be at risk for
the very same kind of disorganized life course (Caspi,
Elder, & Bem, 1987). They were not able to maintain so-
cial relationships or jobs. Sequences of adverse events
are part of a cumulative process of life disadvantage.
Just how this process unfolds is a subject of much theo-
rizing and research. Patterson (1996) views the process

as a cascade of secondary problems such as school fail-
ure, depressed mood, and parent rejection. An early his-
tory of antisocial behavior is linked to late adolescent
conduct through such processes.
From this research and studies into the adult years,
three markers along a disadvantaged life course emerge:
(1) age at first arrest, (2) incarceration or jail time, and
(3) unemployment. In combination, they underscore the
importance of “onset timing for deviant activities.” The
earlier the age at first arrest the greater the likelihood of
a criminal career (Farrington et al., 1990). Age at first
arrest is a reliable predictor of this future because it
sharply increases the likelihood of chronic, violent, and
adult offending and the risk of incarceration. Though in-
carceration is a popular response to the crime problem,
jail time appears to be a large part of the problem itself,
owing to its role in expanding the disadvantaged popula-
tion. Using both nationwide and local samples, Freeman
(cited by Sampson & Laub, 1996) reports that in all
analyses “ having been in jail is the single most impor-
tant deterrent to employment.” This finding held up even
with adjustments for individual differences that account
for unemployment.
An early onset trajectory is defined as a rule by a
first arrest before the age of 14. Studies to date link
early onset with an earlier onset of antisocial behavior
(Patterson & Yoerger, 1996). Perhaps as early as age 6
or 7, a breakdown in parenting processes increases coer-
cive actions (e.g., talking back, explosive behavior, or
hitting). The resulting interchange leads to fighting,
stealing, and truancy. Antisocial actions that are proto-
typic of delinquent acts, such as stealing from parents
and hitting them, increase the risk of delinquency
through the medium of deviant friends. The later onset
of deviant behavior includes more conventional youth
who are or might be seen as “ transitory delinquents.”
They are more antisocial than uninvolved youth, but not
as antisocial as the early onset youth. Patterson and
Yoerger conclude that the most intriguing thing about
the late-onset boys is that they tend to be more deficient
in social skills than are the early onset boys. They re-
gard this as key to predicting which boys will persist in
adult crime and which boys will not.
The profound life-course implications of early involve-
ment in antisocial behavior continue to focus empirical
work on the dual pathways hypothesis (Farrington &
West, 1990; Moffitt, 1993; Moffitt, Caspi, Dickson,
Silva, & Stanton, 1996; Nagin, Farrington, & Moffitt,
1995). In the Dunedin longitudinal study, Moffitt (1993)
Life Transitions and Historical Change 695
defined two groups with scales and interviews: childhood
and adolescent onset of antisocial behavior. With associ-
ates, she has followed the males up to their 26th year
(Moffitt et al., 2002), a time that is still prior to the me-
dian age at first marriage for males in New Zealand. At
this age, the childhood group shows the most elevated
pattern of psychopathic personality traits, problems of
mental health, violent and drug-related crime, substance
dependence, and financial-work problems. Adolescent-
onset delinquents were less extreme on these measures.
Neither group of young people reveal turning points in
behavior, perhaps owing to their continuing status in the
maturity gap before an established adulthood. Entry into
quality jobs and marriages may still produce such turning
points, as Laub and Sampson (2003) have shown in their
long-term study of delinquent youth and their divergent
adult lives.
In life-course theory, age at onset of antisocial be-
havior is most appropriately expressed as a continuous,
time-dependent process. From research to date, one
would expect causal factors during the early years to
feature neurological and social skill deficits as well as
impaired family processes and indications of extreme
distress. In the later years, other factors, such as deviant
peer activities, would come to the fore; but when they
become prominent may depend on the particular ecol-
ogy, whether the high-risk environment of the inner city
or the network closure of small rural communities. By
employing this analytic model, empirical research and
not decisions based on potentially different criteria are
likely to determine whether and when a break occurs
between types of causal influences.
Across the life course, the onset of antisocial behav-
ior or its timing is generally viewed in a matrix of social
relationships or linked lives. Indeed, change from a life
of crime to a conventional lifestyle typically involves
change in a young person’s best friends, as prompted by
marriage or military service (Laub & Sampson, 2003).
The Principle of Linked Lives: Lives Are
Lived Interdependently and Social-Historical
Influences Are Expressed through This Network
of Shared Relationships
The principles of timing and linked lives address in
complementary ways the temporality, process, and con-
text of lives and human development. Interdependent
lives highlight the role of significant others in regulat-
ing and shaping the timing of life trajectories through
a network of informal control. This network can be
696 The Life Course and Human Development
thought of as a “developmental context ” (Hartup &
Laursen, 1991) and as a “convoy” of significant others
through life (Antonucci & Akiyama, 1995). Whatever
the plans of an individual, these “significant others” ini-
tiate or experience life transitions that produce transi-
tions in his or her own life. As Becker once observed
(1964), the expectations and informal sanctions of these
“others” channel behavior and the life course in certain
directions.
Linked lives are expressed in Children of the Great
Depression (Elder, 1974/1999) across the generations,
in the parental marriage, and in the relationship of par-
ents and siblings. Older and younger siblings influence
each other directly through their encounters, whether
nurturant, competitive, or conflictual (Brody, 1996).
In an African American sample, Brody and associates
(2003) found a significant link between the antisocial
behavior of older and younger siblings, but it was
strongest in disadvantaged neighborhoods that pro-
vided abundant opportunities for the younger sibling to
express this behavior, when compared to siblings in af-
fluent residential areas. Examples of an indirect path
include the experience of parents with the eldest child
that undermines or strengthens their sense of compe-
tence in parenting. A third potential sibling link in-
volves the differential treatment of siblings by parents,
relatives, or teachers. Little is known about continuity
and change in sibling relations from childhood into the
adult years.
Marriage and the mutual regulatory influence of each
partner illustrate both the process of timing through the
synchronization of lives and of the embeddedness of
each family member’s life. For example, Caspi and Her-
bener (1990) investigated the influence of marital rela-
tions on the developmental trajectories of husbands and
wives. In “choosing situations that are compatible with
their dispositions and by affiliating with similar others,
individuals may set in motion processes of social inter-
change that sustain their dispositions across time and
circumstance” (p. 250). Among marriages with strong
ties, they observed trajectories of parallel development
over 20 years. Husbands and wives did not change to-
ward greater resemblance in developmental trajectory,
but they did show a parallel course of development.
When marriages dissolved, the former partners tended
to follow less parallel trajectories. A late-life follow-up
of Bennington College graduates from the 1930s came to
similar conclusions (Alwin et al., 1991). Women were
likely to select a college that matched their political be-
liefs, and they married men with similar beliefs, which
sustained their own beliefs into the later years.
Family changes are especially relevant to the princi-
ple of linked lives and its implications. Hernandez
(1993) refers to a number of revolutionary family
changes in the lives of children and adults, including the
decline in family size, migration off the land, the
growth of women’s employment, divorce, and single
parenting. Contemporary farm families in the Midwest-
ern region of the United States are characterized by
strong community and intergenerational ties, which are
weaker for families of farm-reared parents in urban set-
tings. A longitudinal study of families in the north cen-
tral region of Iowa documents this contrast and the
greater social resources of young people with families
who have ties to the land (Elder & Conger, 2000). These
young people were among the most competent and re-
sourceful adolescents in the study and their accomplish-
ments in school and social leadership had much to do
with their social ties to family, church, and community.
They were also more engaged in joint activities with
their parents and reported stronger relationships with
grandparents and teachers. Their social responsibilities
fostered a sense of “mattering” to others, a feeling of
significance because other people counted on them. In
this social world, linked lives regulated and empowered
personal development, a social control that could also
take the form of barriers to residential change and ac-
cess to new opportunities in other places.
The experiences and attributes of one generation,
such as parental work values, are passed on to the young
through relationships between the generations. For ex-
ample, drawing on the Youth Development Study, Ryu
and Mortimer (1996) found parental work experiences
and values to be correlated with the work values of chil-
dren. Mothers’ extrinsic work values (such as on money,
security) fostered similar values in the lives of their
teenage and young adult daughters, and mothers with
strong intrinsic values (including work autonomy and in-
terest in job) were least likely to have daughters who
valued extrinsic rewards such as high income and status.
For sons, the supportiveness of parents mattered more
than parents’ actual work values and occupational expe-
rience. The more supportive the father and mother, the
stronger the son’s intrinsic values. Intergenerational re-
lations are an important medium for the transmission of
work values.
Interdependent lives also extend beyond the family to
friends, teachers, and neighbors. Theories of resilience

commonly assume that positive influences can offset
negative influences (Luthar, 2003; Werner & Smith,
2001). A positive school environment of classmates and
teachers might compensate for a child’s punitive family
environment or a drug-infested neighborhood. Relevant
to these issues is a short-term longitudinal study of ado-
lescents in Prince George’s County in the Washington,
DC, area (Cook, Herman, Phillips, & Settersten, 2002).
The influence of nuclear families, friendship groups,
schools, and neighborhoods was assessed in the lives of
mainly African American and European-American stu-
dents in the seventh and eighth grades during the early
1990s. The quality of all four contexts had independent
and additive influences on adult success, defined by a
composite of school performance, social behavior, and
mental health indicators. No reliable interaction effects
were observed among the four contexts. The effect of
any one context was not large, but the total contextual ef-
fect proved to be substantial.
Conventional approaches to the study of peers or
friends, as linked lives, have viewed the relationship
only from the perspective of the child or adolescent. The
perspective of the “other ” has seldom been assessed.
Studies have also ignored the developmental history of
friendship and peer experiences. Bearman and Brückner
(1999) address both of these deficiencies in their inves-
tigation of girl’s friendship and peer group as contribut-
ing factors to sexual experiences in adolescence. Their
study, based on the National Longitudinal Study of Ado-
lescent Health, provides evidence of the positive influ-
ence of peers at multiple levels. Both adolescent girls
and their friends were classified as high risk or low risk
by school orientation and success as well as by evidence
of health-risk behavior such as drinking, skipping school,
and fighting. A girl’s own risk was less important for
her first sexual intercourse and pregnancy than the risk
of her male and female friends. Moreover, the age of a
girl’s friends tended to be more important than her own
age. Girls with older friends were more likely to engage
in sexual intercourse. Moreover, a girl’s circle of close
friends and her wider peer network mattered more than
her best friends. These effects were predominantly pro-
tective. Girls who had low-risk friends among their
close circle of friends or in their peer group were less
likely to have sex or experience a pregnancy.
A young girl’s pregnancy can have consequences that
fundamentally change the lives of her mother and grand-
mother, among others. When a 13-year-old has a child,
her 28-year-old mother becomes a grandmother, and her
Life Transitions and Historical Change 697
grandmother becomes a great-grandmother. Using data
on 41 female lineages from urban multigenerational
African American families in Los Angeles, Burton
(1985; Burton & Bengtson, 1985) has creatively explored
the ripple effects of teenage pregnancy across the gener-
ations. The age ranges of respondents in the early line-
ages were 11 to 18 for the young mothers, 25 to 38 for the
grandmothers, and 46 to 57 for the great-grandmothers.
The other lineage units were judged on time in transi-
tions. The age ranges for mothers, grandmothers, and
great-grandmothers were 21 to 26, 42 to 57, and 60 to
73, respectively.
Role transitions that were “on time” were generally
welcomed. One 22-year-old mother commented that she
had become a mother “ ‘at the right time’: I was ready,
my husband was ready, my mother was ready, my father
was ready, my grandmother couldn’t wait.” By compari-
son, early transitions multiplied social strains and depri-
vations in the family system, all reflecting the violation
of expectations. With few exceptions, the young mothers
expected their own mothers to help care for their child.
However, this expectation never materialized in four-
fifths of the cases, in part because the mothers felt that
they were too young to become a grandmother. As one
woman put it, “I can’t be a young momma and grand
momma at the same time. Something seems funny about
that, don’t you think?” A good many of the mothers re-
sisted the grandparent identity because it conflicted
with their availability as dating and sex partners.
The refusal of mothers to become grandmothers,
with their normative child care expectations, led most of
the young mothers to shift these duties to their grand-
mothers, now the baby’s great-grandmother. Some of
these women felt that the change made their life go by
too fast. In the words of a woman beset by too many
claims, “I ain’t got no time for myself. I takes care of ba-
bies, grown children, and old people. I work too . . .”
Some of these newly promoted great-grandmothers felt
they had to put their lives on hold until “ the older gener-
ation died or the three younger generations grew up.”
The repercussions of this ill-timed pregnancy across the
generations underscore the price of interdependent lives
and the support they may provide.
The Principle of Historical Time and Place:
Individual Life Course Is Embedded in and Shaped
by Historical Times and Places over a Lifetime
Children of the Great Depression (Elder, 1974/1999) is
based on children who were born and reared in a specific
698 The Life Course and Human Development
historical time and place, defined by culture, social in-
stitutions, and diversity of people—the 1920s, the San
Francisco East Bay, California. The book also describes
a very different Depression experience in Great Britain,
Germany, and Japan. Even in the United States, condi-
tions during the Great Depression varied among cities,
East and West, and between rural and urban places. In
view of this variation, the study’s generalizations are
uncertain. Also uncertain are generalizations across
historical time such as periods of economic depression
and recession.
One of the best examples of both historical and spa-
tial variations in the life course and human development
comes from studies of lives during military times. The
immediate years after World War II, for example, were
hard times in many parts of Europe and Asia, unlike the
prosperity experienced in the United States. American
children who grew up in financially strained families
during the Great Depression frequently saw military
service as a “ bridge to greater opportunity.” However,
the age at which they entered the service made a differ-
ence in how it affected their lives. When appraised in
terms of costs and benefits, military service for Ameri-
cans has favored the recruit who entered shortly after
completing secondary school. This time of recruitment
comes well before commitments to higher education, a
marriage partner, children, and a line of work.
By contrast, later recruitment tends to disrupt all of
these activities. Empirical research (Clipp & Elder,
1996; Elder, 1986, 1987; Elder, Shanahan, & Clipp,
1994; Sampson & Laub, 1993, 1996) has documented
the life-course advantages of early mobilization and the
disadvantages of relatively late entry, quite apart from
the mental health and mortality effects of wartime com-
bat. The disadvantages include family disruption, pro-
longed father absence (Stolz, 1954), family discord, and
divorce (Clipp & Elder, 1996), but these are not due to
the mental and physical wounds of wartime combat. Ex-
posure to heavy combat markedly increased the likeli-
hood of emotional and behavioral problems after leaving
the service, but such problems were not concentrated
among the late entrants. Before getting into the details
of selected studies, we note some basic features of the
transition to military service, in eras of World War II,
the Korean conflict, and the Vietnam War.
First, military service tended to pull young people
from their past, however privileged or unsavory, and in
doing so it created new beginnings for developmental
life changes. Basic training defined a recruit’s past as ir-
relevant. This definition encouraged independence and
responsibility, separated recruits from the influence of
their home community and family, and allowed a degree
of social autonomy in establishing new ties. Basic train-
ing also promoted equality and comradeship among unit
members, made prior identities irrelevant, required uni-
form dress and appearance, minimized privacy, and re-
warded performance based on group achievement.
A second distinctive feature involves “a clear-cut
break from the age-graded career,” a time-out in which
to sort out matters and make a new beginning. Military
duty legitimized a time-out from education, work, and
family, and liberated the recruit from all conventional
expectations for an age-graded career, such as expecta-
tions regarding progress and life decisions.
Just being in the armed forces released the recruit
from probing life-decision questions from parents (e.g.,
Have you decided on a job or career? When will you be
promoted or get married?). As Samuel Stouffer and his
associates in the American Soldier study (1949, Vol. 2,
p. 572) noted, for many soldiers in World War II, “per-
haps for a majority, the break caused by Army service
[meant] a chance to evaluate where they had gotten and to
reconsider where they were going.” This time-out would
be far less timely for men and women who were mobi-
lized in the midst of family and career responsibilities.
A third feature of mobilization offered a broadened
range of developmental experiences and knowledge, in-
cluding exposure to in-service skill training and educa-
tional programs, as well as exposure to new interactional
and cultural experiences through service itineraries that
extended across the country and overseas. Out of such
experiences came a greater range of interpersonal con-
tacts, social models, and vocational skills. Horizons
were broadened and aspirations elevated. A veteran in-
terviewed just after World War II (Havighurst, Baugh-
man, Burgess, & Eaton, 1951, p. 188) commented about
the remarkable diversity of his acquaintances in the ser-
vice and their influence on his views. As he put it, the
experience “sort of opens up your horizons. . . . You
start thinking in broader terms than you did before.”
Post-World War II veteran benefits, particularly the GI
Bill, gave significant support for these new aspirations.
The creation of new beginnings, a time-out or mora-
torium to rethink and rework one’s future, and a broader
range of skills, interpersonal contacts, and cultural ex-
periences do not exhaust important features of military
experience for new entrants, but in combination they de-
fine a bridge to greater life opportunity and a potential

turning point, especially for disadvantaged youth. As a
total institution that presses from all angles, the mili-
tary is uniquely suited to recasting life trajectories. In-
deed, many years ago, Mattick (1960) found that young
men paroled to the army had a much lower recidivism
rate than civil parolees. Features of basic training and
the transition to military service have been adopted over
the years by social interventions, most especially by the
Civil Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
Early entry into the military tends to minimize life
disruption and maximize such life-course benefits as
vocational education, skill training, and the GI Bill of
support for veterans’ education and housing. In both the
Oakland Growth and Berkeley samples (1986, 1987),
with birthdates in the 1920s, young men with disadvan-
tages of one kind or another were likely to join up as
soon as they could. Three types of disadvantage were es-
pecially consequential: (1) membership in an economi-
cally deprived family, (2) poor high school grades, and
(3) feelings of personal inadequacy during adolescence.
In combination, these factors predicted early entry into
military service and its pathway to personal growth and
greater opportunity. Early entrants show greater life
benefits of the service up to the middle years than did
later entrants.
Military service offered greater life development
among the early entrants in two ways. One route in-
volved situational changes that made these recruits more
ambitious, assertive, and self-directed by midlife (Elder,
1986). The second route involved extensive use of gov-
ernment educational and housing benefits through the
GI Bill. This important legislation, which has been
likened to a Marshall Plan for America, was available to
recruits up through the age of 25. Early recruits in the
Oakland and Berkeley cohorts were most likely to take
advantage of these benefits for training and a college ed-
ucation (Elder, 1986, 1987).
Though initially more disadvantaged, the early en-
trants at least matched the occupational standing of the
nonveterans at midlife, and the Berkeley males from de-
prived families showed greater developmental gains up to
the age of 40. Using Q-sort ratings of personality in ado-
lescence and at midlife (Elder, 1986), the study found
that the early entrants displayed greater change toward
self-direction and confidence than the later entrants. The
mental health risks of combat exposure did not alter this
effect of life stage and timing in the two cohorts.
Involvement in the military helped to account for why
men from financially strained families in the 1930s have
Life Transitions and Historical Change 699
fared well in their adult years, matching if not exceeding
the occupational accomplishments of adults from more
privileged backgrounds. However, the military experi-
ence itself has remained largely a “ black box” and a
subject of informed speculation. What were the mecha-
nisms of developmental change? Sampson and Laub
(1996) provide some answers to this question in a com-
pelling test of the early entry hypothesis. They use life-
record data on a sample of approximately 1,000 men
who grew up in poverty areas of Boston ( birth years,
1925 to 1930), and more than 70% of the men served in
the military. Sheldon and Eleanor Glueck (1968) origi-
nally designed the longitudinal study of delinquency
with a matched control sample—500 delinquents and
500 controls.
The delinquent sample of White males, ages 10 to 17,
was drawn from a population of youth who were com-
mitted to one of two correctional schools in Massachu-
setts. The matched controls (on age, IQ, race-ethnicity,
and neighborhood deprivation) included 500 White
males from the Boston public schools, also ages 10 to 17.
The two samples are treated in all analyses as indepen-
dent. From 1940 to 1965, the Gluecks collected a rich
body of life-history information on the study members.
With a particular eye to experiences in the military,
they assembled unparalleled details on the men’s ser-
vice experience—their in-service training programs,
special schools, exposure to the military justice system,
and arrests. The life-record data on the sample of delin-
quents have also been coded by Sampson and Laub.
Men in the delinquent and control samples typically
entered the service at the age of 18 or 19 years, and most
served over 2 years (more than 60% overseas). Consis-
tent with their history, men from the delinquent sample
were far more involved in antisocial conduct during their
service time than the controls (official misconduct,
number of arrests, dishonorable discharge), and they were
less likely to experience in-service training and benefits
from the GI Bill. Nevertheless, men from the delinquent
sample were more likely to benefit from the service over
their life course, when compared to the controls, and
this was especially true for men who entered the service
at an early age. In-service schooling, overseas duty, and
use of the GI Bill significantly enhanced job stability,
economic well-being, and occupational status, indepen-
dent of childhood differences and socioeconomic ori-
gins. However, benefits of the GI Bill were larger for
veterans with a delinquent past, especially when they
entered the military at an early age. The significant
700 The Life Course and Human Development
benefits of the GI Bill and overseas duty on socioeco-
nomic position were observed across the adult years up
to the age of 47.
In combination, these findings provide consistent
support for the life-course advantages of early entry into
World War II, and one study suggests that it applies as
well to the Korean War (Elder, 1986). However, ecologi-
cal context matters, as one might expect. The timing of
military service had very different effects in countries
that lost World War II, specifically Japan and Germany.
West German males, born between 1915 and 1925 were
drawn very heavily into military action (up to 97% of an
age cohort—Mayer, 1988, p. 234). These cohorts of vet-
erans lost as many as 9 years of their occupational ca-
reer in the war, suffered a high rate of imprisonment
during and after the war, and experienced a mortality
rate of 25%. German children born around 1930 were
also hard hit by the war years, according to data from the
German Life History Project (Mayer & Huinink, 1990,
p. 220). The war disrupted their families and education
and they entered the labor market in a war-devastated
economy. Work placements were often poor, mixed with
spells of joblessness, and advancement was unpredictable.
Even the economic boom after the deprivational years of
recovery did not fully compensate this younger cohort for
its wartime losses in occupational achievement. A similar
story is told by these two birth cohorts (circa 1920 and
1930) in Japan (Elder & Meguro, 1987), except that the
younger group was mobilized as students for work in the
fields and factories. A large number reported bomb-dam-
aged homes and a forced evacuation to the countryside.
Today, military service occurs in a very different
life course, marked by a later entry to adulthood for the
college-oriented (Settersten et al., 2005). The nature of
this service has also changed in many places, from obli-
gation to voluntary. The aging of human societies has
extended the transition to young adulthood, from fam-
ily origins in adolescence to the establishment of a
family in the early 30s or even later. In the United
States, young people are entering adulthood at a time of
rising educational requirements and later family forma-
tion for the middle class especially. This contrasts with
an accelerated timetable for the working class and fam-
ilies in poverty—their transition events tend to occur
much earlier.
We have used military service to illustrate the role of
historical time and place in lives. Military service func-
tioned as a trajectory out of disadvantage in the lives of
Depression youth who survived World War II, but this
escape was conditional on historical time and place: Op-
portunities and life itself were lost by countless youth in
Europe and Asia.
Contributions of Life-Course Theory to the
Study of Human Development
In combination, these paradigmatic themes of life-
course theory identify its core features and potential
contributions to the study of human development. First,
this perspective places the field of study in a lifelong
framework. Human development and aging are lifelong
processes, expressed in continuity and change, and bio-
logical, social, and psychological terms. The early years
of child development have formative implications for
subsequent trajectories and healthy adaptations in later
life. In the course of aging, individuals change their en-
vironment and social pathways by differentially inter-
preting, selecting, and assigning meaning to situations
and personal experiences. This process is expressed by
the principle of human agency—life-course choices are
made in structured situations. Across the life course,
pathways also shape the behavior of individuals through
social demands and challenging options. Contexts and
individuals thus become correlated. Transactional
processes of this kind are established early in life and
contribute significantly to life-course continuity. Life
changes tend to occur when situational demands change
and pressures increase to alter one’s life course (e.g.,
marriage and military induction).
Few conceptual distinctions are more relevant to an
understanding of developmental change and the lives of
children than the link between age and timing. Thus, the
full negative impact of a lengthy dependence on welfare
for the educational progress of African American chil-
dren appears after the third grade (Guo, Brooks-Gunn,
& Harris, 1996). Cumulative dependence on welfare
markedly tends to increase the risk of grade retention
from the third to the ninth grades. Age and timing dis-
tinctions also enable studies to relate children to the life
course of significant people in their lives. Middle-aged
parents and their biographical experiences are an inte-
gral part of the adolescence of their children, and the ex-
periences of youth figure prominently in the social
world of their parents. In social meaning or function,
parents remain parents for as long as they and their chil-
dren live. Likewise, the significant relationship of
grandchildren and grandparents can have much to do
with the quality and pattern of their own lives. Lives
 Integrating Biological Models with the Life Course: A Promising Frontier
and developmental trajectories are thus embedded in a
moving system of intergenerational relationships.
As a theoretical orientation or framework, the life
course provides a conceptualization of the maturing in-
dividual’s changing environment and its developmental
relevance. This formulation locates children and their
families in historical time and place. Cultural scripts
and social structure play an important role in organizing
human lives as life courses, along with the actions of
people and the internal forces of self-regulation. In the-
ory, macrochanges influence developmental processes
by altering the individual life course through multilevel
processes and social structures. For children growing up
in the Great Depression, hard times shaped their life
course by changing their family’s experience and trajec-
tory. Historical influences were filtered by their cohort
membership and social class in 1929 and by their actual
exposure to severe income loss as expressed in family
adaptations. Place also made a difference because the
economic collapse hit the eastern half of the United
States before the western coast.
INTEGRATING BIOLOGICAL MODELS
WITH THE LIFE COURSE: A
PROMISING FRONTIER
New developments in the study of behavior and biogra-
phy offer exciting possibilities for life-course studies.
Research on neighborhoods and communities (Morenoff,
2003; Sampson, Morenoff, & Gannon-Rowley, 2002), au-
tobiographical memory (e.g., Fivush & Haden, 2003),
and subjective understandings of the self (Macmillan,
Hitlin, & Elder, in press) have become increasingly so-
phisticated. Substantial progress has also been made to-
ward integrating the stress paradigm with life-course
principles (Elder, George, & Shanahan, 1996; Wheaton
& Clarke, 2003). Advances such as these depend not only
on novel data collection efforts but also on theory that
directs attention to behavioral patterns as they vary by
place, time, and age.
The study of biological processes and behavior illus-
trates this need for integral models that encompass so-
cial settings and development. As explosive as interest
may be in biological studies of behavior, this work—en-
compassing evolutionary processes, metabolic processes
associated with the endocrine and immune systems, ge-
netics, and neuroscience—has not fully appreciated the
importance of context and its dynamic features, the core
701
insight of life-course theory. If behavioral development
reflects ongoing exchanges between person and context,
then its fully informed study necessarily involves longi-
tudinal views of both biological and social processes.
Thus, integration of the life course with biological mod-
els of behavior represents an emerging and highly prom-
ising area of study.
Such integration is facilitated by two considerations.
First, many topics of interest to life-course studies are
linked in significant ways to biological processes.
These topics include, for example, trajectories of physi-
cal and mental health, the stress process, patterns of
aggression and deviance, sexual behavior, fertility, par-
enting, and manifold dimensions of aging and mortal-
ity. Second, other topics are also likely to be associated
with biological processes, albeit less conspicuously, in-
cluding educational and occupational careers, patterns
of close interpersonal relationships both within and be-
yond the family, and one’s involvement and status in
organizations.
Further, biological models of behavior have under-
gone nothing short of a paradigm shift in the past few
decades, moving from biological determinism to the
widespread assumption that “nature and nurture” inter-
act in complex ways. This new view is consistent with
propositions of systems theory (Lerner, Chapter 1, this
Handbook, this volume), several of which are especially
relevant to a discussion of biology and the life course.
First, human behavior is the product of multiple levels of
analysis, including, for example, levels characteristi-
cally associated with sociology, psychology, biology,
and anthropology. By extension, there is no a priori rea-
son to believe that any one level will have special ex-
planatory value. For example, genes do not simply cause
behavior (see Gottlieb et al., Chapter 5, this Handbook,
this volume) and, at the same time, behavior is not
purely a result of social forces.
Second, all levels of analysis are characterized by
plasticity, which refers to the range of possibilities
(Lerner, 1984). Thus, each person’s behavior represents
one set of possibilities from among a finite range of pos-
sibilities; similarly, every social order represents one
form of organization out of a range of possible social or-
ders. Third, although each level is likely to operate ac-
cording to its own laws, the levels interact to produce
behavior (Cairns, McGuire, & Gariepy, 1993). That is,
systems theory assumes that many factors at multiple lev-
els interact to form sets of “correlated constraints” that
include the behaviors of interest and their covariates.
702 The Life Course and Human Development
These behaviors and their covariates represent organized
systems, and ongoing reciprocal interactions among their
levels explain continuity and provide a map of opportuni-
ties for change.
When viewed jointly, these principles define a central
theme of genetic, metabolic, and evolutionary ap-
proaches to behavior: Social and biological forces inter-
act in complex and dynamic ways to define ranges of
likely behaviors. By itself, this theme acknowledges the
importance of context and its interplay with biology.
Yet, a second overarching theme links biological models
of behavior to the life course more directly: Behavior re-
flects a lifetime of reciprocal exchanges between person
(including biological makeup) and context. This theme
acknowledges that behavior cannot be fully understood
without reference to prior experience. To explore these
themes, we focus here on behavioral genetics and the
life course (for discussion of the life course and evolu-
tionary and endocrinological processes, see Shanahan,
Hofer, & Shanahan, 2003).
Virtually all research on the life course has proceeded
without considering the influence of genes on behavior,
and, at the same time, behavioral genetics has proceeded
without regard to the sophisticated models of social con-
text that often characterize life-course research. Many
lines of research have now established, however, that
genotypes do not produce behaviors in a simple way (see
Gottlieb et al., Chapter 5, this Handbook, this volume).
Rather, phenotypes are likely to reflect the cumulative
history of the individual’s genotype (i.e., the genetic
make-up of the organism), phenotype (i.e., any observ-
able feature of an organism, including its behavior), and
context. Indeed, there is widespread appreciation among
behavioral geneticists that the links between genotypes
and phenotypes are often heavily conditioned by social
location and personal experiences. What is insufficiently
appreciated is that the dynamic features of context often
determine its meaning for the person. Put differently, the
significance of social context for genetic expression will
often depend on processes occurring in the life course as
revealed by, for example, pathways, trajectories, transi-
tions, turning points, and durations. One of the forefronts
of behavioral genetics—gene-environment interactions—
provides a useful example of this principle.
Mechanisms of Gene-Environment Interaction
Gene-environment (GE) interactions occur when genes
alter the organism’s sensitivity to specific environmen-
tal features or environmental features exert differential
control over genetic effects (Kendler & Eaves, 1986).
That is, genes may or may not be expressed depending
on the context, or the effect of context may depend on
the genotype. Many students of human behavior, devel-
opment, and aging believe that the study of GE interac-
tions will promote a better understanding of complex
human behaviors (e.g., McClearn, Vogler, & Hofer,
2001; McGue, 1999; Rowe, 2001; Rutter & Silberg,
2002; Sawa & Snyder, 2002; van Os & Marcelis, 1998;
Wahlsten, 1999). Yet, few empirical examples of GE in-
teractions have been identified in the study of behav-
ioral phenotypes in humans, and failures to find such
interactions have been noted (e.g., Heath et al., 2002;
McGue & Bouchard, 1998, p. 12).
Part of this discrepancy between the presumed com-
monality of GE interactions and the infrequency of their
detection undoubtedly reflects methodological difficul-
ties (e.g., power issues, levels of measurement, over-
reliance on cross-sectional designs), or over-simplified
conceptualization and measurement of social context.
What is it about social context that would interact with
the genotype to produce behavior? To date, four social
processes have been identified (Shanahan & Hofer,
2005).
First, social stressors may trigger a genetic diathesis,
as is found, for example, in numerous studies of life-
events that trigger various forms of depression among
people at high genetic risk for internalizing problems
(e.g., Kendler & Kessler, 1995; Silberg & Rutter, 2001).
Second, social context may compensate for a genetic
diathesis, which means that the absence of notable stres-
sors or the provision of an enriched environment may
prevent the expression of a genetic risk. For example,
people at genetic risk for depression but not experiencing
life-events typically do not exhibit depression. Studies of
mice show that enriched settings can completely com-
pensate for genetic risks for cognitive tasks that are nec-
essary to negotiate a maze (Rampon, Tang, Goodhouse,
Shimuzu, & Tsien, 2000; Rampon & Tsien, 2000).
Third, social context may also prevent the expression
of a genetic risk through social control processes. Numer-
ous studies show that sources of social control—for ex-
ample, religion, monitoring, anonymity, cultural values
and norms—lead to lowered levels of alcohol consump-
tion despite a genetic propensity or, conversely, high
levels of consumption in the absence of genetic in-
hibitors to drinking (e.g., Dick & Rose, 2001; Higuchi
et al., 1994; Koopmans & Slutske, 1999). Finally, Bron-
 Integrating Biological Models with the Life Course: A Promising Frontier
fenbrenner and Ceci’s (1994) bio-ecological model sug-
gests that proximal processes encourage the actualization
of genetic potential: As proximal processes—enduring
forms of social interactions characterized by progres-
sive complexity—improve, the genetic potential for
positive development is increasingly actualized. For ex-
ample, Rowe and Jacobson (1999) showed that the heri-
tability of verbal intelligence is significantly greater
among high-education households than low. Their re-
sults suggest that the genetic potential for verbal intelli-
gence is more fully realized in homes of better-educated
parents, which are assumed to provide enriched proxi-
mal processes (e.g., Guo & Stearns, 2002).
Gene-Environment Interactions in the Life Course
What is notable about all of these processes is that they
occur in the life course or are age-graded experiences
that form trajectories or pathways. How can the life
course inform the study of genetic expression? First,
triggering, compensatory, social control, and proximal
processes are all mechanisms that occur over consider-
able periods, and thus must be studied with life-course
distinctions in mind. Second, the nature of these
processes is multifaceted and will vary through the
phases of life: For example, the factors that constitute so-
cial control in childhood differ significantly from social
control mechanisms in adolescence, which, in turn, dif-
fer from control in young adulthood. The importance of
these themes—the dynamic and multidimensional nature
of context—can be appreciated when considering exist-
ing approaches to context in behavioral genetic research.
Dynamic Patterns of Context
The case of GE triggering interactions involving life-
events and depression illustrates the importance of con-
ceptualizing and measuring context through time. As
noted, many studies show that life-events are significant
stressors that trigger depression in people with a ge-
netic susceptibility for that disorder. Such studies typi-
cally ask people to indicate from a list of the life-events
that have occurred over a specified period. The total
number of life-events experienced is then associated
with depression.
Yet, the magnitude of the relationship between life-
events and indicators of distress like depression or de-
pressive symptoms is often modest (Turner, Wheaton, &
Lloyd, 1995), and the cumulative evidence shows that
these modest associations are observed because, in part,
703
the invidious nature of stressors is contingent on the
prior, contemporaneous, and subsequent experiences of
the person (Elder et al., 1996). In effect, life-events—
like all potential sources of stress, compensation, en-
hancement, and control—can only be understood in the
context of the life-course trajectories that embed them.
Indeed, while the vast majority of studies examine
the negative implications of life-events for well-being,
or the conditions in which such negative effects are at-
tenuated, life-events can actually have positive effects
on well-being, depending on prior circumstances. For
example, Wheaton (1990) shows that severe life-events
have a positive effect on psychological well-being if
they resolve an antecedent source of chronic distress.
Thus, among adults who have lost a spouse, persons
with high levels of prior marital problems report signifi-
cantly less distress than with low levels of prior marital
problems. Similar patterns are observed for earlier di-
vorce, premarital breakup, and a child moving out, with
qualified evidence for recent divorce, job loss, retire-
ment, and getting married. Wheaton concludes that role
histories often determine the meaning of a life-event
(for other examples of the positive effects of life-events,
see also, Amato, Loomis, & Booth, 1995; Sweeney &
Horwitz, 2001).
Furthermore, the experiences of early traumas (in-
cluding life-events) on later well-being are likely to be
contingent on complex patterns of cumulative stressors.
Turner and Lloyd (1995) report that the number of cu-
mulative lifetime traumas significantly predicts onset of
disorder (major depression or substance abuse) but not
relapses of disorders. The number of traumas experi-
enced since the first onset, however, significantly pre-
dicts relapses. Controlling recent life-events, the authors
find that the number of post-onset traumas and chronic
stressors increases major depression and substance use,
while the number of pre-onset traumas decreases the risk
of major depression. The authors conclude that the ef-
fects of life-events on distress will be significantly un-
derestimated if life-time patterns of both traumas and
episodes of disorder are not taken into account (for the
independent effects of earlier and later stressors, see
also, e.g., Ensel & Lin, 2000; Hayward & Gorman,
2004; Poulton et al., 2002).
With respect to experiences subsequent to the life-
event, research shows that the effects of life-events are
often contingent on their implications for later life pat-
terns. For example, in their overview of research on
childhood adversity and its effects on adult adjustment,
704 The Life Course and Human Development
McLeod and Almazan (2003) note that much of the ef-
fect of parental loss (other than by parental separation) is
mediated by subsequent experiences. Studies suggest
that the provision of good child care, integration into and
achievements at school, good peer relations, and support-
ive, intimate relationships can all act to break the link be-
tween parental loss in childhood and poor psychosocial
outcomes in adulthood (e.g., Quinton & Rutter, 1988;
Rutter, 1989). In adulthood, the effects of life-events are
often contingent on how the events are resolved.
While our review of the life-events literature is not
meant to be comprehensive, it underscores that the cross-
sectional measurement of exposure to life-events repre-
sents a crude proxy for increases in stress load that could
actually trigger a genetic diathesis for psychosocial dis-
tress. Likewise, variables that represent other forms of
stressors—as well as potential sources of social compen-
sation, control, and enhancement—are likely to acquire
their meaning and impact only when viewed as part of a
life-course trajectory. In an effort to enhance the accu-
racy and validity of their models, behavioral geneticists
are beginning to assess behavior in developmental terms.
A similarly dynamic orientation is necessary to capture
the full significance of social context.
In addition to the dynamic features of experiences,
the life course directs attention to the changing nature
of social processes through the phases of life. Social
context is part of a “cascade of associations” (Johnston
& Edwards, 2002) or mediating mechanisms that makes
certain behaviors more likely than others. As Rutter and
Pickles (1991) observe, a GE interaction is not an expla-
nation but rather something to be explained. For exam-
ple, Link and Phelan (1995) suggest that socioeconomic
status is a “ fundamental cause” of well-being, meaning
that, as a rule, high socioeconomic status is associated
with good health. Nevertheless, the mechanism by
which high socioeconomic status has these salutary ef-
fects varies considerably depending on the time and
place. Socioeconomic status may promote manifold di-
mensions of well-being and health through, for example,
preventative behaviors, monitoring and treatment, the
amelioration of stressors, and/or the provision of stimu-
lating, healthy environments. Perhaps all of these mech-
anisms are at work, or perhaps their importance differs
at different points in life.
Sampson and Laub’s research (1993) on informal so-
cial control illustrates the multifaceted nature of this
mechanism. In childhood, informal control refers to a
complex range of parenting behaviors, peer relation-
ships, and connections to school and religious institu-
tions. Through adolescence, the importance of these
sources may wane to some degree, and close interper-
sonal relationships and the workplace may increase in
importance. Informal social control in young adulthood
is often indicated by attachments to the labor force, mar-
riage, parenthood, military service, and religious and
civic involvements. Across the phases of life, these
sources of control tend to be positively interrelated, al-
though, according to Sampson and Laub, youth experi-
encing low informal control may have experienced an
increase in control during the transition to adulthood.
Thus, social control refers to numerous, changing, and
interrelated processes through the early life course. For
example, it would be a mistake to suppose that measuring
parenting before age 5 could capture these complexities.
The Multidimensional Nature of Context
Empirical studies that demonstrate GE interactions al-
most invariably involve the interplay between an indica-
tor of genetic risk and a dimension of social experience.
For example, depression is thought to be responsive to
stressors, but research typically examines only one di-
mension of stressors (such as life-events). A focus on
one dimension of context is likely to underestimate the
effect of contextual factors, which often operate as
“correlated constraints,” or groups of variables that co-
occur and work interactively. The multidimensionality
of context raises two possible sources of complexity.
First, high levels of interaction may characterize in-
dicators of triggering, compensation, control, and en-
hancement. Highly stressful circumstances (capable of
producing GE triggering interactions), constraining cir-
cumstances (capable of producing GE social control in-
teractions), and enhanced circumstances (capable of
producing GE enhancement or compensation interac-
tions) are likely to reflect manifold aspects of context
that exert their influence on the person as a set of
variables, not individually. For example, Rutter (1990)
suggests that the presence of three or more risk factors
predicts maladjustment in an interactive fashion. Like-
wise, the developmental challenges posed by neigh-
borhoods marked by concentrated disadvantage are
numerous, intercorrelated, and likely to exert their neg-
ative influences in nonadditive ways. Indeed, in their
overview of research on childhood adversities and their
implications for adulthood, McLeod and Almazan
(2003) observe that:
attempts to disaggregate the effects of clustered adversi-
ties may offer relatively little insight into processes of risk
 Integrating Biological Models with the Life Course: A Promising Frontier
and resilience. The different clusters of events that chil-
dren experience have different meanings that are lost
when those events are studied in isolation. (p. 401)
While behavioral geneticists have understandably been
interested in gene-gene (GG) and gene-environment
(GE) interactions, environmental factors may create
environment-environment (EE) interactions, whereby
groups of contextual factors have nonadditive effects on
behavior. Particularly, if only extreme settings will
moderate genetic expression (Scarr, 1992), then such en-
vironments are likely to involve EE interactions. Regard-
less of the presence of EE interactions, the high
associations observed between contextual variables war-
rants caution when interpreting bivariate studies that in-
terrelate one genotype and one contextual factor (e.g.,
Caspi & Sugden, 2003). This point is clear in a study of
sexual behavior among adolescents and their peers.
The case of virginity pledges among adolescents il-
lustrates the highly interactive nature of a form of social
control in delaying age of first sexual intercourse. Draw-
ing on data from Add Health, Bearman and Brückner
(2001) observe that the risk of sexual initiation is 34%
lower among youth who took a virginity pledge than
among nonpledgers. The effect of pledging is contin-
gent, however, on other contextual features that, taken
as a whole, establish controlling circumstances. The
others found the pledging effect to be stronger in early
and middle adolescence, but it did not prevent sexual
intercourse until marriage. In addition, the effect of
pledging varied according to the type of school that
the student attends, and the percent of pledgers in the
school. In “socially open schools”—where many of the
students report friendships and romantic relationships
with students from other schools—pledging has no ef-
fect if no other pledgers are present. In such schools, for
every 1% additional same-sex pledgers, the rate of the
transition to first intercourse is delayed by 2%. In so-
cially closed schools—where friendships and romantic
relationships are contained in the school—the opposite
is observed: with no other pledgers present, pledgers are
much less likely to experience their sexual debut. When
other pledgers are present, the pledgers’ transition rate
is higher than that of pledgers in schools with few
pledgers. For adolescents in schools with more than 30%
pledgers, a threshold is reached whereby pledging has no
effect. That is, by itself, pledging status tells little of the
story of how sexual behavior is controlled. When this
form of social control is viewed as a constellation of
variables that create EE interactions—encompassing
705
status, type of school, and percent of pledgers in the
school—the controlling nature of the context can be
more fully appreciated.
Second, the principles of equifinality and multifinal-
ity (which states the end phenotype may be the product
of multiple, distinct causal pathways and single causes
may lead to multiple, distinct phenotypic expressions)
are relevant to links between social context and gene ex-
pression. For example, Kendler, Gardner, and Prescott
(2002) examined the interrelationships among 18 risk
factors over the life course (some of which were retro-
spectively recalled) and depressive episodes. The best-
fitting, most parsimonious model included 64 paths
among risk factors and the occurrence of major depres-
sion, a simple but dramatic example of how multifaceted
mediational pathways can be. Distress is known to re-
flect many different types of stressors, which can, in
turn, take on many different forms. Similarly, many
specific forms of social control that inhibit antisocial
behavior have been identified, including warm and nur-
turant parenting, positive connections with schools and
nonrelated adults, intimate interpersonal relations, mar-
riage, parenthood, and meaningful ties to the labor mar-
ket (e.g., Sampson & Laub, 1993). These considerations
suggest that causal pathways involving social context and
biological substrates may involve complex combinations
of different factors that lead to the same outcome.
Future Directions for the Life Course and
Behavioral Genetics
Taken together, these themes heighten sensitivity to the
dynamic, highly contingent, and multidimensional na-
ture of social processes that are likely to be integral to
genetic expression. The study of such themes would
transform how research typically proceeds in behavioral
genetics (Coll, Bearer, & Lerner, 2004). Behavioral ge-
netic research typically views social context in unidi-
mensional, static terms, although life-course research
shows that formative social processes exhibit patterns of
change and constancy across the phases of life, and
these dynamic patterns determine the salience of con-
text for behavior. Integrating life-course models of so-
cial processes with behavioral genetic studies thus
presents exciting new opportunities for understanding
behavioral development in increasingly precise terms.
Ideally, such integrative efforts will capitalize on a
long-standing interest of life-course research or the
comparison of people across differing social contexts.
Such an interest may involve the study of social change,
706 The Life Course and Human Development
which involves the transformation of context in people’s
lives, migration, or cross-national patterns. All of these
types of studies provide an advantage in the study of de-
velopment by creating notable variability in context and
behavior. The utility of these approaches is suggested by
behavioral genetic studies of alcoholism. For example,
Higuchi et al. (1994) show that while the suppressive ef-
fect of the ALDH2*2 genotype (i.e., homozygous for the
null allele) inhibits alcoholism among the Japanese, the
suppressive effect of the heterozygous genotype (i.e.,
one null and one normal allele) has waned with succes-
sive cohorts. The authors speculate that social controls
on drunkenness have loosened in Japanese society
through the twentieth century.
The functional polymorphism ADH2*2 also protects
against alcoholism, but its effects may be contingent on
context. The fact that Jews drink less than other Cau-
casians is thought to reflect the fact that ADH2*2 is
more prevalent in the former group. Among Jews, how-
ever, the inhibitory effect of ADH2*2 may be contingent
on environmental factors. Although drawing on a small
sample, Hasin et al. (2002) report that the effect of
ADH2*2 in suppressing alcohol consumption was less
among Russian Jews who had been exposed to an envi-
ronment of heavy drinking prior to immigration than
among Israeli Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews who had
not been exposed to such an environment. This research
illustrates how social change and the life course can be
strategic in the study of genetic expression because they
create “experiments of nature” that dramatically alter
the contextual forces thought to alter genetic expression.
CONCLUSIONS
The emergence of life-course theory and its elabora-
tion over the past 30 years can be viewed through
prominent challenges to developmental studies that
questioned traditional forms of thought and empirical
work. They include:
1. The necessity for concepts of development and per-
sonality that have relevance beyond childhood and
even adolescence
2. The need for a way of thinking about the social pat-
terning and dynamic of lives over time, as they relate
to developmental processes
3. The increasing recognition that lives and develop-
mental trajectories may be transformed by a chang-
ing society
Each challenge was posed by the early longitudinal
studies, as they continued well into the adult and late
life years, and the mounting realization that much of
the story of child development is written across the
adult years. In addition, the challenges had much to do
with the demographic and political pressures of an
aging society.
Social theories of relationships and age converged in
the 1960s with emerging concepts of life-span develop-
ment to produce a theoretical orientation to the life
course. More than any other theoretical initiative, life-
span developmental psychology has responded to the
first challenge by advancing a conceptual orientation
on human development and personality across the life
span. One result is a concept of ontogenetic develop-
ment in which social structures and cultures merely es-
tablish behavioral settings. By contrast, life-course
theory views human development as a coactive process
in which sociocultural, biological, and psychological
forces interact over time. Social structures and cultures
are constituent elements in the developmental process.
People play an important role in shaping their life
course and development, although choices and initia-
tives are always constrained by social forces and bio-
logical limitations.
In concept, and as discussed in this chapter, the indi-
vidual life course provides a response to the second
challenge, a way of thinking about life patterns or orga-
nization. Lives over time do not merely follow a se-
quence of situations or person-situation interactions.
Instead, the life course is conceived as an age-graded
sequence of socially defined roles and events that are
enacted and even recast over time. It consists of multi-
ple, interlocking trajectories, such as work and family,
with their transitions or changes in states. People gener-
ally work out their life course in relation to established,
institutionalized pathways and their regulatory con-
straints such as the curricula or tracks of a school, the
age-graded expectations of a family, and the work ca-
reers of a firm or culture.
The individual life course, developmental trajecto-
ries and transitions (as psychobiological continuities
and change), and established pathways are important el-
ements in the life-course study of human development.
Any change in the life course of individuals has conse-
quences for their developmental trajectory, and histori-
cal change may alter both by recasting established
pathways. Thus, adultlike expectations for productive
work in World War II communities were lowered to-
ward childhood to enable young people to fill needed

roles. By placing people in historical locations, life-
course theory has oriented research to the third chal-
lenge, to understand the process by which societal
changes make a difference in the primary world and de-
velopment of children.
This chapter on life-course theory represents the be-
ginning stage of a long journey toward understanding
human development in ways that extend across individ-
ual lives, the generations, and historical time. Just as the
major themes of developmental psychology from a cen-
tury ago seem to be regaining prominence in contempo-
rary studies (Parke et al., 1994), including a renewed
interest in genetic influences, emotional regulation, and
the study of hormones, life-course theory can be viewed
through renewed priorities (e.g., social context and
change, life histories) that were once dominant in the
past, particularly in the early Chicago School of Sociol-
ogy. These observed continuities, however, pale in rela-
tion to the novel integrations and new directions of
contemporary theory. Building on a wider net of cross-
disciplinary scholarship in developmental science, dis-
tinctions of time, context, and process have become
central to a life-course theory of child, adolescent, and
adult development. The integration of biological models
with the life course represents a promising interdiscipli-
nary frontier for this field of study.
REFERENCES
Abbott, A. (1997). Of time and space: The contemporary relevance
of the Chicago school. Social Forces, 75(4), 1149–1182.
Alexander, K. L., Entwisle, D. R., & Dauber, S. L. (1994). On the suc-
cess of failure: A reassessment of the ef fects of retention in the pri-
mary grades. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Alwin, D. F., Cohen, R. L., & Newcomb, T. M. (1991). Political atti-
tudes over the life-span: The Bennington women after fifty years.
Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Amato, P. R. (2000). Consequences of divorce for adults and chil-
dren. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62, 1269–1287.
Amato, P. R., & Cheadle, J. (2005). The long reach of divorce: Di-
vorce and child well-being across three generations. Journal of
Marriage and the Family, 67, 191–206.
Amato, P. R., Loomis, S. L., & Booth, A. (1995). Parental divorce,
marital conf lict, and off-spring well-being during early adult-
hood. Social Forces, 73, 895–915.
Amick, B. C., McDonough, P., Chang, H., Rogers, W. H., Pieper,
C. F., & Duncan, G. (2002). Relationship between all-cause mor-
tality and cumulative working life course psychosocial and physi-
cal exposures in the United States labor market from 1968 to
1992. Psychosomatic Medicine, 64, 370–381.
Antonucci, T. C., & Akiyama, H. (1995). Convoys of social relations:
Family and friendships within a life-span context. In R. Blieszner
& V. H. Bedford (Eds.), Handbook of Aging and the Family
(pp. 355–371). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
References 707
Aseltine, R. H., Gore, S., & Gordon, J. (2000). Life stress, anger
and anxiety, and delinquency: An empirical test of general
strain theory. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 41(3),
256–275.
Baldwin, J. M. (1895). Mental Development in the child and the race:
Methods and processes. New York: Macmillan.
Baltes, P. B. (1979). Life-span developmental psychology: Some con-
verging observations on history and theory. In P. B. Baltes &
O. G. Brim Jr. (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior (Vol. 2,
pp. 256–281). New York: Academic Press.
Baltes, P. B. (1993). The aging mind: Potential and limits. Gerontolo-
gist, 33, 580–594.
Baltes, P. B. (1994, August). Life-span developmental psychology: On
the overall landscape of human development. Invited address at
the 102nd Annual Convention of the American Psychological As-
sociation (Division 7), Los Angeles.
Baltes, P. B. (1997). On the incomplete architecture of human ontoge-
nesis: Selection, optimization, and compensation as foundations
of developmental theory. American Psychologist, 52, 366–381.
Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1990). Successful aging: Perspec-
tives from the behavioral sciences. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Baltes, P. B., Cornelius, S. W., & Nesselroade, J. R. (1979). Cohort
effects in developmental psychology. In J. R. Nesselroade & P. B.
Baltes (Eds.), Longitudinal research in the Study of Behavior and
Development (pp. 61–87). New York: Academic Press.
Bane, M. J., & Ellwood, D. T. (1986). Slipping into and out of
poverty: The dynamics of spells. Journal of Human Resources,
21(1), 1–23.
Barrett, A. E. (2000, December). Marital trajectories and mental
health. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 41, 451–464.
Bartley, M., & Plewis, I. (2002). Accumulated labour market disad-
vantage and limiting long-term illness: Data from the 1971–1991
Office for National Statistics’ Longitudinal Study. International
Journal of Epidemiology, 31, 336–341.
Bauer, D., & Curran, P. J. (2003). Distributional assumptions of
growth mixture models: Implications for over-extraction of latent
trajectory classes. Psychological Methods, 8, 338–363.
Bauer, D., & Curran, P. J. (2004). The integration of continuous and
discrete latent variable models: Potential problems and promising
opportunities. Psychological Methods, 9, 3–29.
Bearman, P., & Brückner, H. (1999). Power in numbers: Peer ef fects
on adolescent girls’ sexual debut and pregnancy. Washington, DC:
National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.
Bearman, P., & Brückner, H. (2001). Promising the future: Virginity
pledges and first intercourse. American Journal of Sociology,
106(4), 859–912.
Becker, H. S. (1961). Notes on the concept of commitment. American
Journal of Sociology, 66(1), 32–40.
Becker, H. S. (1964). Personal change in adult life. Sociometry,
27(1), 40–53.
Bengtson, V. L., & Laufer, R. S. (1974). Youth, generations, and so-
cial change. Journal of Social Issues, 30(2/3, Pts. I & II ).
Bergman, L. R., Magnusson, D., & El-Khouri, B. M. (2003). Studying
individual development in an interindividual context: A person-
oriented approach (Vol. 4). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Blair-Loy, M. (2003). Competing devotions: Career and family among
women executives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Block, J. (with N. Haan). (1971). Lives through time. Berkeley,
CA: Bancroft.
708 The Life Course and Human Development
Booth, A., Johnson, D. R., White, L. K., & Edwards, J. N. (1986). Di-
vorce and marital instability over the life course. Journal of Fam-
ily Issues, 7(4), 421–442.
Bouffard, L. A., & Laub, J. H. (2004). Jail or the army: Does military
service facilitate desistance from crime. In R. Immarigeon & S.
Maruna (Eds.), After crime and punishment: Pathways to of fender
reintegration (pp. 129–151). Devon, England: Willan.
Bound, J., Jaeger, D. A., & Baker, R. M. (1995). Problems with instru-
mental variables estimation when the correlation between the in-
struments and the endogenous explanatory variable is weak.
Journal of the American Statistical Association, 90(430), 443–450.
Brehm, S. S., & Brehm, J. W. (1982). Psychological reactance: A the-
ory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.
Brody, G. (Ed.). (1996). Sibling relationships: Their causes and con-
sequences (Advances in Applied Developmental Psychology Se-
ries). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Brody, G. H., Ge, X., Kim, S. Y., Murry, V. M., Simons, R. L.,
Gibbons, F. X., et al. (2003). Neighborhood disadvantage mod-
erates associations of parenting and older sibling problem atti-
tudes and behavior with conduct disorders in African American
children. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 71,
211–222.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1970). Two worlds of childhood: US and USSR.
New York: Russell Sage.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Ex-
periments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989). Ecological systems theory. In R. Vasta
(Ed.), Six theories of child development: Revised formulations and
current issues (pp. 185–246). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1996). Foreword. In R. B. Cairns, G. H. Elder
Jr., & E. J. Costello (Eds.), Developmental science (pp. ix-xvii).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994). Nature-nurture reconceptu-
alized in developmental perspective: A bioecological model. Psy-
chological Review, 101(4), 568–586.
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Duncan, G. J. (1997). The effects of poverty on
children. Future of Children, 7(2), 55–71.
Buchmann, M. (1989). The script of life in modern society: Entry
into adulthood in a changing world. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Bumpass, L., & Lu, H. H. (2000). Trends in cohabitation and implica-
tions for children’s family contexts in the United States. Popula-
tion Studies: A Journal of Demography, 54(1), 29–41.
Burton, L. M. (1985). Early and on-time grandmotherhood in multi-
generational Black families. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Southern California.
Burton, L. M., & Bengtson, V. L. (1985). Black grandmothers: Issues
of timing and continuity of roles. In V. L. Bengtson & J. F. Robert-
son (Eds.), Grandparenthood (pp. 61–77). Beverly Hills: Sage.
Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. (1994). Lifelines and risks: Pathways of youth
in our time. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Cairns, R. B., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Costello, E. J. (1996). Developmen-
tal science: Cambridge Studies in Social and Emotional Develop-
ment. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cairns, R. B., McGuire, A. M., & Gariepy, J.-L. (1993). Developmen-
tal behavior genetics: Fusion, correlated constraints, and timing.
In D. F. Hay & A. Angold (Eds.), Precursors and causes in devel-
opment and psychopathology (pp. 87–122). New York: Wiley.
Caspi, A. (2004). Life-course development: The interplay of social
selection and social causation within and across the generations.
In P. L. Chase-Lansdale, K. Kiernan, & R. J. Friedman (Eds.),
Human development across lives and generations: The potential
for change (pp. 8–27). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Caspi, A., & Bem, D. J. (1990). Personality continuity and change
across the life course. In L. A. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of person-
ality: Theory and research (pp. 549–575). New York: Guilford
Press.
Caspi, A., Bem, D. J., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (1989). Continuities and
consequences of interactional styles across the life course. Jour-
nal of Personality, 57(2), 375–406.
Caspi, A., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Bem, D. J. (1987). Moving against the
world: Life course patterns of explosive children. Developmental
Psychology, 23(2), 308–313.
Caspi, A., & Herbener, E. (1990). Continuity and change: Assortative
marriage and the consistency of personality in adulthood. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 58(2), 250–258.
Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Thornton, A., Freedman, D., Amell, J. W.,
Harrington, H., et al. (1996). The life history calendar: A re-
search and clinical assessment method for collecting retrospec-
tive event-history data. International Journal of Methods in
Psychiatric Research, 6, 101–114.
Caspi, A., & Sugden, K. (2003). Inf luence of life stress on depres-
sion: Moderation in the 5-HTT gene. Science, 301, 386–389.
Cherlin, A. J. (1993). Marriage, divorce, and remarriage. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Clausen, J. A. (1968). Socialization and society. Boston: Little, Brown.
Clausen, J. A. (1993). American lives: Looking back at the children of
the great depression. New York: Free Press.
Clausen, J. A. (1995). Gender, contexts and turning points in adults’
lives. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder, Jr., & K. Lüscher (Eds.), Examin-
ing Lives in Context: Perspectives on the geology of human devel-
opment (pp. 365–389). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Clipp, E. C., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (1996). The aging veteran of
World War II: Psychiatric and life course insights. In P. E.
Ruskin & J. A. Talbott (Eds.), Aging and post-traumatic stress
disorder (pp. 19–51). Washington, DC: American Psychiatric
Press.
Coll, C. G., Bearer, E. L., & Lerner, R. M. (Eds.). (2004). Nature and
nurture: The complex interplay of genetic and environmental
inf luences on human behavior and development. Mahwah, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Collins, L. M., & Sayer, A. G. (2001). New methods for the analysis of
change: Decade of behavior. Washington, DC: American Psycho-
logical Association.
Cook, T. D., Herman, M., Phillips, M., & Settersten, R. A., Jr.
(2002). Some ways in which neighborhoods, nuclear families,
friendship groups and schools jointly affect changes in early ado-
lescent development. Child Development, 73, 1283–1309.
Crosnoe, R., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (2004). From childhood to the later
years: Pathways of human development. Research on Aging,
26(6), 623–654.
Crouter, A. C., & Booth, A. (2003). Children’s inf luence on family
dynamics: The neglected side of family relationships. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Crouter, A. C., Maguire, M. C., Helms-Erikson, H., & McHale, S. N.
(1999). Parental work in middle childhood: Links between em-

ployment and the division of housework, parent-child activities,
and parental monitoring. In T. L. Parcel (Ed.), Work and family:
Research in the sociology of work series (pp. 31–54). Greenwich,
CT: JAI Press.
Dannefer, D. (1984). The role of the social in life-span developmental
psychology, past and future: Rejoinder to Baltes and Nesselroade.
American Sociological Review, 49(6), 847–850.
Dick, D. M., & Rose, R. J. (2001). Exploring gene-environment inter-
actions: Socioregional moderation of alcohol use. Journal of Ab-
normal Psychology, 110(4), 625–632.
Dorn, L. D., Susman, E. J., & Ponirakis, A. (2003). Pubertal timing
and adolescent adjustment and behavior: Conclusions vary by
rater. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32(3), 157–167.
Drobnic, S., Blossfeld, H.-P., & Rohwer, G. (1999, February). Dy-
namics of women’s employment patterns over the family life
course: A comparison of the United States and Germany. Journal
of Marriage and the Family, 61, 133–146.
Duncan, G. J., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Klebanov, P. K. (1994). Economic
deprivation and early-childhood development. Child Development,
65(2), 296–318.
Duncan, G. J., Clark-Kauffman, E., & Snell, E. (in press). Resi-
dential morbidity interventions as treatment for the sequelae of
neighborhood violence [Mimeo]. Evanston, IL: Northwestern
University, Institute for Poverty Research.
Duncan, T. E., Duncan, S. C., Strycker, L. A., Li, F., & Anthony, A.
(1999). An introduction to latent variable growth curve modeling:
Concepts, issues, and applications—Quantitative methodology se-
ries. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Easterlin, R. A. (1980). Birth and fortune: The impact of numbers on
personal welfare. New York: Basic Books.
Ebaugh, H. R. F. (1988). Becoming an ex: The process of role exit.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Eccles, J. S., & Midgley, C. (1989). Stage-environment fit: Develop-
mentally appropriate classrooms for early adolescents. In R. E.
Ames & C. Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education
(Vol. 3, pp. 139–186). New York: Academic Press.
Eggleston, E. P., Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2004). Methodologi-
cal sensitivities to latent class analysis of long-term criminal tra-
jectories. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 20(1), 1–26.
Eichorn, D. H., Clausen, J. A., Haan, N., Honzik, M. P., & Mussen,
P. H. (1981). Present and past in middle life. New York: Aca-
demic Press.
Eisenstadt, S. N. (1956). From generation to generation: Age groups
and social structure. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1975). Age differentiation and the life course. An-
nual Review of Sociology, 1, 165–190.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1978). Family history and the life course. In T. K. Har-
aven (Ed.), Transitions (pp. 17–64). New York: Academic Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1985). Perspectives on the life course. In G. H.
Elder Jr. (Ed.), Life course dynamics: Trajectories and transitions,
1968–1980(pp. 23–49). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1986). Military times and turning points in men’s
lives. Developmental Psychology, 22(2), 233–245.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1987). War mobilization and the life course: A co-
hort of World War II veterans. Sociological Forum, 2(3), 449–472.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1991). Family transitions, cycles, and social change.
In P. A. Cowan and M. Hetherington (Eds.), Family Transitions
(pp. 31–57). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
References 709
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1998a). The life course and human development. In
W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
book of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human de-
velopment (5th ed., pp. 939–991). New York: Wiley.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1998b). The life course as developmental theory.
Child Development, 69(1), 1–12.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1999). Children of the great depression: Social
change in life experience. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
(Original work published 1974)
Elder, G. H., Jr., & Caspi, A. (1988). Human development and social
change: An emerging perspective on the life course. In N. Bolger,
A. Caspi, G. Downey, & M. Moorehouse (Eds.), Persons in con-
text: Developmental processes (pp. 77–113). New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr., & Conger, R. D. (2000). Children of the land: Ad-
versity and success in rural America. In Studies on Successful
Adolescent Development (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur
Foundation Series on Mental Health and Development). Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr., George, L. K., & Shanahan, M. J. (1996). Psychoso-
cial stress over the life course. In H. B. Kaplan (Ed.), Psychoso-
cial stress: Perspectives on structure, theory, life course, and
methods (pp. 247–292). Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Johnson, M. K., & Crosnoe, R. (2003). The emer-
gence and development of the life course. In J. T. Mortimer &
M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 3–19).
New York: Plenum Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr., & Meguro, Y. (1987). Wartime in men’s lives: A
Comparative Study of American and Japanese Cohorts. Interna-
tional Journal of Behavioral Development, 10, 439–466.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Modell, J., & Parke, R. D. (1993). Children in time
and place: Developmental and historical insights—Cambridge
Studies in Social and Emotional Development. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Pavalko, E. K., & Hastings, T. J. (1991). Talent, history,
and the fulfillment of promise. Psychiatry, 54, 251–267.
Elder, G. H., Jr., & Pellerin, L. A. (April 1995). Social development
research in historical perspective, 1965–89: Is it more longitudinal
and contextual today? Poster session presented at the biennial
meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Shanahan, M. J., & Clipp, E. C. (1994). When war
comes to men’s lives: Life course patterns in family, work, and
health [Special issue]. Psychology and Aging, 9(1), 5–16.
Ensel, M., & Lin, N. (2000). Age, the stress process, and physical
distress: The role of distal stressors. Journal of Aging and Health,
12, 139–168.
Entwisle, D. R., Alexander, K. L., & Olson, L. S. (2003). The first-
grade transition in life course perspective. In J. T. Mortimer &
M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 229–250).
New York: Plenum Press.
Entwisle, D. R., Alexander, K. L., & Olson, L. S. (2005). First
grade and educational attainment by age 22. American Journal
of Sociology, 110, 1458–1502.
Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society (2nd ed.). New
York: Norton.
Farrington, D. P., Loeber, R., Elliott, D. S., Hawkins, J. D., Kandel,
D. B., Klein, M. W., et al. (1990). Advancing knowledge about
the onset of delinquency and crime. In B. B. Lahey & A. E.
Kazdin (Eds.), Advances in clinical child psychology (Vol. 13,
pp. 283–342). New York: Plenum Press.
710 The Life Course and Human Development
Farrington, D. P., & West, D. J. (1990). The Cambridge Study of
Delinquent Development: A long-term follow-up of 411 Lon-
don males. In H. J. Kerner & G. Kaiser (Eds.), Kriminalitat:
Personlichkeit, Lebensgeschichte und Verhalten [Criminology: Per-
sonality, Behavior and Life History] (pp. 115–138). New York:
Springer-Verlag.
Ferri, E., Bynner, J., & Wadsworth, M. (2002). Changing Britain,
changing lives: Three generations at the turn of the century
(Bedford Way Papers Series, No. 18). London: Institute of
Education.
Fivush, R., & Haden, C. A. (Eds,) (2003). Autobiographical memory
and the construction of the narrated self: Developmental and cul-
tural perspectives. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ford, D. H., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems theory:
An integrative approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Forest, K. B., Moen, P., & Dempster-McClain, D. (1995). Cohort dif-
ferences in the transition to motherhood: The variable effects of
education and employment before marriage. Sociological Quar-
terly, 36(2), 315–336.
Freedman, D., Thornton, A., Camburn, D., Alwin, D., & Young-
DeMarco, L. (1988). The life history calendar: A technique for
collecting retrospective data. Sociological Methodology, 18, 37–68.
Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Morgan, S. P. (1987).
Adolescent mothers in later life. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Cook, T. D., Eccles, J., Elder, G. H., Jr., &
Sameroff, A. (1999). Managing to make it: Urban families and
adolescent success. In Studies on Successful Adolescent Develop-
ment (John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on
Mental Health and Development). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Fussell, E. (2002). Youth in aging societies. In J. T. Mortimer &
R. W. Larsen (Eds.), The changing adolescent experience: Societal
trends and the transition to adulthood (pp. 18–51). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Fussell, E., & Furstenberg, F. F., Jr. (2005). The transition to adult-
hood during the twentieth century: Race, nativity, and gender. In
R. A. Settersten, Jr., F. F. Furstenberg, Jr., & R. G. Rumbaut
(Eds.), On the Frontier of Adulthood: Theory, Research, and Pub-
lic Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Ge, X., Lorenz, F. O., Conger, R. D., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Simons,
R. L. (1994). Trajectories of stressful life events and depressive
symptoms during adolescence. Developmental Psychology,
30(4), 467–483.
George, L. K. (2003). Life course research: Achievements and poten-
tial. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the
life course (pp. 671–680). New York: Plenum Press.
Gimbel, C., & Booth, A. (1996). Who fought in Vietnam? Social
Forces, 74(4), 1137–1157.
Glaser, B. G., & Strauss, A. L. (1971). Status passage. Chicago: Aldine.
Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. (1968). Delinquents and nondelinquents in
perspective. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Goldthorpe, J. H. (1991). The uses of history in sociology: Ref lec-
tions on some recent tendencies. British Journal of Sociology,
42(2), 211–230.
Goode, W. J. (1960). The theory of role strain, American Sociological
Review, 25(4), 483–496.
Guo, G., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Harris, K. M. (1996). Parental labor-
force attachment and grade retention among urban Black chil-
dren. Sociology of Education, 69, 217–236.
Guo, G., & Stearns, E. (2002). The social inf luences on the realiza-
tion of genetic potential for intellectual development. Social
Forces, 80, 881–910.
Hagan, J. (2001). Northern passage: American Vietnam War resisters
in Canada. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Haidt, J., & Rodin, J. (1999). Control and efficacy as interdiscipli-
nary bridges. Review of General Psychology, 3(4), 317–337.
Halfon, N., & Hochstein, M. (2002). Life course health development:
An integrated framework for developing health, policy, and re-
search. Milbank Quarterly, 80(3), 433–479.
Hareven, T. K. (1978). Transitions: The family and the life course in
historical perspective. New York: Academic Press.
Hareven, T. K. (1982). Family time and industrial time. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Hartup, W. W., & Laursen, B. (1991). Relationships as developmental
contexts. In R. Cohen & A. Siegel (Eds.), Context and develop-
ment (pp. 253–279). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Hasin, D., Aharonovich, E., Liu, X., Mamman, Z., Matseoane, K.,
Carr, L., et al. (2002). Alcohol and ADH2 in Israel: Ashkenazis,
Sephardic, and recent Russian immigrants. American Journal of
Psychiatry, 159, 1432–1434.
Havighurst, R. J. (1949). Developmental tasks and education.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Havighurst, R. J., Baughman, J. W., Burgess, E. W., & Eaton,
W. H. (1951). The American veteran back home. New York:
Longmans, Green.
Hayward, M. D., & Gorman, B. K. (2004). The long arm of child-
hood: The inf luence of early-life social conditions on men’s mor-
tality. Demography, 41(1), 87–107.
Heath, A. C., Todorov, A. A., Nelson, E. C., Madden, P. A. F., Bu-
cholz, K. K., & Martin, N. G. (2002). Gene-environment inter-
action effects on behavioral variation and risk of complex
disorders: The example of alcoholism and other psychiatric disor-
ders. Twin Research, 5, 30–37.
Heckhausen, J. (1999). Developmental regulation in adulthood: Age-
normative and sociostructural constraints as adaptive challenges.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hernandez, D. J. (1993). America’s children: Resources from family,
government, and the economy—The Population of the United
States in the 1980s. New York: Russell Sage.
Hertzman, C., & Power, C. (2003). Health and human development:
Understandings from life-course research. Developmental Neu-
ropsychology, 24(2/3), 719–744.
Hetherington, E. M. (Ed.). (1999). Coping with divorce, single parent-
ing, and remarriage: A risk and resiliency perspective. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Higuchi, S., Matsushita, S., Imazeki, H., Kinoshita, T., Takagi, S., &
Kono, H. (1994). Aldehyde dehydrogenase genotypes in Japanese
alcoholics. Lancet, 343, 741–742.
Hill, R. (1970). Family development in three generations. Cambridge,
MA: Schenkman Books.
Hitlin, S., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (in press). Agency: An empirical model
of an abstract concept. In R. MacMillan (Ed.), Advances in life
course research. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Hofer, S. M., & Sliwinski, M. J. (2002). Understanding ageing: An
evaluation of research designs for assessing the interdependence
of ageing-related changes. Gerontology, 47, 341–352.
Hofferth, S. L. (1987). Teenage pregnancy and its resolution. In S. L.
Hofferth & C. Hayes (Eds.), Risking the future: Adolescent sexual-

ity, pregnancy, and childbearing (Vol. 2, pp. 78–92). Washington,
DC: National Academy Press.
Hoffman, J. P., & Cerbone, F. G. (1999). Stressful life-events and delin-
quency escalation in early adolescence. Criminology, 37, 343–373.
Hogan, D. P. (1981). Transitions and social change: The early lives of
American man. New York: Academic.
Holahan, C. K., & Sears, R. R. (1995). The gifted group in later matu-
rity. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Hughes, E. (1971). The sociological eye: Selected papers on work, self,
and the study of society (Vol. 1). Chicago: Aldine-Atherton.
Jackson, J. S. (Ed.). (2000). New directions: African Americans in a
diversifying nation. Washington, DC: National Policy Association.
Jarjoura, G. R., Triplett, R. A., & Brinker, G. P. (2002). Growing up
poor: Examining the link between persistent childhood poverty and
delinquency. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 18(2), 159–187.
Johnston, T. D., & Edwards, L. (2002). Genes, interactions, and the
development of behavior. Psychological Review, 109, 26–34.
Jones, M. C., Bayley, N., Macfarlane, J. W., & Honzik, M. E. (1971).
The course of human development: Selected Papers from the Longi-
tudinal Studies, University of California, Berkeley, Institute of
Human Development. Waltham, MA: Xerox College Publishing.
Kagan, J., & Moss, H. A. (1962). Birth to maturity: A Study in Psy-
chological Development. New York: Wiley.
Katz, L. F., Kling, J., & Liebman, J. (2001). Moving to opportunity in
Boston: Early impacts of a housing mobility program. Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 116(2), 607–654.
Kaufman, J. S., Kaufman, S., & Poole, C. (2003). Causal Inference
from randomized trials in social epidemiology. Social Science
Medicine, 57(12), 2397–2409.
Kendler, K. S., & Eaves, L. (1986). Models for the joint effect of
genotype and environment on liability to psychiatric illness.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 143, 279–289.
Kendler, K. S., Gardner, C. O., & Prescott, C. A. (2002). Toward a
comprehensive developmental model for major depression in
women. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 1133–1145.
Kendler, K. S., & Kessler, R. C. (1995). Stressful life events, genetic
liability, and onset of an episode of major depression in women.
American Journal of Psychiatry, 152(6), 833–842.
Kerckhoff, A. C. (1993). Diverging pathways: Social structure and
career def lections. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Kerckhoff, A. C. (2003). From student to worker. In J. T. Mortimer &
M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 251–267).
New York: Plenum Press.
Kertzer, D. I., & Keith, J. (1984). Age and anthropological theory.
Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Kim, K. J., Conger, R. D., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Lorenz, F. O. (2003).
Reciprocal inf luences between stressful life-events and adoles-
cent internalizing and externalizing problems. Child Develop-
ment, 74, 127–143.
Kling, J. R., & Liebman, J. B. (2004). Experimental analysis of neigh-
borhood effects on youth. Princeton IRS Working Paper, No. 483.
Koopmans, J. R., & Slutske, W. S. (1999). The inf luence of religion
on alcohol use initiation: Evidence for genotype x environment in-
teraction. Behavior Genetics, 29(6), 445–453.
Krein, S. F., & Beller, A. H. (1988). Educational attainment of chil-
dren from single-parent families: Differences by exposure, gen-
der, and race. Demography, 25(2), 221–234.
Kuh, D., Ben-Shlomo, Y., Lynch, J., Hallqvist, J., & Power, C. (2003).
Life course epidemiology. Journal of Epidemiology and Commu-
nity Health, 57(10), 778–783.
References 711
Kuh, D., Power, C., Blane, D., & Bartley, M. (1997). Social pathways
between childhood and adult health. In D. Kuh & Y. Ben-Shlomo
(Eds.), A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology
(pp. 169–198). New York: Oxford University Press.
Laub, J. H., & Sampson, R. J. (2003). Shared beginnings, divergent
lives. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Leadbeater, B. J., Kuperminc, G. P., Blatt, S. J., & Hertzog, C.
(1999). A multivariate model of gender differences in adoles-
cents’ internalizing and externalizing problems. Developmental
Psychology, 35, 1268–1282.
Leisering, L. (2003). Government and the life course. In J. T. Mor-
timer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course
(pp. 205–225). New York: Plenum Press.
Lerner, R. M. (1982). Children and adolescents as producers of their
own development. Developmental Review, 2(4), 342–370.
Lerner, R. M. (1984). On the nature of human plasticity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, R. M. (1991). Changing organism-context relations as the
basic process of development: A developmental contextual per-
spective. Developmental Psychology, 27(1), 27–32.
Levinson, D. J. (1978). The seasons of a man’s life. New York: Knopf.
Lewin, K. (1948). Resolving social conf licts: Selected papers on group
dynamics. New York: Harper.
Link, B. G., & Phelan, J. (1995). Social conditions as fundamental
causes of disease [Special issue: Forty years of medical sociol-
ogy: The state of the art and directions for the future]. Journal of
Health and Social Behavior, 35, 80–94.
Little, T. D., Bovaird, J., & Marquis, J. (in press). Modeling develop-
mental processes in context. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Little, T. D., Schnabel, K. U., & Baumert, J. (2000). Modeling longi-
tudinal and multilevel data: Practical issues, applied approaches,
and specific examples. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ludwig, J., Duncan, G. J., & Hirschfield, P. (2001). Urban poverty
and juvenile crime: Evidence from a randomized housing-
mobility experiment. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(2),
655– 680.
Luthar, S. S. (2003). Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the
context of childhood adversities. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Lynd, R. S., & Lynd, H. M. (1929). Middletown. New York: Harcourt,
Brace and Company.
Lynd, R. S., & Lynd, H. M. (1937). Middletown in transition: A Study
in Cultural Conf licts. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Macmillan, R., Hitlin, S., & Elder, H. E., Jr. (in press). Construct-
ing adulthood: Agency and subjectivity in the life course—Ad-
vances in life course research (Vol. 10). New York: Elsevier/JAI
Press.
Mare, R. D. (1990). Socio-economic careers and differential mortal-
ity among older men in the United States. In J. Vallin, S. D’Souza,
& A. Palloni (Eds.), Comparative Studies of Mortality and Mor-
bidity: Old and new approaches to measurement and analysis.
London: Oxford University Press.
Marini, M. M. (1984). Age and sequencing norms in the transition to
adulthood. Social Forces, 63, 229–244.
Marshall, V. W., Heinz, W. R., Kruger, H., & Verma, A. (2001). Re-
structuring work and the life course. Toronto, Ontario, Canada:
University of Toronto Press.
Marsiske, M., Lang, F. R., Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1995). Se-
lective optimization with compensation: Life-span perspectives
712 The Life Course and Human Development
on successful human development. In R. A. Dixon & L. Bäck-
man (Eds.), Compensation for psychological deficits and de-
clines: Managing losses and promoting gains (pp. 35–79).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Maruna, S. (2001). Making good: How ex-convicts reform and rebuild
their lives. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Mattick, H. W. (1960). Parolees in the army during World War II.
Federal Probation, 24, 49–55.
Mayer, K. U. (1986). Structural constraints on the life course.
Human Development, 29(3), 163–170.
Mayer, K. U. (1988). German survivors of World War II: The impact
on the life course of the collective experience of birth cohorts. In
M. W. Riley (Ed., with B. J. Huber & B. B. Hess) Social change
and the life course: Vol. I. Social structures and human lives
(pp. 229–246). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Mayer, K. U. (2003). The sociology of the life course and life-
span psychology: Diverging or converging pathways. In
U. M. Staudinger and U. Lindberger (Eds.), Understanding
human development: Dialogues with lifespan psychology
(pp. 463–481). Boston: Kluwer.
Mayer, K. U. (2004). Whose lives? How history, societies, and insti-
tutions define and shape life courses. Research in Human Develop-
ment, 1(3), 161–187.
Mayer, K. U., & Huinink, J. (1990). Age, period, and cohort in the
Study of the Life Course: A comparison of classical A-P-C analy-
sis with event history analysis or farewell to lexis. In D. Magnus-
son & L. R. Bergman (Eds.), Data quality in longitudinal research
(pp. 211–232). New York: Cambridge University Press.
McClearn, G. E., Vogler, G. M., & Hofer, S. M. (2001). Gene-gene
and gene-environment interactions. In Handbook of the biology of
aging (pp. 423–444). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
McDonough, P., Duncan, G. J., Williams, D., & House, J. (1997). In-
come dynamics and adult mortality in the United States,
1972–1989. American Journal of Public Health, 87(9), 1476–1483.
McGue, M. (1999). The behavioral genetics of alcoholism. Current
Directions in Psychological Science, 8(4), 109–115.
McGue, M., & Bouchard, T. J. (1998). Genetic and environmental in-
f luences on human behavioral differences. Annual Review of Neu-
roscience, 21, 1–24.
McLanahan, S. S., & Sandefur, G. (1994). Growing up with a single
parent: What hurts, what helps. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
McLanahan, S. S., & Sorensen, A. B. (1985). Life events and psycho-
logical well-being over the life course. In G. H. Elder Jr. (Ed.),
Life course dynamics: Trajectories and transitions, 1968–1980
(pp. 217–238). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
McLeod, J. D., & Almazan, E. P. (2003). Connections between
childhood and adulthood. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan
(Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 391–411). New York:
Plenum Press.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Merton, R. K. (1968). Social theory and social structure. New York:
Free Press.
Merton, R. K. (1982). Socially expected durations. Paper presented at
the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, San
Francisco.
Merton, R. K. (1984). Socially expected durations: A case study of
concept formation in sociology. In W. W. Powell & Richard Rob-
bins (Eds.), Conf lict and consensus: A festschrift for Lewis A.
Coser. New York: The Free Press.
Mills, C. W. (1959). The sociological imagination. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Mitterauer, M. (1993). A history of youth. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Modell, J. (1989). Into one’s own: From youth to adulthood in the United
States 1920–1975. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Moen, P. (2003). It’s about time: Couples and careers. Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press.
Moen, P., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Lüscher, K. (Eds.). (1995). Examining
lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human develop-
ment—Essays in honor of Urie Bronfenbrenner. Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent
antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological
Review, 100(4), 674–701.
Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Dickson, N., Silva, P., & Stanton, W.
(1996). Childhood-onset versus adolescent-onset antisocial con-
duct problems in males: Natural history from age 3 to 18. Devel-
opment and Psychopathology, 8, 399–424.
Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Harrington, H., & Milne, B. J. (2002).
Males on the life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited anti-
social pathways: Follow-up at age 26 years. Development and
Psychopathology, 14(1), 179–207.
Molenaar, P. C. M., Huizenga, H. M., & Nesselroade, J. R. (in press).
The relationship between the structure of intra-individual and
inter-individual variability: A theoretical and empirical vindica-
tion of developmental systems theory. In U. M. Staudinger & U.
Lindenberger (Eds.), Understanding human development. Boston:
Kluwer Press.
Morenoff, J. D. (2003). Neighborhood mechanisms and the spatial dynam-
ics of birth weight. American Journal of Sociology, 108, 976–1017.
Mortimer, J. T. (2003). Working and growing up in America. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Mortimer, J. T., & Shanahan, M. J. (2003). Handbook on the life
course. New York: Plenum Press.
Mortimer, J. T., Staff, J., & Oesterle, S. (2003). Adolescent work and
the early socioeconomic career. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shana-
han (Eds.), Handbook of the life course. New York: Plenum Press.
Nagin, D. S. (1999). Analyzing developmental trajectories: A
semiparametric group-based approach. Psychological Methods,
4(2), 139–157.
Nagin, D. S. (2004). Response to “methodological sensitivities to la-
tent class analysis of long-term criminal trajectories.” Journal of
Quantitative Criminology, 20(1), 27–35.
Nagin, D. S., Farrington, D. P., & Moffitt, T. E. (1995). Life-
course trajectories of different types of offenders. Criminology,
33(1), 111–139.
Nagin, D. S., & Land, K. C. (1993). Age, criminal careers and popu-
lation heterogeneity: Specification and estimation of a nonpara-
metric, mixed poisson model. Criminology, 31, 327–362.
Nagin, D. S., & Paternoster, R. (2000). Population heterogeneity and
state dependence: State of the evidence and directions for future
research. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 16(2), 117–144.
Nagin, D. S., & Tremblay, R. E. (2001). Analyzing developmental tra-
jectories of distinct but related behaviors: A group-based method.
Psychological Methods, 6(1), 18–34.

Neugarten, B. L. (1968). Middle age and aging: A reader in social
psychology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Neugarten, B. L. (Ed.) (with a foreword by D. A. Neugarten). (1996).
The meanings of age: Selected papers of Bernice L . Neugarten.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Neugarten, B. L., & Datan, N. (1973). Sociological perspectives on
the life cycle. In P. B. Baltes & K. W. Schaie (Eds.), Life-span
developmental psychology: Personality and socialization
(pp. 53– 69). New York: Academic Press.
Neugarten, B. L., Moore, J. W., & Lowe, J. C. (1965). Age norms, age
constraints, and adult socialization. American Journal of Sociol-
ogy, 70(6), 710–717.
Neugarten, B. L., & Peterson, W. A. (1957). A Study of the American
Age-Grade System. Proceedings from the Fourth Congress of the
International Association of Gerontology, 3, 497–502.
Nisbet, R. (1969). Social change and history. New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Noack, P., Hofer, M., & Youniss, J. (1995). Psychological responses to
social change: Human development in changing environments. New
York: Walter de Gruyter.
Oh, H. J. (2001, February). An exploration of the inf luence of house-
hold poverty spells on mortality risk. Journal of Marriage and
Family, 63, 224–234.
O’Rand, A. M., & Krecker, M. L. (1990). Concepts of the life cycle:
Their history, meanings and uses in the social sciences. Annual
Review of Sociology, 16, 241–262.
Pallas, A. M. (2003). Educational transitions, trajectories, and path-
ways. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the
life course (pp. 165–184). New York: Plenum Press.
Pampel, F. C., & Peters, H. E. (1995). The Easterlin effect. Annual
Review of Sociology, 21, 163–194.
Parke, R. D., & Ladd, G. W. (1992). Family-peer relationship: Modes
of linkage. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Parke, R. D., Ornstein, P. A., Rieser, J. J., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1994).
A century of developmental psychology. Washington, DC: Ameri-
can Psychological Association.
Paternoster, R., Bushway, S., Brame, R., & Apel, R. (2003). The ef-
fect of teenage employment on delinquency and problem behav-
iors. Social Forces, 82(1), 297–335.
Patterson, G. R. (1996). Some characteristics of a developmental
theory of early-onset delinquency. In M. F. Lenzenweger & J. J.
Haugaard (Eds.), Frontiers of developmental psychopathology
(pp. 81–124). New York: Oxford University Press.
Patterson, G. R., & Yoerger, K. (1996). A developmental model for
late-onset delinquency. In D. W. Osgood (Ed.), Nebraska Sympo-
sium on Motivation: Motivation and delinquency (pp. 119–177).
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Pepler, D. J., & Rubin, K. H. (1991). The development and treatment
of childhood aggression. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Phelps, E., Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., & Colby, A. (2002). Looking at
lives: American Longitudinal Studies of the Twentieth Century.
New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Pinquart, M., & Silbereisen, R. K. (2004). Human development in
times of social change: Theoretical considerations and research
needs. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 28(4),
289–298.
Poulton, R., Caspi, A., Milne, B. J., Thomson, W. M., Taylor, A., &
Sears, M. R. (2002). Association between children’s experience
References 713
of socioeconomic disadvantage and adult health: A Life-Course
Study. Lancet, 360, 1640–1645.
Power, C., & Hertzman, C. (1997). Social and biological pathways
linking early life and adult disease. British Medical Bulletin,
53(1), 210–221.
Power, C., Manor, O., & Matthews, S. (1999). The duration
and timing of exposure: Effects of socioeconomic environment
on adult health. American Journal of Public Health, 89(7),
1059–1065.
Quinton, D., Pickles, A., Maughan, B., & Rutter, M. (1993). Part-
ners, peers, and pathways: Assortative pairing and continuities
in conduct disorder. Development and Psychopathology, 5(4),
763–783.
Quinton, D., & Rutter, M. (1988). Parenting breakdown: The making
and breaking of intergenerational links. Aldershot, England:
Avebury.
Rabinowitz, L. S., & Rosenbaum, J. E. (2000). Crossing the class and
color lines: From public housing to White suburbia. Chicago: Uni-
versity of Chicago Press.
Rachman, S. (1979). The concept of required helpfulness. Behavior
Research and Therapy, 17(1), 1–6.
Rampon, C., Tang, Y.-P., Goodhouse, J., Shimuzu, M., Kyin, M., &
Tsien, J. M. (2000). Enrichment induces structural changes and
recovery from nonspatial memory deficits in CA1 NMDAR1-
knockout mice. Nature Neuroscience, 3(3), 238–244.
Rampon, C., & Tsien, J. Z. (2000). Genetic analysis of learning
behavior-induced structural plasticity. Hippocampus, 10, 605–609.
Rank, M. R., & Hirschl, T. A. (1999). The economic risk of childhood
in America: Estimating the probability of poverty across the forma-
tive years. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 61(4), 1058–1067.
Riley, M. W., Johnson, M. E., & Foner, A. (1972). Aging and society.
New York: Russell Sage.
Robins, L. (1966). Deviant children grown up. Baltimore:
Williams & Wilkins.
Rodgers, W. L., & Thornton, A. (1985). Changing patterns of first
marriage in the United States. Demography, 22(2), 265–279.
Rosenberg, M. (1979). Conceiving the self. New York: Basic Books.
Rowe, D. C. (2001). Assessing genotype-environment interactions and
correlations in the postgenomic era. In R. Plomin, J. C. DeFries,
G. E. McClearn, & P. McGuffin (Eds.), Behavioral genetics (4th
ed., pp. 71–86). New York: Worth.
Rowe, D. C., & Jacobson, K. C. (1999). Genetic and environmental in-
f luences on vocabulary IQ: Parental education level as moderator.
Child Development, 70(5), 1151–1162.
Rutter, M. (1989). Pathways from childhood to adult life. Journal of
Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 30(1), 23–51.
Rutter, M. (1990). Psychosocial resilience and protective mechanisms.
In J. E. Rolf, A. S. Masten, D. Cicchetti, K. H. Neuchterlein, & S.
Weintraub (Eds.), Risk and protective factors in the development of
psychopathology (pp. 181–214). New York: Cambridge.
Rutter, M., & Madge, N. (1976). Cycles of disadvantage: A review of
research. London: Heinemann.
Rutter, M., & Pickles, A. (1991). Person-environment interactions:
Concepts, mechanisms, and implications for data analysis. In
T. E. Wachs & R. Plomin (Eds.), Conceptualization and measure-
ment of organism-environment interaction (pp. 105–141). Wash-
ington, DC: American Psychological Association.
714 The Life Course and Human Development
Rutter, M., & Silberg, J. (2002). Gene-environment interplay in rela-
tion to emotional and behavioral disturbance. Annual Review of
Psychology, 53, 463–490.
Ryder, N. B. (1965). The cohort as a concept in the Study of Social
Change. American Sociological Review, 30(6), 843–861.
Ryu, S., & Mortimer, J. T. (1996). The “occupational linkage hypoth-
esis” applied to occupational value formation in adolescence. In
J. T. Mortimer & M. D. Finch (Eds.), Adolescents, work, and fam-
ily: An intergenerational developmental analysis (pp. 167–190).
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways
and turning points through life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1996). Socioeconomic achievement
in the life course of disadvantaged men: Military service as a
turning point, circa 1940–1965. American Sociological Review,
61(3), 347–367.
Sampson, R. J., & Laub, J. H. (1997). A life-course theory of cumula-
tive disadvantage and the stability of delinquency. In T. P. Thorn-
berry (Ed.), Developmental theories of crime and delinquency:
Advances in criminological theory (Vol. 7, pp. 133–161). New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J. D., & Gannon-Rowley, T. (2002). Assess-
ing “neighborhood effects”: Social processes and new directions
in research. Annual Review of Sociology, 28, 443–478.
Sawa, A., & Snyder, S. H. (2002). Schizophrenia: Diverse approaches
to a complex disease. Science, 296, 692–695.
Schaie, K. W. (1965). A general model for the Study of Developmen-
tal Problems. Psychological Bulletin, 64(2), 92–107.
Schiller, K. S. (1999, October). Effects of feeder patterns on students’
transition to high school. Sociology of Education, 72, 216–233.
Schoenhals, M., Tienda, M., & Schneider, B. (1998). The educational
and personal consequences of adolescent employment. Social
Forces, 77(2), 723–761.
Schoon, I., Bynner, J., Joshi, H., Parsons, S., Wiggins, R. W., &
Sacker, A. (2002). The inf luence of context, timing, and duration
of risk experiences for the passage from childhood to midadult-
hood. Child Development, 73(5), 1486–1504.
Settersten, R. A., Jr., Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., & Rumbaut, R. (2005).
On the frontier of adulthood: Theory, research and public policy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Settersten, R. A., Jr., & Mayer, K. U. (1997). The Measurement of
Age, Age Structuring, and the Life Course. Annual Review of So-
ciology, 23, 233–261.
Shanahan, M. J., & Bauer, D. (2005). Developmental properties of
transactional models: The case of life-events and mastery from
adolescence to young adulthood. Development and Psychopathol-
ogy, 16, 1095–1117.
Shanahan, M. J., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (2002). History, agency, and
the life course. In L. J. Crockett (Ed.), Agency, motivation, and
the life course (pp. 145–185). Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press.
Shanahan, M. J., Elder, G. H., Jr., & Miech, R. A. (1997). History and
agency in men’s lives: Pathways to achievement in cohort perspec-
tive. Sociology of Education, 70(1), 54–67.
Shanahan, M. J., & Hofer, S. M. (2005). Social context in gene-
environment interactions: Retrospect and prospect [Special
issue on the future of behavioral genetics and aging]. Journal of
Gerontology: Social, 60B 65–76.
Shanahan, M. J., Hofer, S. M., & Shanahan, L. (2003). Biological
models of behavior and the life course. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J.
Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course (pp. 597–622). New
York: Plenum Press.
Shanahan, M. J., Mortimer, J. T., & Kruger, H. (2002). Adolescence
and adult work in the twenty-first century. Journal of Research in
Adolescence, 12, 99–120.
Shanahan, M. J., & Porfeli, E. (2002). Integrating the life course and
life-span: Formulating research questions with dual points of
entry. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 61, 398–406.
Shanahan, M. J., Sulloway, F. J., & Hofer, S. M. (2000). Conceptual
models of context in developmental studies. International Journal
of Behavioral Development, 24, 421–427.
Silbereisen, R. K., & Schmitt-Rodermund, E. (1995). German im-
migrants in Germany: Adaptation of adolescents’ timetables
for autonomy. In P. Noack, M. Hofer, & J. Youniss (Eds.), Psy-
chological responses to social change: Human development in
changing environments (pp. 105–125). Berlin, Germany: Walter
de Gruyter.
Silbereisen, R. K., & Wiesner, M. (2000). Cohort change in adoles-
cent developmental timetables after German unification: Trends
and possible reasons. In J. Heckhausen (Ed.), Motivational psy-
chology of human development: Developing motivation and moti-
vating development (pp. 271–284). Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Silbereisen, R. K., & Wiesner, M. (2002). Lessons from research on
the consequences of German unification: Continuity and disconti-
nuity of self-efficacy and the timing of psychosocial transitions.
Applied Psychology: An International Review, 51, 290–316.
Silberg, J., & Rutter, M. (2001). Genetic moderation of environmen-
tal risk for depression and anxiety in adolescent girls. British
Journal of Statistical Psychiatry, 179, 116–121.
Simmons, R. G., Burgeson, R., Carlton-Ford, S., & Blyth, D. A.
(1987). The impact of cumulative change in early adolescence.
Child Development, 58(5), 1220–1234.
Singer, B. H., & Ryff, C. D. (2001). New horizons in health: An inte-
grative approach. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Singer, J. D., & Willett, J. B. (2003). Applied longitudinal data analy-
sis: Modeling change and event occurrence. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Sofer, C. (1970). Men in mid-career: A Study of British Managers
and Technical Specialists. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Spilerman, S. (1977). Careers, labor market structure, and socioeco-
nomic achievement. American Journal of Sociology, 83(3), 551–593.
Staudinger, U. M. (1989). The Study of Life Review: An approach to
the investigation of intellectual development across the life-span.
Berlin, Germany: Max-Planck-Institut.
Stevens, A. H. (1999). Measuring the persistence of poverty over
multiple spells: Climbing out of poverty, falling back. Journal of
Human Resources, 34(3), 557–588.
Stolz, L. M. (1954). Father relations of war-born children. Stanford,
CT: Stanford University Press.
Stouffer, S. A., Lumsdaine, A. A., Lumsdaine, M. H., Williams,
R. M., Jr., Smith, M. B., Janis, I. L., et al. (1949). The American
soldier: Studies in Social Psychology in World War II. Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press.
Sweeney, M. M., & Horwitz, A. V. (2001). Infidelity, initiation, and
the emotional climate of divorce: Are there implications for men-
tal health? Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 42, 295–309.

Thoits, P. A. (1994). Stressors and problem-solving: The individual as
psychological activist. Journal of Health and Social Behavior,
35(2), 143–160.
Thomas, W. I., & Znaniecki, F. (1918–1920). The Polish peasant in
Europe and America (Vols. 1–2). Boston: Badger.
Tremblay, R. E. (2004). The development of human physical aggres-
sion: How important is early childhood. In L. A. Leavitt &
D. M. B. Hall (Eds.), Social and moral development: Emerging ev-
idence on the toddler years (pp. 221–238). New Brunswick, NJ:
Johnson and Johnson Pediatric Institute.
Turner, R. J., & Lloyd, D. A. (1995). Lifetime traumas and mental
health: The significance of cumulative adversity. Journal of
Health and Social Behavior, 36, 360–376.
Turner, R. J., Wheaton, B., & Lloyd, D. A. (1995). The epidemiology
of social stress. American Sociological Review, 60, 104–125.
Uhlenberg, P. (1974). Cohort variations in family life-cycle ex-
periences of US women. Journal of Marriage and Family, 36,
282–294.
Vaillant, G. E. (1977). Adaptation to life. Boston: Little, Brown.
van de Mheen, H., Stronks, K., Looman, C. W., & Mackenbach, J. P.
(1998). Does childhood socioeconomic status inf luence adult
health through behavioral factors? International Journal of Epi-
demiology, 27(3), 431–437.
van der Lippe, T., & van Dijk, L. (2002). Comparative research
on women’s employment. Annual Review of Sociology, 28,
221–241.
van Os, J., & Marcelis, M. (1998). The ecogenetics of schizophrenia:
A review. Schizophrenia Research, 32, 127–135.
VanLaningham, J., Johnson, D. R., & Amato, P. (2001). Marital hap-
piness, marital duration, and the u-shaped curve: Evidence from a
Five-Wave Panel Study. Social Forces, 78(4), 1313–1341.
Volkart, E. H. (1951). Social behavior and personality: Contributions
of W. I. Thomas to theory and social research. New York: Social
Science Research Council.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psy-
chological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
References 715
Wadsworth, M. E. J., Montgomery, S. M., & Bartley, M. J. (1999).
The persisting effect of unemployment on health and social well-
being in men early in working life. Social Science and Medicine,
48, 1491–1499.
Wahlsten, D. (1999). Single-gene inf luences on brain and behavior.
Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 599–624.
Warren, J. R., LePore, P. C., & Mare, R. D. (2000). Employment
during high school: Consequences for students’ grades in aca-
demic courses. American Educational Research Journal, 37(4),
943–969.
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (2001). Journeys from childhood to
midlife: Risk, resilience, and recovery. New York: Cornell Univer-
sity Press.
Wheaton, B. (1990). Life transitions, role histories, and mental
health. American Sociological Review, 55(2), 209–223.
Wheaton, B., & Clarke, P. (2003). Space meets time: Integrating tem-
poral and contextual inf luences on mental health in early adult-
hood. American Sociological Review, 68, 680–706.
White, L. K., & Booth, A. (1991). Divorce over the life course: The
role of marital happiness. Journal of Family Issues, 12(1), 5–21.
Wilensky, H. L. (1960). Work, career, and social integration. Interna-
tional Social Science Journal, 12(4), 543–560.
Willitts, M., Benzeval, M., & Stansfeld, S. (2004). Partnership
history and mental health over time. Journal of Epidemiology and
Community Health, 58(1), 53–58.
Wortman, C. B., & Silver, R. C. (1990). Successful mastery of
bereavement and widowhood: A life-course perspective. In
P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful aging: Perspectives
from the behavioral sciences (pp. 225–264). New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Young, C. H., Savola, K. L., & Phelps, E. (1991). Inventory of Longi-
tudinal Studies in the Social Sciences. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Young, M. D., & Willmott, P. (1973). The symmetrical family. New
York: Pantheon.
CHAPTER 13

The Cultural Psychology of Development:

One Mind, Many Mentalities
RICHARD A. SHWEDER, JACQUELINE J. GOODNOW, GIYOO HATANO, ROBERT A. LeVINE,
HAZEL R. MARKUS, and PEGGY J. MILLER

CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY: HOW IT DIFFERS THE EFFECTS OF EARLY

FROM OTHER APPROACHES TO CULTURE INTERPERSONAL EXPERIENCE 739
AND PSYCHOLOGY 719 THE SYMBOLIC MEDIATION OF EXPERIENCE:
Orienting Definitions 719 LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATIVE CUSTOMS
WHY CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY IS NOT IN CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 740
CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 721 LANGUAGE AS PRACTICE 741
MULTIPLE, DIVERSE PSYCHOLOGIES 723 SOCIALIZATION THROUGH LANGUAGE 742
THE MEANING OF MEANING AND A CONTEXT FOR Narrative: Getting Those Stories Straight 744
CONTEXT IN CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 724 THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF 749
THE UNIT OF ANALYSIS PROBLEM 724 DEFINING AND LOCATING THE SELF AS DYNAMIC,
A Custom Complex Example: Who Sleeps by Whom MULTILEVEL, AND MULTIFACETED 750
in the Family 725 The Conceptual Self 751
More on the Custom Complex: The Intimate Association The Cultural Self 752
between a Mentality and a Practice Supported by a THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF SELF 752
Cultural Community 727
The Person as an Individual 752
THE CLASSIFICATION OF PRACTICES 728 The Person as Relational 753
THE ANALYSIS OF MENTALITIES 730 CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN WAYS OF BEING 754
THE TWO SIDES OF CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY 730 Selfways in Some European American Contexts 755
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY’S THEORY OF MIND 731 Selfways in Some East Asian Cultural Contexts 758
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY’S SPECIAL USE OF Selfways in Still Other Cultural Contexts 761
MENTAL STATE CONCEPTS 732 CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY AND
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE DIVERGENT COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT 764
INTERPERSONAL WORLDS OF CHILDHOOD 733 Reexamining Thought and Action 764
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF Hearts and Minds 768
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE 734 Persons and Contexts 772
Organizational Settings 734 CONCLUSION 778
Care-Giving Relationships 736 REFERENCES 779
Parental Practices 737
Age-Graded Activities 738
CULTURAL MENTALITIES CONCERNING
CHILDHOOD SOCIAL RELATIONS 738
Parental Models and Strategies 738

Cultural psychology, no longer a new field, may be more
accurately depicted as a renewed field (Jahoda, 1990,
1992), approaching the study of mind from deep historical
antecedents in the work of eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century scholars such as Johann Gottfried von Herder,
Giovanni Vico, Wilhelm Dilthey, and Wilhelm Wundt.
Herder and Vico pioneered comparative research with
the aim of identifying the distinctive characteristics of
particular folk and historical traditions. Dilthey raised
This chapter is a revision and update of a manuscript that was
originally prepared when the coauthors were members of the

716
 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
questions about the contrast between the natural science
approach and the spiritual or moral science approach to
human understanding and the explanation of behavior.
Wundt, who is often heralded as the father of modern
scientific psychology, also thought deeply about the lim-
its of psychology as an experimental discipline and
about its possibilities as an investigation of folk psy-
chologies. Herder’s premise that “ to be a member of a
group is to think and act in a certain way, in the light of
particular goals, values, pictures of the world; and to
think and act so is to belong to a group” (Berlin, 1976,
p. 195) presents a starting point for the contemporary
discipline of cultural psychology.
Cultural psychology aims to document historical and
cross-cultural diversity in the processes and products of
the human mind. The psychological side of cultural psy-
Social Science Research Council Planning Committee on Cul-
ture, Health and Human Development. We were able to develop
and undertake this cooperative project, involving an intellec-
tual division of labor and writing, as a result of our colloquies
at SSRC. We are grateful to Diana Colbert of SSRC and Katia
Mitova of the University of Chicago who contributed in innu-
merable and invaluable ways to the completion of this manu-
script in its original form. We express our heartfelt gratitude
to Frank Kessel, our Program Officer at SSRC, for his colle-
gial contributions not only to this chapter project but also to
the various activities of the Committee on Culture, Health,
and Human Development over the years of its existence. The
skill, balance, and good cheer with which he shepherded the
Committee’s activities are deeply appreciated. The Planning
Committee was supported by grants from the Health Program
of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the
W. T. Grant Foundation. The Center for Advanced Study in the
Behavioral Sciences (where Shweder and Markus were Fellows
during the 1995/1996 academic year) and the MacArthur
Foundation Research Network on Successful Midlife Develop-
ment (MIDMAC) provided intellectual and material assistance
in the preparation of the original review. The current updated
revision of the chapter took place during the 2003/2004 aca-
demic year. Richard A. Shweder, a Carnegie Scholar (2002),
wishes to express his gratitude to the Carnegie Foundation for
its generous support. The authors wish to express their great
thanks as well to Michele Wittels, who skillfully contributed
to the coordination and processing of this revised and updated
edition of the chapter.
This chapter is dedicated to our friend and colleague
Giyoo Hatano, in honor of his personality, his life, and his
work. Even while his sudden and recent death deeply saddens
us, the memory of our kind, dedicated and elegant friend and
imaginative colleague makes us smile and warms our hearts.
717
chology is the study of how individual persons think and
act in the light of their particular goals, values, and pic-
tures of the world. This is a genre of psychological study
based on a definition of the psychological (or of the
mental) as consisting of what individual persons want,
feel, think, know, and value. The cultural side of cul-
tural psychology is the examination of socially assisted
processes of learning and schema activation associated
with becoming a member of a particular group. The dis-
cipline of cultural psychology gives special attention to
the particular wants, feelings, knowledge, reasoning,
and values required for normative or competent partici-
pation in the local customary practices of some histori-
cally identifiable community, especially (although not
exclusively) cultural communities that have a capacity to
recruit new members through processes of kinship and
marriage and wish to perpetuate a particular way of life.
Cultural psychology has been experiencing a major re-
vival since the early 1980s, owed in some significant
measure to developmentalists from several fields (e.g.,
Bruner, 1990a, 1990b; Cole, 1990, 1996; Goodnow,
1990a; A. Gottlieb, 2004; Greenfield, 1997; Greenfield,
Keller, Fuligni, & Maynard, 2003; Haidt, Koller, & Dias
1993; Lave, 1990; R. A. LeVine, 1989, 2004; Levy, 1973,
1984; Markus & Kitayama, 1991b; Menon, 2002; J. G.
Miller, 1984, 1994b; P. J. Miller & Hoogstra, 1992;
Much, 1992, 1993; Rogoff, 1990; Ross, Medin, Coley, &
Atran, 2003; Rozin & Nemeroff, 1990; Shweder, 1990a,
1991, 1996a, 1996b, 2003a, 2003b; Shweder & Haidt,
2000; Shweder & LeVine, 1984; Stigler, Shweder, &
Herdt, 1990; Super & Harkness, 1997; Weisner, 1984,
1987, 2001; Weisner & Lowe, in press; Wertsch, 1985,
1992). The term cultural psychology has also become in-
creasingly popular among European “activity theorists”
(Boesch, 1991; Eckensberger, 1990, 1995; see also
Brandtstädter, Chapter 10, this Handbook, this volume),
contextual psychologists of the sociohistorical school
(Cole, 1995; Rogoff, 1990; Wertsch, 1991; see also Cole,
Chapter 15, this Handbook, Volume 2; Elder & Shanahan,
Chapter 12, this Handbook, this volume), anthropologists
interested in the relationship of symbols and meanings to
population-based differences in psychological function-
ing (D’Andrade, 1995; Howard, 1985; R. A. LeVine,
1990a, 1990b; Levy, 1984; Lutz & White, 1986; Shore,
1996; Shweder & LeVine, 1984; G. M. White & Kirk-
patrick, 1985), and among developmental, social, and
cognitive psychologists in search of a unit of scientific
analysis that is larger rather than smaller than the indi-
vidual person (Bruner, 1986, 1990a, 1990b; Cole, 1988,
718 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
1992; Goodnow, Miller, & Kessel, 1995; Kitayama &
Markus, 1994; Medin, 1989; P. J. Miller & Hoogstra,
1992; Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett & Cohen, 1996; Rogoff,
1990; Yang, 1997).
Research in cultural psychology is now featured in
several journals, most notably Culture, Mind and Activity,
Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Culture and Psychol-
ogy, Ethos: Journal of the Society for Psychological An-
thropology, Psychological Review, The Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, and Child Develop-
ment. Impressive collections of theoretical, methodologi-
cal, and empirical papers have appeared (Goodnow et al.,
1995; Holland & Quinn, 1987; Jessor, Colby, & Shweder,
1996; Kitayama & Markus, 1994; Rosenberger, 1992;
Schwartz, White, & Lutz, 1992; Shweder, 1991, 2003a,
2003b; Shweder & LeVine, 1984; Stigler et al., 1990;
G. M. White & Kirkpatrick, 1985). Important mono-
graphs and empirical studies have been published (D’An-
drade, 1995; Fiske, 1991; Kakar, 1982; Kripal, 1995;
Levy, 1973; Lucy, 1992a; Lutz, 1988; Menon & Shweder,
1994; J. G. Miller, 1984; P. J. Miller, 1982; Parish, 1991;
Seymour, 1999; Shimizu & LeVine, 2001; Shwalb &
Shwalb, 1996). A number of generative proposals have
been put forward for comparative research on culture and
cognition (Cole, 1990; D’Andrade, 1995; Lave, 1990;
Lucy, 1992a, 1992b; Shore, 1996), culture and emotion
(Kitayama & Markus, 1994; Mesquita & Frijda, 1992;
Russell, 1991; Shweder, 1991, 2003a, 2003b, 2004;
Shweder & Haidt, 2000; Wierzbicka, 1992, 1993), cul-
ture and morality (Haidt et al., 1993; Jensen, 2005; J. G.
Miller, 1994a; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller, 1990;
Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, & Park, 1997), and culture
and the self (Doi, 1981; Herdt, 1981, 1990; Kurtz, 1992;
Lebra, 1992; Markus & Kitayama, 1991a, 1991b, 2003;
J. G. Miller, 1994b, 1997a; Shweder & Sullivan, 1990).
The field has been conceptualized, reconceptualized, and
reviewed from many perspectives: in a book-length his-
tory (Jahoda, 1992), in a book-length program for a cul-
tural psychology rooted in sociohistorical theory (Cole,
1996), in Handbook chapters (Greenfield, 1997; Green-
field et al., 2003; Markus, Kitayama, & Heiman, 1996;
J. G. Miller, 1997b), in the Annual Review of Psychology
(Shweder & Sullivan, 1993; Greenfield et al., 2003), in
the Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Masten,
1999), and in the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation
(Markus & Kitayama, 2003).
Moreover, the publication of this chapter, which has
been updated and revised after its initial publication in
the last edition of the Handbook, itself signals a continu-
ing appreciation of the value and relevance of cultural
psychology to developmental studies. The last edition
was the first time that the Handbook of Child Psychology
included a chapter under the name cultural psychology.
It should be acknowledged, however, that this chapter
continues a broader conversation about culture and indi-
vidual development that began in previous editions of the
Handbook, beginning with Margaret Mead’s contribu-
tion to the first edition, published in 1931. The section
of this chapter on the interpersonal worlds of childhood
provides an update of Robert LeVine’s chapter in the
third (1970) edition of the Handbook. And, the Labora-
tory of Comparative Human Cognition’s (LCHC) chap-
ter on culture and cognitive development in the fourth
(1983) edition of the Handbook is an important prede-
cessor to this chapter, especially the section on cogni-
tive development. We carry forward LCHC’s emphasis
on the semiotic mediation of experience and on a unit of
analysis that does not abstract the individual from his or
her social and cultural context or focus exclusively on
what is “inside the skin” or “inside the head.”
In this chapter, we selectively discuss the cultural psy-
chology of individual development, with special attention
to the way in which culture and psyche “make each other
up” in the domains of self-organization, thinking, know-
ing, feeling, wanting, and valuing. The chapter is organ-
ized into five sections: an introduction, which lays out
major conceptual issues, followed by four topical areas—
the cultural organization of early experience, language
and socialization, self-development, and cognitive devel-
opment—although issues concerning moral development
and the value-laden nature of mental functioning are ad-
dressed throughout the chapter.
We see these topical areas as paradigmatic in the
cultural psychology of development, yet we are also
keenly aware that several topics of vital interest receive
only passing and scattered attention—gender, play,
feelings and emotions, spirituality, and physical devel-
opment. Without any pretense of representing all rele-
vant research agendas or conceptions of the field, we
characterize some of the things cultural psychologists
have learned about the interpersonal, ideational, and
social communicative dimensions of psychological de-
velopment. In keeping with cultural psychology’s com-
mitment to comparative inquiry within and across
cultures, we make a special effort to draw from the
empirical record in a way that represents the range of
 Cultural Psychology: How It Dif fers from Other Approaches to Culture and Psychology
cultural variety in psychological functioning across
human groups.
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY: HOW IT
DIFFERS FROM OTHER APPROACHES TO
CULTURE AND PSYCHOLOGY
The main wager of cultural psychology is that rela-
tively few components of the human mental equipment
are so inherently constrained, hardwired, or fundamen-
tal that their developmental pathway is fixed in ad-
vance and cannot be transformed or altered through
cultural participation. The bet is that much of human
mental functioning is an emergent property that results
from symbolically mediated experiences with the be-
havioral practices and historically accumulated ideas
and understandings (meanings) of particular cultural
communities. This was the bet of Herder and Vico in
the eighteenth century, of Wundt and Dilthey in the
nineteenth century, and of Ruth Benedict, Margaret
Mead, Edward Sapir, and many other psychological an-
thropologists in the first half of the twentieth century.
It is a bet that the renewed discipline of cultural psy-
chology, informed by contemporary research from sev-
eral disciplines, is still prepared to make today.
Orienting Definitions
At least since the time of Herder and Vico in the eigh-
teenth century, cultural psychology has been a label for
the reciprocal investigation of both the psychological
foundations of cultural communities and the cultural
foundations of mind. It has been a designation for the
study of how culture and psyche make each other up. Al-
ternatively stated, cultural psychology is the study of all
the things members of different communities mentally
experience ( know, think, want, feel, value), and hence
do, by virtue of being the kinds of beings who are the
beneficiaries, guardians, and active perpetuators of a
particular cultural tradition.
As a first approximation, we shall define culture as a
symbolic and behavioral inheritance received from out of
the historical /ancestral past that provides a community
with a framework for other-directed vicarious learning
and for collective deliberations about what is true, beau-
tiful, good, and normal. Although it is important to
distinguish between the symbolic and the behavioral in-
719
heritances of a cultural community (understandings and
behaviors are not always fully coordinated from either a
socialization or developmental point of view, and actions
do sometimes speak much louder than words), given the
complexity and richness of culture, any genuine cultural
community is always the beneficiary of both symbolic
and behavioral inheritances (Shweder, 2003b).
In analyzing the concept of culture, most definitions
extant in the literature have tended to be either purely
symbolic in emphasis (culture as the beliefs and doc-
trines that make it possible for a people to rationalize
and make sense of the life they lead) or purely behav-
ioral in emphasis (culture as patterns of behavior that
are learned and passed on from generation to genera-
tion). In our view, the most useful definitions of cul-
ture try to honor both inheritances. Such definitions
focus on units of analysis that are simultaneously sym-
bolic and behavioral (e.g., Robert Redfield’s 1941 def-
inition of culture as “conventional understandings,
manifest in act and artifact, that characterize soci-
eties,” p. 132). Later in this chapter, we discuss in de-
tail a two-sided unit of analysis for cultural psychology
called the custom complex (J. W. M. Whiting & Child,
1953), and we try to acknowledge and honor both the
symbolic and behavioral inheritances of any cultural
community.
The symbolic inheritance of a cultural community
consists of its received ideas and understandings, both
implicit and explicit, about persons, society, nature, and
the metaphysical realm of the divines. To illustrate,
ideas and understandings that are part of the symbolic
inheritance of many enlightened secular folk in the Eu-
ropean American cultural region include:
• The understanding that infants are born innocent,
naive, and free of any prior sins or inherited evils
• The idea that individual wants, preferences, and
tastes matter and should be openly expressed and
accommodated
• The belief that the main justification for rules, regu-
lations, and any other forms of authority is to pro-
mote social justice and enable individuals to pursue
their self-interest free of harm and to have the
things they want
• The conviction that, other than human nature, the
material world is devoid of intentionality and has no
will of its own
720 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
• The doctrine that God and divinity are archaic no-
tions that should be displaced in the contemporary era
• The related idea that the era in which we live is
the most advanced, enlightened, and exceptional in
human history and should be classified and heralded
as an age of reason
The behavioral inheritance of a cultural community
consists of its routine or institutionalized family
life, social, economic, and political practices. To
illustrate, a few of the routine or institutionalized
family life practices that are popular among many
rural folk in the South-Asian Hindu cultural region
include:
• Joint family living (adult brothers co-reside in the
same family compound or dwelling space with their
living parents and their wives marry in)
• Co-sleeping arrangements of children with their parents
• Separate eating arrangements for husband and wife
(no family meal)
• Sexual division of household tasks
• Time-out and seclusion for females during their men-
strual period
• Parental hand-to-mouth feeding of children long past
infancy and well into middle childhood
• Prohibitions on premarital dating and sexuality
• Physical punishment for unruly or bad behavior
• Arranged marriage between young men and women
of similar social status (primarily based on caste,
local region, and relative wealth)
Of special import for the cultural psychology of individ-
ual development is that human beings are the kinds of
beings who benefit from and carry forward a cultural
tradition. They try to promote, promulgate, and share
their understandings and practices with their children,
their relatives, and their community at large. They are
active agents in the perpetuation of their symbolic in-
heritance, largely because (among other motives) the
ideas and values that they inherit from the past seem to
them to be right-minded, true, dignifying, useful, or at
least worthy of respect.
They are also active agents in the perpetuation of
their behavioral inheritance. They try to uphold, en-
force, and require of each other some degree of compli-
ance with the practices of their community, largely
because (among other motives) those practices seem to
them to be moral, healthy, natural, rational, benefit pro-
moting, or at least normal.
A noteworthy example of the combination of sym-
bolic and behavioral approaches in cultural psychology
is Alma Gottlieb’s recent book (2004) about reincarna-
tion beliefs in West Africa and their role in the pattern-
ing of infant development. Among the Beng people of
Cote d’Ivoire, newborn children are comprehended and
perceived as old souls—spiritually powerful, psycholog-
ically complex, socially sophisticated, and retaining a
memory of previous lives and halcyon times spent
dwelling in the abode of the spirits. They do not enter
the world naive, at least not according to the Beng. Got-
tlieb’s The Afterlife Is Where We Come From offers an
eye-opening interpretation of the local cultural mean-
ings of developmental milestones such as the transition
from crawling to walking (which is actively discouraged
by Beng parents) and the child’s early articulation of in-
telligible speech (which is greeted with anxiety). Her
study of Beng infant development and its connection to
local beliefs about reincarnation provides an expose of
the dangers of presumptively universalizing culture-
specific ideals for human development, as she argues
that infant development is not, and perhaps ought not to
be, the same wherever you go.
From the viewpoint of cultural psychology, the most
satisfactory definition of culture presupposes the exis-
tence of an active mental agent who not only is the re-
cipient and guardian of a cultural tradition but also is
motivated and engaged in some specific way of life.
Thus, our definition of culture emphasizes both symbols
and behavior. Such an approach also means that a major
prerequisite for conducting research in cultural psychol-
ogy is an imaginative capacity to suspend our disbelief
(e.g., one’s disbelief that the animating force in the
body of an infant is an old soul) and a willingness to set
aside (at least temporarily) our own negative moral and
emotional reactions (e.g., of anxiety, disapproval, indig-
nation, or disgust) to other people’s understandings and
practices. To practice cultural psychology, we must be
willing and able to enter into other peoples’ conceptions
of what is right-minded, normal, beautiful, and true
(Shweder, 1996b), and we must at least try (we may fail,
but that is itself an informative outcome of the method-
ological effort) to translate their goals, values, and pic-
tures of the world into an intelligible (and perhaps even
rationally defensible) account of their behavior.
Thus, cultural psychology is the study of the mental
life of individuals in relation to the symbolic and behav-
 Why Cultural Psychology Is Not Cross-Cultural Psychology
ioral inheritances of particular cultural communities. It
is the study of the way culture, community, and the psy-
che instantiate one another and are mutually sustaining,
and, thus, how they become coordinated and make each
other possible. A cultural tradition dies (it exists only in
a canonical text or in an ethnographic book on a library
shelf ) if there is no community that lives its doctrines,
makes manifest its shared understandings, or inhabits
its way of life. Similarly, some designated category of
persons (e.g., Latinos, non-Hispanic Whites; residents
of the Pacific Islands; citizens of the United States) is
not a cultural community unless its members actively in-
habit, think about, and hold each other accountable to
some symbolic and behavioral inheritance from out of
some historical /ancestral past that they identify with as
a people, and claim as their own.
WHY CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY IS NOT
CROSS-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Many proponents of cultural psychology distinguish it
from cross-cultural psychology. This is what a few of
those authors have to say about the aims of a renewed
cultural psychology, and the ways in which it differs
from the discipline or research enterprise known as
cross-cultural psychology.
Shweder and Sullivan (1993; also Shweder, 1990a)
identify the aim of cultural psychology as the study of
ethnic and cultural sources of psychological diversity
in self-organization, cognitive processing, emotional
functioning, and moral evaluation. They describe cul-
tural psychology as a “project designed to reassess the
uniformitarian principle of psychic unity [which they
associate with cross-cultural psychology] and aimed at
the development of a credible theory of psychological
pluralism.” They argue that performance or response
differences between populations arise from differ-
ences in the normal meaning of stimulus situations and
materials across populations (the problem of “partial
translation” or “limited commensurability”). They
suggest that a special feature of cultural psychology is
its recognition that “ through the methodical investiga-
tion of specific sources of incommensurability in par-
ticular stimulus situations (so-called thick description)
a culture’s distinctive psychology [the way people
think and act in the light of particular goals, values,
and pictures of the world] may be revealed.” For exam-
ple, Shweder et al. (1997; also see Jensen, 2005;
721
Shweder et al., 1990) describe the different moral de-
velopmental pathways and patterns of moral judgment
for children in societies privileging an “ethics of auton-
omy” (where individualism, having the things you
want, and harm, rights, and justice concepts predomi-
nate) in contrast to societies privileging an “ethics of
community” (where notions of duty, sacrifice, loyalty,
and hierarchical interdependence and other social roles
based on communitarian moral concepts predominate)
or societies privileging an “ethics of divinity” (where
notions of sanctity, purity, pollution, and the connec-
tion between the sacred order and the natural order
predominate).
A similar point is made by Greenfield (1997) who
notes, “It is the human capacity to create shared mean-
ing that produces the distinctive methodological contri-
bution of cultural psychology.” She goes on to argue that
it is a mistake of modern psychology in general and
modern cross-cultural psychology in particular to treat
perspective (the shared meanings of a group is a type of
perspective) as a form of bias that should be eliminated
from research procedures. She contrasts the methodol-
ogy of cultural psychology with that of modern cross-
cultural psychology as follows:
The methodological ideal of the paradigmatic cross-
cultural psychologist is to carry a procedure established in
one culture, with known psychometric properties, to one or
more other cultures, in order to make a cross-cultural com-
parison (Berry, Poortinga, Segall, & Dasen, 1992). In con-
trast, the methodological ideal of the paradigmatic cultural
psychologist is to derive procedures for each culture from
the lifeways and modes of communication of that culture.
This ideal explains why interpretive methods, especially
ethnographic methods, have been so important to many cul-
tural psychologists. Ethnographic approaches were devised
originally by cultural anthropologists as a means of under-
standing other cultures on their own terms—not as projec-
tions of the researcher’s own ethnocentric assumptions
(Malinowski, 1922). The goal is to understand what people
say and do from the perspective of insiders to the culture,
to render them intelligible within their own collectively
shared interpretive frameworks. From this standpoint, com-
parisons within and across cultures make sense only when
they are grounded in descriptions of the local meanings of
the people being studied. At the same time, these ap-
proaches carry with them the reflexive recognition that re-
searchers too are members of particular communities and
cultures; that they may come to see their own local mean-
ings in a new light by way of studying people who construe
the world differently.
722 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
For further discussion of interpretive and ethno-
graphic methods as applied to the study of children, see
C. D. Clark (2003); Corsaro and Miller (1992); Erickson
(1986); Jessor et al. (1996); P. J. Miller, Hengst, and
Wang (2003).
One useful metalanguage or theoretical framework
for the nonethnocentric identification and comparative
translation of culture-specific aspects of mental func-
tioning has been developed by the anthropological lin-
guists Anna Wierzbicka and Cliff Goddard (Goddard,
1997, 2001; Goddard & Wiezbicka, 1994; Wierzbicka,
1986, 1990, 1993, 1999; see also Shweder 2003a, 2004).
Wierzbicka and Goddard have identified a core set of
semantically simple, intuitively obvious, universal folk
concepts (such as good, true, want, feel, do) that can
then be used to elucidate the particular ways the mental
states of members of different cultural groups vary. For
example, in the domain of feelings and emotions those
authors have effectively made the provocative point that
the contemporary American notion of “sadness” has
several cultural specific features (not even shared by
various Northern European subcultures), and they have
proposed that the very idea of an emotion (in contrast to
the idea of a feeling) is not a semantically simple, intu-
itively obvious, or universal folk concept.
To return to Greenfield, one powerful (and somewhat
ironic) implication of her analysis would seem to be that
the genuine existence of different cultural realities is
incompatible with the methodological assumptions of
cross-cultural psychology. More specifically, if your re-
search procedures and instruments travel readily and
well (e.g., they are easy to administer and they display
the same psychometric properties from one test popula-
tion to another) then you probably have not traveled far
enough into a truly alternative cultural world.
This may explain why long- and short-term field-
work, language learning, naturalistic observation, de-
tailed ethnography, and the analysis of the semantics
and pragmatics of everyday discourse and communica-
tion are central to the study of cultural psychology, yet
have played a minimal role in cross-cultural psychology.
It may explain why much of the evidence in cross-
cultural psychology (yet relatively little of the evidence
in cultural psychology) is derived from observations in
university laboratories, or from inventory or test proce-
dures administered primarily to relatively cosmopolitan
university students in other lands.
The Western institution of the university carries with
it many features of an elite cosmopolitan culture wher-
ever it has diffused around the world. University stu-
dents in Tokyo, Nairobi, New Delhi, and New York may
be far more like one another (and like the Western re-
searcher) than they are like members of their respective
societies whose life ways are embedded in less familiar
indigenous understandings, institutions, and practices.
Even if you have traveled 10,000 miles to get there, a
university setting in another land may be much closer
than you think.
Much (1995) drives home this point with the follow-
ing observation:
It is especially important to be clear about one distinction.
Cultural psychology is not the same as “cross-cultural psy-
chology,” which is a branch of experimental social, cogni-
tive and personality psychology. The chief distinction is
that most of what has been known as “cross-cultural psy-
chology” has presupposed the categories and models that
have been available to participate in experiments or even
to fill out questionnaires. . . . The argument often assumed
to justify the tactic of studying mostly student behavior is
based upon a sweeping and gratuitous universalist as-
sumption—since we are all human, we are all fundamen-
tally alike in significant psychological functions and
cultural (or social) contexts of diversity do not affect the
important “deep” or “ hard wired” structures of the mind.
There are several problems with this position. One is that
there have been few if any satisfactory identifications of
deep, hard wired and invariant mental structures which
operate independently of the context or content of their
functioning; the “method variance” problem in experi-
mental psychology is related to this fact. Another problem
is that even though there may be certain biologically based
psychological foundations . . . this does not necessarily
mean (1) that they are invariant across individuals or pop-
ulations or (2) that culture does not affect their develop-
ment as psychological structures and functions.
Whereas Greenfield and Much draw some methodologi-
cal contrasts between cultural versus cross-cultural psy-
chology, J. G. Miller (1997b) envisions the difference
between cultural psychology and cross-cultural psychol-
ogy in theoretical terms (although a similar theoretical
point can be found in Greenfield and Much). She sug-
gests, “ The dominant stance within cultural psychology
is to view culture and psychology as mutually constitu-
tive phenomena which cannot be reduced to each other.”
She adds that such a stance “contrasts with the tendency
in cross-cultural psychology for culture to be conceptu-
alized as an independent variable that impacts on the
dependent variable of individual psychology.”

Markus et al. (1996) carry forward this point. With
an intent to simultaneously study the cultural origins
of mind and the mental side of culture, they argue that
“culture and psychology, regardless of the level at which
they are analyzed, are interdependent and mutually ac-
tive.” Markus et al. suggest:
The communities, societies, and cultural contexts within
which people participate provide the interpretive frame-
works—including the images, concepts, and narratives, as
well as the means, practices and patterns of behavior—by
which people make sense (i.e., lend meaning, coherence
and structure to their ongoing experience) and organize
their actions. Although experienced as such, those orga-
nizing frameworks (also called cultural schemas, models,
designs for living, modes of being) are not fully private
and personal; they are shared.
Markus et al. go on to say:
Importantly, the contention here is that these group-based
meanings and practices are not separate from observed be-
havior. They are not applied as interpretive frameworks
after “ behavior ” has occurred. Instead they are fully ac-
tive in the constitution of this behavior; they are the means
by which people behave and experience, and thus should
be taken into account in an analysis of this behavior. The
claim is that with respect to the psychological, the individ-
ual level often cannot be separated from the cultural level.
Many psychological processes are completely interde-
pendent with the meanings and practices of their relevant
sociocultural contexts and this will result in systematic di-
versity in psychological functioning. It follows from this
perspective that there may be multiple, diverse psycholo-
gies rather than a single psychology.
MULTIPLE, DIVERSE PSYCHOLOGIES
Perhaps, the central claim of cultural psychology (in
contrast to other approaches to the study of conscious-
ness and mental life) is that “ there may be multiple, di-
verse psychologies rather than a single psychology,” and
perhaps the central problematic of the field is to make
sense of that provocative claim. Does such a claim entail
the denial of universals? If not, what universals of mind
are entailed by cultural psychology? How are those uni-
versals to be reconciled with the existence of diverse
psychologies across human populations without trivial-
izing that diversity or treating it as mere content?
Currently, there is no single answer that all cultural
psychologists would endorse. One type of answer, with a
pedigree stretching back to Vico (Berlin, 1976), sug-
Multiple, Diverse Psychologies 723
gests that “ the nature of [human beings] is not, as has
long been supposed, static and unalterable or even unal-
tered; that it does not so much as contain even a central
kernel or essence, which remains identical through
change; that the effort of [human beings] to understand
the world in which they find themselves and to adapt it
to their needs, physical and spiritual, continuously
transforms their worlds and themselves” (p. xvi).
A second type of answer to those questions, to be de-
veloped in this chapter, starts from the premise that any
human nature that we are in a position to understand
and render intelligible must have “a central kernel or
essence,” but it is rarely a strong constraint. According
to this answer, the central kernel or essence of human
nature consists of a heterogeneous collection of mutu-
ally contradictory structures and inclinations, which are
differentially and selectively activated, brought “on-
line,” and given character and substance in the course of
the historical experience of different cultural communi-
ties. The motto “One mind, many mentalities: universal-
ism without the uniformity” is the rallying cry for the
interpretation of the claim that there may be multiple,
diverse psychologies rather than a single psychology.
This motto advertises a discipline founded on the
principle that the abstract potentialities and specific
heterogeneous inclinations of the human mind are uni-
versal but only gain character, substance, definition,
and motivational force (i.e., assume the shape of a func-
tioning mentality) as they are translated and trans-
formed into and through the concrete actualities of some
particular practice, activity setting, or way of life (Cole,
1990; D’Andrade, 1995; Goodnow et al., 1995; Green-
field, 1997; Greenfield et al., 2003; Lave, 1990; Markus
et al., 1996; Much, 1992; Nisbett & Cohen, 1995; Ro-
goff, 1990; Shweder, 1991; Shweder & LeVine, 1984).
The slogan connects current researchers in cultural psy-
chology with the intellectual ancestors of the field
(Vico, Herder, and others; Berlin, 1976) who, Kant- and
Hegel-like, believed “Form without content is empty,
content without form meaningless.”
For at least 200 years, a distinctive tenet of cultural
psychology has been the claim that the formal univer-
sals of mind and the content-rich particulars of any sus-
tainable mentality or way of life are interdependent,
interactive, and give each other life. Scholars, such as
Herder, Vico, and Wundt, scoured the historical record
for successful (cohesive, shared, stable) fusions of form
and content in which the human imagination has, of
necessity, gone beyond the relatively meaning-barren
724 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
constraints of logic and mere sense perception to con-
struct an imaginative (and culture-specific) picture of
the underlying nature of the world and it values, result-
ing in a mentality (the Homeric mentality, the Hindu
mentality, the Christian fundamentalist mentality) sup-
portive of a way of life.
They took as their data the great symbolic formations
produced by human beings: myths, folk tales, language
patterns, naming systems, ethnoscientific doctrines,
and ethical, social, and religious philosophies. They also
took as their data the great behavioral formations
produced by human beings, including customary prac-
tices of various kinds: subsistence activities, games,
rituals, food taboos, gender roles, the division of labor,
and marriage rules. They interpreted those symbolic and
behavioral formations as alternative manifestations,
substantializations, or instantiations of the disparate ab-
stract potentialities of the universal mind, which they
believed was the business of cultural psychology to char-
acterize and to explain.
THE MEANING OF MEANING AND A
CONTEXT FOR CONTEXT IN
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
In contemporary cultural psychology, the translation
and transformation of one mind into many mentalities
is typically conceptualized as a process by which con-
texts and meanings become essential, active components
inside as well as outside the psychological system of
individuals. In cultural psychology, this process is some-
times described as the process by which culture and psy-
che make each other up.
This insistence in cultural psychology that contexts
and meanings are to be theoretically represented as part
of the psychological system and not simply as influ-
ences, factors, or conditions external to the psychologi-
cal system distinguishes cultural psychology from other
forms of psychology, which also think of themselves as
contextual (or situated). The aim in cultural psychology
is not first to separate the psychological system from its
nonpsychological context and then to invoke some type
of external setting effect or outside situational influ-
ence on psychological functioning. The aim and the
challenge are rather to recast or soften the contrast be-
tween person and context (inside versus outside, subjec-
tive perspective versus external reality) so that the very
idea of a context effect will take on new meaning be-
cause our theoretical language for psychological de-
scription will be contextual from the start. In part, cul-
tural psychology involves the study of real things that do
not exist independently of some collectively shared
point of view. Later in this chapter, we address in some
detail this issue, of dichotomies that need to be softened
or recast (see also Overton, Chapter 2, this Handbook,
this volume).
The distinction between cultural psychology and
other contextual approaches in psychology is subtle, im-
portant, and easy to overlook because all approaches to
psychology that emphasize context share much in
common, especially their opposition to the idea that the
science of psychology is primarily the study of fixed,
universal, abstract processes or forms. Thus, cultural
psychology shares with other contextual psychologies
the assumption that the mind of human beings ( know-
ing, wanting, feeling, valuing, etc.) can only be realized
through some situated or local process of “minding,”
which is always bounded, conditional, or relative to
something—shared meanings, goals, stimulus domain,
available resources, local artifacts, cognitive assistants,
and so on. Beyond that general point of similarity, cul-
tural psychology should be understood as a rather spe-
cial type of contextual approach.
In the conception of cultural psychology developed in
this chapter, the relevant contexts for the realization of
mind are the customs, traditions, practices, and shared
meanings and perspectives of some self-monitoring and
self-perpetuating group. The primary emphasis is on
contexts thought to be relevant for the realization of
mind in the sense that such contexts are the means for
transforming a universal mind into a distinctively func-
tioning mentality, a distinctive way that “people think
and act in the light of particular goals, values and pic-
tures of the world” (Berlin, 1976). In this approach,
cultural psychology is not coextensive with contextual
psychology (more on this in a moment). More important,
the contrast between inside and outside, person and con-
text, and subjective perspective and external reality is
reconceptualized in cultural psychology as a process by
which culture and psyche are constantly and continu-
ously making each other up.
THE UNIT OF ANALYSIS PROBLEM
Just as the general field of psychology seems unsure
whether its proper subject matter should be the study of

behavior or the study of consciousness or the study of
the mental life (which is a broader subject than the study
of consciousness because it includes states of mind that
are not in awareness), so too cultural psychologists do
not always seem to agree on their proper unit of analysis.
Practitioners of cultural psychology study mentalities,
folk models, practices, activity settings, situated cogni-
tions, and ways of life. It is not clear whether these units
of analysis mentioned in the literature are different
ways of speaking about the same intellectual object or
whether it is possible to combine them into a single unit
of analysis.
For the sake of clarity in this review, we adopt a pro-
posal for a common unit of analysis for cultural psychol-
ogy put forward more than a generation ago (J. W. M.
Whiting & Child, 1953) in an exemplary collaboration
between an anthropologist and a psychologist. Whiting
and Child suggest combining mentalities and practices
(the symbolic and behavioral inheritances of a cultural
community) into a single unit of analysis called the cus-
tom complex, which “consists of a customary practice
and of the beliefs, values, sanctions, rules, motives and
satisfactions associated with it ” (p. 27). If we adopt this
proposal, cultural psychology can be defined as the
study of the custom complex.
Although J. W. M. Whiting and Child introduced the
idea of a custom complex in 1953, its theoretical impli-
cations were not widely or fully appreciated at the time.
Curiously, the idea was not taken up or carried forward
by psychological anthropologists working in the classi-
cal tradition of the 1950s. It was not until the 1980s and
1990s, with the rebirth of a two-handed cultural psy-
chology focused on the way culture and psyche make
each other up, and with the return of an interest in “ac-
tivity settings” (Cole, 1992, 1995; Weisner, 1984, 1996,
2001, 2002) and a “practice approach” to developmental
studies (Goodnow et al., 1995), that J. W. M. Whiting
and Child’s conception gained currency and appeal.
If a custom complex “consists of a customary prac-
tice and of beliefs, values, sanctions, rules, motives and
satisfactions associated with it,” then the idea bears
some resemblance to the social psychologist’s idea of a
personal “life space” (Lewin, 1943), to the sociologist’s
idea of a societal “ habitus” (Bourdieu, 1972, 1990), and
to the historian’s idea of an epochal “mentality.”
Using the custom complex as a unit of analysis makes
it possible to conceptualize cultural psychology as the
study of the way culture and psyche are socially pro-
duced and reproduced, resulting in an intimate associa-
The Unit of Analysis Problem 725
tion between a mentality and a practice and a partial fu-
sion of person /context, inside/outside, or subjective per-
spective/external reality.
Examples of a custom complex are so commonplace
they are easy to overlook. They include the mentalities
associated with nursing on demand, co-sleeping in
a family bed, the family meal, enforcing strict Chris-
tian discipline, performing the ritual of “ what did
you do in school today,” or practicing ways to bolster
self-esteem.
A Custom Complex Example: Who Sleeps by
Whom in the Family
The mentality (what people know, think, feel, want,
value, and hence choose to do) intimately associated
with the practice of “ who sleeps by whom” in the family
provides a paradigmatic example of a custom complex.
Who sleeps by whom in a family is a customary practice
invested with socially acquired meanings and with im-
plications for a person’s standing (as moral, rational, or
competent) in some consensus-sensitive and norm-
enforcing cultural community.
Research on family life customs in different com-
munities in the United States (Abbott, 1992; Okami &
Weisner, in press; Okami, Weisner, & Olmstead, 2002;
Weisner, Bausano, & Kornfein, 1983) and around the
world (Caudill & Plath, 1966; LeVine, 1989, 1990a,
1990b; McKenna et al., 1993; Morelli, Rogoff, Oppen-
heimer, & Goldsmith, 1992; Shweder, Balle-Jensen, &
Goldstein, 1995; J. W. M. Whiting, 1964, 1981) confirms
the existence on a worldwide scale of several divergent
custom complexes in this domain, each consisting of a
network of interwoven and mutually supportive prac-
tices, beliefs, values, sanctions, rules, motives, and satis-
factions. Indeed, on a worldwide scale, the European
American who-sleeps-by-whom custom complex is not
the one that communities most typically produce, repro-
duce, and enforce with the various formal and informal
powers (e.g., legal interventions, gossip, and effects on
reputation) at their disposal.
The middle-class European American custom com-
plex includes the ritualized isolation of children during
the night, the institution of bedtime, and the protection
of the privacy of the sacred couple upheld by a cultural
norm mandating the exclusive co-sleeping of the
husband and wife. This European American custom
complex is typically associated with something like
the following propositional attitudes, where knowing,
726 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
thinking, feeling, wanting, and valuing define the set of
potential attitudes, and thus can be stated in proposi-
tional form:
I value autonomy and independence; I want my chil-
dren to become autonomous and independent adults; I
know that I can promote autonomy and independence
in infants and young children by having them sleep
alone; I value sexual intimacy with my spouse; I
know that a sleeping space is the most suitable site
for sexual intimacy with my spouse; I know that it
will not be possible to have sexual intimacy with my
spouse if the privacy of the spousal sleeping space is
violated; I know that children have erotic impulses
and a sexual fantasy life that should not be aroused or
titillated by adults for the sake of the mental health
of the child; I don’t want to damage the mental health
of my children or make them unhappy and neurotic
about sex or touching; I feel anxious about touching
and having prolonged skin-to-skin contact with a
young child; therefore, infants and young children
should be trained, encouraged, and if necessary,
forced, to sleep alone.
This custom complex is sanctioned, glorified, rational-
ized, and enforced in innumerable ways in the European
American culture area, although nearly every one of
those propositional attitudes is thought to be wrong,
bizarre, or beside the point by adults and children in
many parts of Asia, Africa, and Central America,
where children routinely and habitually co-sleep with
one or more of their parents and/or siblings and prefer
to do so even when more than ample sleeping space is
available for separate sleeping arrangements (Abbott,
1992; Brazelton, 1990; Caudill & Plath, 1966; Shweder
et al., 1995).
In the early 1960s, Caudill and Plath (1966) discov-
ered that (a) urban Japanese parents felt morally obliged
to provide their children with a parental sleeping part-
ner, ( b) husbands and wives were willing to separate
from each other to do so, and (c) approximately 50% of
11- to 15-year-old urban Japanese boys and girls slept in
the same room as their mother or father or both. In an-
other example, Shweder et al. (1995) discovered from a
record of single-night sleeping arrangements in 160
high-caste households in Orissa, India, that only 12% of
the cases matched the European American custom com-
plex in which husband and wife sleep together and sepa-
rate from their children.
The cluster of propositional attitudes that lend au-
thority to co-sleeping still need to be worked out for the
different culture regions of the world (although see
Morelli et al., 1992). The Japanese custom complex in-
cludes the propositional attitudes:
I value and want to promote interdependency and
feelings of closeness and solidarity among members
of the family; I know that co-sleeping will help chil-
dren overcome feelings of distance and separation
from members of the family who are older or of a dif-
ferent sex.
The Oriya Hindu custom complex includes the proposi-
tional attitudes:
I highly value children as members of the family; I
know that children are fragile, vulnerable, and needy
and therefore should not be left alone and unpro-
tected during the night.
Chastity anxiety and the chaperoning of adolescent fe-
males also play a part in the Oriya custom complex
(Shweder et al., 1995).
Examples of the way local experts (pediatricians, ad-
vice columnists, or social workers) rationalize, uphold,
and lend authority to the European American custom
complex can be found in the responses of “Dear Abby”
and “Ann Landers” to the many letters they receive
about the perceived problem of parent-child co-sleeping.
The following, published May 26, 1994, in the Chicago
Tribune, is a typical exchange between concerned adults
in the European American cultural zone:
Dear Abby: My niece—I’ll call her Carol—is a single
mother with a 4-year-old son. (I’ll call him Johnny.)
Carol just turned 40. Since the day Johnny was born, he
has slept with his mother in a single bed. They go to bed
between 8 and 10 o’clock every night and always have
snacks and drinks in bed. They watch TV and cuddle until
Johnny falls asleep in his mother’s arms. Abby, this child
has never fallen asleep alone. Carol lives with her par-
ents, and there is no shortage of beds in their home. Re-
cently, Carol and Johnny visited me in my country home,
and I gave them the bedroom with twin beds. The follow-
ing morning, I discovered that Carol had pushed the beds
together so she and Johnny wouldn’t be separated. I think
Carol’s emotional needs are taking precedence over what
is best for her son. He has no father, and his grandparents
have no say in his upbringing. I would appreciate your as-

sessment of this situation. No city, please, and sign me,
Concerned Aunt.
Dear Concerned: You have good reason to be concerned,
You hit the nail on the head—Johnny doesn’t need to sleep
with his mother nearly as much as she needs to sleep with
him. You would be doing Carol an enormous favor if you
advised her to get counseling in the rearing of her son.
With all her good intentions, she is “(s)mothering” her son.
Johnny’s pediatrician will be able to recommend the best
counselor for Carol and Johnny. It is desperately needed.
Surprisingly little is known about the long-term
effects of nighttime isolation or separation versus co-
sleeping in any part of the world, which is a major la-
cuna in the history of research in cultural psychology.
Nevertheless, with the publication of an important lon-
gitudinal study by Okami et al. (2002; see also Okami &
Weisner, in press) there is now some empirical grounds
for being suspicious about any strong or generalized
claims about the long-term effects on children of sleep-
ing alone versus co-sleeping with one or more parents.
More on the Custom Complex: The Intimate
Association between a Mentality and a Practice
Supported by a Cultural Community
The concept of a custom complex presupposes an inti-
mate association between a mentality and a practice that
is supported, enforced, defended, and rationalized by
members of some cultural community. When such an as-
sociation is in place, it will be the case that other mem-
bers of the cultural community will judge the mentality
associated with the practice to be normal and reason-
able, while any actual participant in the practice will ex-
perience the mentality associated with the practice to be
under the skin, close to the heart, and self-relevant; the
mentality will have become habitual, automatic, and can
be activated without deliberation or conscious calcula-
tion—it will have become internalized. This intimate
(some might say experience-near) connection or partial
fusion of a mentality and a practice does not, however,
prohibit us from drawing an analytic distinction between
the mentality and the practice that instantiates it. It does
not keep us from characterizing the custom complex as
two things intimately connected or partially fused.
The study of a custom complex calls for the analysis
of a two-sided thing—the intimate connection between a
mentality (the symbolic inheritance of a cultural com-
munity) and one or more specific practices (the behav-
The Unit of Analysis Problem 727
ioral inheritance of a cultural community). This analysis
begins with the systematic identification, through ob-
servation and interviews, of the routine or habitual fam-
ily life and social practices engaged in by members of
some self-monitoring and self-regulating group. Some
of these practices may surprise, disgust, or enrage an
outside observer, although to the jaded eyes of the group
members their own practices are likely to seem ordi-
nary, decent, and reasonable or at least “normal.”
Each of the following practices, for example, is a com-
monplace way of being, at least for the members of the
particular cultural communities that uphold them. In one
cultural world, a 2-year-old child gets in bed with his or
her mother, unbuttons his or her mother’s blouse, suckles
at her breast, and sleeps by her side throughout the night.
In another cultural world, each child in the family sleeps
in a private sleeping space separated from the sleeping
space of all adults. In one cultural world, a woman brings
food home from the market and cooks it, and then she and
her husband consume the food together. In another cul-
tural world, a man brings food home from the market, his
wife cooks it at home, and he consumes the food alone
and his wife eats separately and later. In one cultural
world, children are fostered by their parents to more
prosperous families in their society who subject these
children to ordeals of hardship, physical punishment, and
demanding tests of loyalty, requiring them to work as
family servants until they endure the ordeals and pass the
tests (Bledsoe, 1990). Then the children are adopted and
supported by those families and patronized and provided
for throughout life. In another cultural world, however,
parents get upset (even incensed) if another adult touches
their child, reprimands or scolds their child, makes stren-
uous demands of their child, or causes their child to suf-
fer abuse in any way.
As noted earlier, the analysis of a custom complex
ends when one is able to spell out as comprehensively as
possible the things that the members of some group (tac-
itly or explicitly, consciously or unconsciously) know,
think, feel, want, and value that explain and make intel-
ligible the things that they do. Thus, the analysis begins
with the identification of practices and it ends with the
specification of a distinctive mentality.
This interest in the distinctive mentality associated
with the practices of a cultural community distinguishes
cultural psychology from other approaches to the study of
practice domains in which it is assumed that human activ-
ities come in natural domains or universal kinds (e.g., re-
ligion, economics, family life, schooling, or politics) and
728 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
that members of different cultural communities think and
behave more or less alike because of the strong con-
straints of each species of activity, regardless of commu-
nity. The idea of a custom complex invites a very
different approach in which it is assumed that members of
various cultural communities have distinctive mentalities
associated with each of their practice domains (e.g., a
Taiwanese mentality of family life versus a New England
mentality of family life), leading members of those cul-
tural communities to engage in divergent patterns of be-
havior in ostensibly similar domains.
The idea of a custom complex also invites cultural
psychologists to address the question of whether a par-
ticular cultural community has a characteristic mental-
ity (e.g., the Protestant mentality), which leaves its
generalized mark on many domains in that community,
thereby making, for example, Protestant economics,
Protestant religion, and Protestant family life more like
each other than like a parallel natural domain in an-
other cultural community.
We emphasize, however, that cultural psychology
does not presume the existence of global consistency or
thematic integration across all practice domains in a
culture. Even Ruth Benedict (1934) was quite aware
that many cultures are not patterned after some simple
mold (Dionysian, Apollonian) or fundamentally inte-
grated by a single theme (e.g., the work ethic). She
knew, as we know, that the degree to which a small set
of core beliefs, goals, or motives can account for the
meaning and behavior of a people across the many do-
mains of their life (family, work, and politics) is en-
tirely an open empirical issue.
There is no way to know in advance of years of re-
search in some particular cultural community whether
their many practice domains all draw on the same men-
tality. Nevertheless, even if a particular cultural commu-
nity is not thematically integrated (one small set of core
meanings revealed in many practice domains), the cus-
tom complex is still a natural theoretical frame of analy-
sis for cultural psychology. The idea defines a parameter
space for conceptualizing and modeling the ways that
culture and psyche make each other up, resulting, on a
worldwide scale, in multiple instances of a relatively
stable or equilibrated condition in which a mentality and
a practice are mutually sustaining and reciprocally con-
firmatory. Not all custom complexes are integrated in
the same way or cohere to the same degree. Neverthe-
less, the idea makes it possible for us to ask about the
ways and degrees to which a relatively stable equilib-
rium (the intimate association of a local mentality and a
cultural practice) has actually been achieved.
THE CLASSIFICATION OF PRACTICES
To conduct a relatively complete and systematic empiri-
cal study of a community’s cultural psychology, it is nec-
essary to identify the members’ practices and categorize
them into domains. Practices can be categorized in many
ways, because any scheme of classification will depend
largely on the investigator’s theory of human needs
(physical, social, psychological, and spiritual) and the re-
search issues at hand.
One of the several ways practices can be classified into
domains is from an ontogenetic perspective, with special
reference to the development of mastery or expertise
in some domain of psychological functioning ( knowing,
thinking, feeling, wanting, or valuing). Thus, practices
might be identified and classified by reference to the par-
ticular substantive type of competence they promote (e.g.,
practices promoting social sensitivity, practices promoting
moral development, practices promoting cognitive devel-
opment). For example, a recent study (Munroe, in press) of
3- to 9-year-olds in four cultures (the Logoli of Kenya,
Newars of Nepal, Black Carib of Belize, and American
Samoans) produced the counter-intuitive and provocative
finding that children are more willing to engage in oppo-
site gender sex role play and seem less threatened by sex
role confusions in societies that have institutionalized
adult patriarchal or patricentric practices such as male
dominance, gender segregation, and a strict sexual divi-
sion of labor. Although one can only speculate based on
the data presented in Munroe’s study, one might entertain
the hypothesis that where gender is culturally sanctioned
as a basis for social organization the interest and capacity
to imaginatively take the perspective of the other across
the gender division is more highly developed.
Or a developmentalist might classify practices not so
much according to the substantive competence (e.g., tak-
ing the perspective of others) acquired but rather accord-
ing to types of processes of acquisition. Werker (1989;
also G. Gottlieb, 1991), has generated a short list of hy-
pothetical ways that experience (read exposure to or ac-
tive participation in a cultural practice) can affect the
development of any mental skill or ability. She imagines
five kinds of processes:
1. Maturation (the practice made no difference; the
ability would have developed without it).

2. Facilitation ( because of the practice, the ability was
attained more quickly than otherwise would have
been the case).
3. Induction (without the practice, there would have
been no ability at all in this domain).
4. Attunement ( because of the practice, a higher level
of ability was attained than otherwise would have
been the case).
5. Maintenance/ loss (the ability was preexisting but
would have been lost or deactivated if it had not been
kept online through participation in the practice).
At this early stage in the evolution of a cultural psy-
chology of individual development, we can only look for-
ward with excitement to the time when we will have in
hand the research designs, methodologies, and systemati-
cally collected bodies of evidence that will allow us to
classify practices in this way. We look forward to the time
when we will be able to distinguish between each of those
five interpretations of the effects of participation in a cul-
tural practice on the growth of a mental state or ability.
Cultural psychology is, however, not committed to a
blank-slate learning theory (the blank-slate stance is a
straw person, and not even John Locke posited an en-
tirely empty organism prior to learning from childhood
experience) nor does it presuppose an induction theory
of mental development. Quite the contrary, much of the
current research in cultural psychology is quite compati-
ble with (and may even presuppose) either an attunement
or a maintenance/ loss account of the differential emer-
gence, activation, or selective maintenance of particular
mental states. Our conception of cultural learning is dis-
cussed later, especially in relationship to innate ideas.
In this chapter, we can seldom choose between differ-
ent interpretations (maturation, attunement, mainte-
nance/loss, etc.) of how participation in a cultural
practice affects the activation of a mental state or the
emergence of a mental skill. What we can do, however, as
an intermediary step in building a full-blown cultural psy-
chology of individual development, is point to some of the
research and scholarship in cultural psychology that tries
to describe and explain the differential ontogenetic emer-
gence, activation, and selective maintenance of what the
“I’s” in different groups know, think, feel, want, value,
and hence choose to do, including research about the
“self.” Later in this chapter, we examine one important
line of cultural psychological research on the development
of an interdependent (sociocentric, collective) versus in-
dependent (autonomous, individualistic) self, but the cul-
The Classification of Practices 729
tural psychology project has general implications for
claims about mental development that are quite indepen-
dent of any particular findings in any particular domain.
For example, comparative research by Ross et al.
(2003) has suggested that cognitive developmental theo-
ries presumptively positing a universal anthropocentric
stage in the development of children’s folk biological
knowledge (the idea that young children everywhere
initially project a naive human psychology onto nonhu-
man species) are more accurately viewed as local
descriptions of the course of mental development for
urban majority children who grow up with an impover-
ished experience of nonhuman nature. Native American
Menominee children and rural children from main-
stream populations in the United States, whose involve-
ment with plants and nonhuman animals is positively
structured and mediated by cultural beliefs and prac-
tices of various sorts, do not display the predicted uni-
versal developmental pattern and exhibit competences
in ecological reasoning that are absent from the mental-
ity of the urban, mainstream kids in the United States.
There are many other ways to classify cultural prac-
tices into domains. From the point of view of personal
and social identity, cultural practices might be identi-
fied and classified by the existential problems they ad-
dress. In any society, there are many existential
questions, which must be answered for the sake of both
individual mental health and social coordination:
• Self practices answer: “What’s me or mine, and
what’s not me or mine?”
• Gender practices answer: “What’s male, and what’s
female?”
• Disciplinary practices answer: “How are norms and
rules to be enforced?”
• Distributional practices answer: “How should bur-
dens and benefits be distributed?” (Shweder, 1982)
A closely related approach has been proposed by Fiske
(1991, 1992), who argues that social life is comprised of
four social relationships: communal sharing, authority
ranking, equality matching, and market pricing. Fiske’s
scheme could readily be adapted and used in the classi-
fication of practices (practices promoting a sense of
commonality, the importance and legitimacy of hierar-
chy, etc.). Some researchers may prefer to identify and
classify practices by the institutions in which they are
embedded (e.g., family-life practices, school-life prac-
tices). Other researchers, with different intellectual
730 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
aims and inclinations, may prefer to classify practices
according to the biological needs or physical survival
functions they serve (e.g., eating practices, health prac-
tices, or sexual practices).
Still others may want to proceed emically (Pike, 1967),
which involves letting the classification of practice do-
mains go hand in hand with the specification of the men-
tality of a cultural community, in the anticipation of some
counterintuitive and astonishing results. In some cultural
communities, for example, among devout Brahmans in
India, there is a highly elaborated practice domain that
might be labeled oblations, sacrifices, and sacramental of-
ferings. It encompasses the daily preparation and con-
sumption of food and includes in the same general
practice domain other activities (e.g., prayer and animal
sacrifice) that would never naturally go together in the
mentality of a Western researcher. Among Hindu Brah-
mans in India, food is not a personal preference system.
Given the local culturally elaborated idea that eating is a
sacramental offering to a divinity (the self is conceptual-
ized as a piece of divinity) residing in a temple (the human
body), what you eat, how and by whom it has been pre-
pared, and the conditions under which you eat is a mark of
your moral standing and social status in the world.
THE ANALYSIS OF MENTALITIES
Mentalities are the other side of the custom complex.
They can be investigated in the following ways: (a) by
analyzing the idea of a mentality into its component
parts: knowing, thinking, feeling, wanting, and valuing;
( b) by modeling what some ideal or prototypical “I”
(subject, agent, individual, or self ) who might be en-
gaged in this or that practice might know, think, feel,
want, and value; (c) by empirically determining the de-
gree of specificity or generality of those components of
a mentality for actual agents across practice domains in
a cultural community (and perhaps across cultural com-
munities for a particular practice domain); and (d) by
pointing to broad patterns of generality for mentalities
when and where they exist.
For example, there is good empirical reason to believe
that the mentality dubbed interdependency, sociocen-
trism, or collectivism supports and maintains a whole
array of practices both in and across domains for some
populations in Japan, while the mentality dubbed inde-
pendence, autonomy, or individualism supports and main-
tains a disparate array of practices both in and across
domains for some groups in the United States (Markus &
Kitayama, 1991a, 1991b; Triandis, 1989, 1990).
Thus, although cultural psychology is, in one major
sense, the study of the way culture and psyche make each
other up; in another closely related sense, it is also the
study of the origin, structure, function, operation, and
social reproduction of that intimate association between
a mentality and a practice known as the custom complex.
THE TWO SIDES OF
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
Cultural psychology is the study of the way culture and
psyche make each other up, resulting in the formation of
the custom complex, which is a unit of analysis for
characterizing the way multiple, diverse psychologies
emerge out of the abstract potentialities of a universal
mind. Psychological pluralism emerges, at least in part,
because peoples think and act in the light of particular
goals, values, and pictures of the world. Those factors
are rarely the same across cultural communities.
The cultural side of cultural psychology is the study
of the mentality-laden practices (including the symbolic
forms, communicative exchanges, rituals, mores, folk-
ways, and institutions) developed, promoted, promul-
gated, enacted, and enforced (and hence judged to be
customary, normal, legal, moral, or reasonable) by the
“I’s” (the subjects, agents, individuals, or selves) of par-
ticular groups.
The psychological side of cultural psychology is the
study of practice-related mental states, the things that
the “I’s” (subjects, agents, individuals, selves) of partic-
ular groups know, think, feel, want, value, and hence
choose or decide to do to carry forward the normal prac-
tices of their society.
Based on those two sides of cultural psychology,
which are fused in the idea of a custom complex, the aim
of the discipline is to investigate precisely those cases
where the following three conditions hold:
1. A “practice” displays significant variation across
groups and differential patterning of within-group
variations (e.g., there is a far greater probability of
children and adults co-sleeping in a family bed in
South Asia and Africa than in Europe and the United
States and the correlation between social status and
co-sleeping is not the same in South Asia and in the
United States).

2. The components of a mentality ( knowing, thinking,
feeling, wanting, and valuing), such as feelings of
closeness, pleasure, and serenity versus feelings of
anxiety or agitation associated with skin-to-skin con-
tact between parent and child, display significant
variation across groups and differential patterning of
within-group variation (e.g., European American
males, in comparison to South Asian males, are more
likely to feel anxiety associated with skin-to-skin
contact between parent and child and feelings of
closeness, pleasure, and serenity produced by skin-
to-skin contact between parent and child may be cor-
related with gender in the United States, but not in
South Asia).
3. The distribution of the practice appears to be related
to the distribution of the mentality, and vice versa.
Thus, through the idea of a custom complex, cultural
psychology joins the study of individual mental states to
the study of cultural practices. On the one hand, investi-
gators explore those features of what individuals know,
think, feel, want, value, and hence choose to do that are
primed by, traceable to, or derivable from participation
in the symbolic forms, communicative exchanges, ritu-
als, mores, folkways, and institutions of some consensus-
sensitive or norm-enforcing group.
On the other hand, investigators look at the way in
which the mentality-laden practices (the custom com-
plexes) of particular groups gain their credibility, rea-
sonableness, and motivational force from the very
psychological states that they have helped activate and
to which they have given life. Cultural psychology is
therefore the study of reciprocal connections between
culture and psyche and of the various patterns or forms
of coherency (custom complexes) that have arisen out of
their interactions.
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY’S THEORY
OF MIND
On a worldwide scale, there is well-documented diver-
sity in the developmentally relevant cultural practices
that promote, sustain, and confirm what the “I’s”
of particular groups know, think, feel, want, value, and
hence choose to do. Consequently, cultural psychology
is concerned not only with the inherent, mandatory, or
fundamental aspects of the human mind but also, indeed
especially, with those parts of what people know, think,
Cultural Psychology’s Theory of Mind 731
feel, want, value, and hence decide to do that are condi-
tional, optional, or discretionary and are primed and
activated through participation in the symbolic and be-
havioral inheritance of particular groups. In effect, cul-
tural psychology is a discipline committed to the study
of patterns of psychological difference across groups or
subgroups and to the investigation of the emergence
(and dissolution) of stable, relatively coherent, and inti-
mate interconnections between cultural practices and
individual mental states.
Any study of difference, however, presupposes many
commonalities, likenesses, or universals by which attri-
butions of difference become intelligible. A notable fea-
ture of our conception of cultural psychology is that it
presupposes certain universal truths about what is (and
what is not) inherent in human psychological function-
ing. At a minimum, we are committed to a theory of
mind in which everywhere in the world human beings
are the kind of beings who have a mental life (who know,
think, and use language and other symbolic forms) and
who feel, want, and value certain things, which is one
way to explain what they do (Donagan, 1987).
Even more deeply, we are committed to the view that
psyche consists of certain mental powers. Most notable
of these are (a) the representational power to form be-
liefs about other persons, society, nature, the divine, and
about means-ends connections of all sorts; and ( b) the
intentional power to affect an imagined future state of
affairs by means of acts of the will, which is the human
capacity to have a causal influence on the world through
acts of decision making and choice.
If the power of representation is an essential feature
of the human psyche, then the human psyche can be
studied, at least in part, as a knowledge structure. If the
power of intentionality is an essential feature of the
human psyche, then the human psyche can be studied, at
least in part, as inherently ends-sensitive, which is min-
imally what it means to be agentic or to have a free will.
This view of the inherent powers of the psyche accords
reasonably well with William James’s (1950) description
of the marks of the “mental.” According to James:
The pursuance of future ends and the choice of means for
their attainment are thus the mark and criterion of the pres-
ence of mentality in a phenomenon. We all use this test to
distinguish between an intelligent and a mechanical perfor-
mance. We impute no mentality to sticks and stones be-
cause they never seem to move for the sake of anything, but
always when pushed and then indifferently and with no sign
of choice. So we unhesitatingly call them senseless. . . . No
732 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
actions but such as are done for an end, and show a choice
of means, can be indubitable expressions of Mind. (p. 1)
As noted earlier the anthropological linguists Anna
Wierzbicka (1986, 1991) and Cliff Goddard (1997,
2001) have shown that the notion of a mental subject or
agent (“I”) and mental state concepts such as to know,
think, feel, want, and value (as good or bad) are lexical-
ized in all languages of the world and universally used
in folk psychology to explain what people do. And it has
been argued by Collingwood (1961, pp. 303, 306; see
also Shweder et al., 1997), among many others, that at
least one basic sense of the folk psychology concept of a
“cause” is the idea of “a free and deliberate act of a con-
scious and responsible agent ” that is best understood
through the ends the agent is trying to achieve and the
means the agent believes are available for achieving
them. With respect to its picture of the component parts
of a mentality, folk psychology and cultural psychology
presuppose pretty much the same picture of the univer-
sal and inherent features of the human psyche. Those
marks of the mental include representation, intentional-
ity, knowing, thinking, feeling, wanting, valuing, and
hence deciding to do something.
Although cultural psychology is primarily concerned
with the emergence and development of psychic plural-
ism, it makes use of a restricted set of mental state con-
cepts as a universal framework for understanding the
organization of psychological differences between the
“I’s” of different groups. The nature and organization
of such differences and the manner of their development
are discussed in the following section.
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY’S SPECIAL USE
OF MENTAL STATE CONCEPTS
In cultural psychology, mental state concepts are used to
refer to the causal powers inherent in the mental nature
of human beings. Such concepts are not necessarily
meant to be descriptions of bits of human consciousness
or of deliberative awareness.
One can use a mental state concept to explain what
people do without necessarily assuming that the mental
events in question are events in consciousness. What
a person knows, thinks, wants, values is not always in
front of that individual as a piece of awareness, even as it
plays a causal role in how the person acts. How that
causal process operates and produces its effects is a
mystery that is at the heart of the unresolved (and per-
haps irresolvable) mind-body or mind-brain problem.
Not all types of explanation of human behavior assume
that mind matters, in the sense of having causal effects
on the body. Cultural psychology makes the assumption
that mental states are real, not epiphenomenal.
This suggests one additional power inherent in the
human psyche—the ability to translate or transform a
self-conscious deliberative process into a routine, auto-
matic, unconscious, or habitual process. This power to
turn a slow calculative process into a rapid response
process prepares the individual to respond skillfully,
smoothly, and not self-consciously (indeed almost
mindlessly) in particular ways in particular circum-
stances. When this translation or transformation is fully
accomplished, the associated mentality comes to be inti-
mate and seems to be implicit in the practice.
As J. W. M. Whiting and Child (1953) pointed out
long ago, with respect to the beliefs implicit in a prac-
tice: “ The performer of a practice does not necessarily
consciously rehearse the belief to himself at each per-
formance. [For example, a typical middle-class Euro-
pean American parent does not necessarily consciously
think to herself or himself ‘I know that I can promote
autonomy and independence in infants and young chil-
dren by having them sleep alone’ every time she or he
goes to bed at night.] If asked, however, she or he will
generally be able to report immediately at least some of
the associated beliefs; in this case one may surmise that
rehearsal of the belief was not part of the stimulus pat-
tern for the present performance of the custom but
rather a significant part of the stimulus pattern earlier in
the development of the custom” (p. 28).
This comment by J. W. M. Whiting and Child is im-
portant for two reasons. First, it highlights the develop-
mental process of becoming unconscious, whereas most
developmental theorists, from Vygotsky to Piaget to
Kohlberg, privilege the developmental process of be-
coming conscious or reflective. Whiting’s and Child’s
implication that much of social behavior is habitual and
automatic and that social life would not be possible if
this were not so accords well with the views of Bourdieu
(1972, 1990, 1991), Packer (1987), and others who are
concerned with the difference between participating in
the world and consciously deliberating about it.
Bourdieu argues that as practices are repeated again
and again, they come to be seen as part of a natural
order, and their original explicit reasons for occurrence
may be difficult to resurrect. Packer makes the point
that development typically involves becoming more flu-
ent at some activity and that this is not necessarily the
 Social Development in the Divergent Interpersonal Worlds of Childhood
same as becoming more reflective about that activity (as
any serious athlete surely knows; see also Keil, Chapter
14, this Handbook, Volume II ).
The idea of the custom complex and the return of re-
search interest to the study of routine or habitual prac-
tice is an invitation to rethink some basic and classical
ideas about the nature of development (on the intellec-
tual history of the idea of “ habit ” see Charles Camic,
1986). More needs to be said about the misguided idea
that one can define progressive development as some
standard formal criterion such as the shift from intuition
to reflection or from context-boundedness to context-
independence (Kessen, 1990).
One can add to the classical image of progressive di-
rectional change an indefinitely large series of other di-
chotomies. Somewhere or other in the vast literature
on cognitive development, someone or other has argued
that the fully developed mind is complex (versus sim-
ple), complete (versus incomplete), explicit (versus
tacit), impersonal (versus personal), taxonomic (versus
associative), elaborated (versus restricted), concept-
driven (versus percept-driven), detached (versus affect-
laden), consistent (versus inconsistent), and so on. As
should be apparent from our discussion of the custom
complex and the developmental advantages of tacit un-
derstandings, habits, and unreflective but fluent skills,
cultural psychology is deeply suspicious of any attempt
to define progressive development by universal (decon-
textualized) formal criteria. In some cases, cognitive
development is the process of becoming less reflective
not more reflective. Again, at times, the accumulation of
tacit understanding is what intellectual growth is all
about. It all depends.
The second reason for the importance of J. W. M.
Whiting’s and Child’s (1953) comment is that it under-
scores the point that any adequate investigation into the
cultural psychology of a person or a people—any de-
scription of a custom complex—must characterize the
level of consciousness of the mentality that is associated
with a particular cultural practice. Are the relevant be-
liefs, values, motives, and satisfactions active without
deliberation, active because of deliberation, reportable
reflections, unavailable to reflection, and so on? When it
comes to participation in the custom complexes of any
particular cultural community, to what extent is the
course of development from the deliberate to the auto-
matic, from the self-conscious to the fluent, or from the
explicated to the tacitly understood? At the very least,
the cultural psychology of development into the custom-
ary practices of any cultural community is likely to be
733
the story of the progressive shift from deliberation and
self-consciousness to mindless or intuitive fluency. It is a
developmental story that has rarely been acknowledged
in child development studies, except perhaps by those in-
terested in the acquisition of physical skills such as
walking down stairs, typing a letter, or hitting a golf ball.
SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE
DIVERGENT INTERPERSONAL WORLDS
OF CHILDHOOD
From the perspective of cultural psychology, the local
world of the child—especially in those dimensions
likely to affect behavioral and psychological develop-
ment—is largely mediated through culture-specific
mentalities and practices of child rearing. In document-
ing variations across populations, cultural psychology
first considers how responsible caregivers and educa-
tors, with special attention to the local ideas and mean-
ings that support their behavior, routinely organize the
child’s experience. If people think and act in the light of
particular goals, values, and pictures of the world, what
are the goals, values, and pictures of the world (the men-
tality) of members of different cultural communities?
Are there any generalizations that can be made about
how and why differences arise in children’s worlds and
how they are structured?
As portrayed in the anthropological literature, varia-
tions in childhood worlds across human populations can
be roughly divided into three categories corresponding
to the material, social, and cultural conditions for child
development (R. A. LeVine, 1989). First, material con-
ditions include diet, housing, infant holding devices,
and forms of protection against disease and other health
risks. Second, social conditions include the family, peer
groups, and other aspects of the interpersonal environ-
ment. Third, cultural conditions refer to the local
ideational models, combining beliefs and moral norms
that give meaning to all features of the child’s world as
well as to the child’s development.
The focus in this section is on interpersonal aspects of
the child’s world, as mediated by differing cultures
throughout the world. A considerable body of evidence on
this subject has accumulated over the past 35 years (since
a review of the literature appearing in the third edition of
the present work; see R. A. LeVine, 1970, and even more
since Margaret Mead’s review in the Handbook’s first
edition in 1931), permitting some generalizations about
the range of variation in children’s worlds and their
734 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
meanings. The interpersonal worlds of children from
birth to adolescence in different cultural communities
vary widely along dimensions that can be described in
quantitative and qualitative terms and that indicate diver-
gent pathways for behavioral and psychological develop-
ment—particularly when analyzed from the perspectives
of interactional theories of development.
First, we begin by describing how differing organiza-
tional settings, caregiving relationships, parental prac-
tices, and age-graded participation in activities provide
divergent patterns of socially and symbolically mediated
experience for children of different cultures. Second, we
turn to the cultural mentalities that not only rationalize
and legitimize these social patterns but also motivate
parental behavior. Third, we consider to what extent cul-
turally differentiated social experience during childhood
affects the psychological development of individuals—
their attachments, skills, competence, preferences, rela-
tionships, and emotional experience as adults. Finally,
we attempt to generalize about universals and variations
in social development and their implications for develop-
mental theory and research.
THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION OF
CHILDHOOD EXPERIENCE
In this section we discuss the character and composition
of domestic groups and variations in their function, size,
density, boundedness.
Organizational Settings
For the first few years of life and often much longer,
children in most societies are raised in domestic groups
(the normal residential homes of the adults who care for
them). The functions of these groups, and their size,
composition, social density, and boundedness—all vari-
able across cultures—influence the quantity and quality
of social experience possible for a child in a given soci-
ety. Many of these features, and the sociospatial arrange-
ment of the family as a domestic group as a whole, are
often not matters of personal choice but are standardized
in local practice according to the dominant mode of eco-
nomic production and prevailing ideas of morality.
The Function of Domestic Groups
In societies with domestic agricultural or craft produc-
tion, where every family engages in productive work at
home, children are raised in local settings designed for
economic activities as well as for family residence. In
urban-industrial societies like the United States, in
which only 2% of adults engage in food production, chil-
dren are more likely to be raised in home settings
specifically designed for child care and segregated from
adult economic activity.
This difference between cultural worlds in which
work and family have been merged versus cultural
worlds in which work and family have been separated
(in some cases, as in the upper middle-class European
American cultural area, with the family functioning
more or less like a Montessori School) makes a great
deal of difference for children. Where home is the set-
ting for food or craft production, the attention of moth-
ers is more often divided between child care and other
demanding tasks. The family is then more likely to oper-
ate as a command hierarchy, with children at the bottom,
and children are more likely to be spectators of a wide
range of adult activities and to participate in them from
an early age (Rogoff, Mistry, Göncü, & Mosier, 1993).
A family that functions as an economic production unit,
like that of many Third World people today and prein-
dustrial Europe and North America, constitutes a dis-
tinctive world of childhood in which child labor is
expected and children’s play and education must be ac-
commodated to the workplaces and routines of the home.
The actual amount of children’s labor contributions
in such families varies from one agricultural people to
another (Nag, White, & Peet, 1978). Among those with
low-level technology, like the peoples of sub-Saharan
Africa, children may have to work a great deal at tasks
they can do such as fetching water, herding animals, car-
ing for babies, and assisting in cultivation. This permits
the adults to concentrate on the heavier or more skilled
tasks of hoeing, planting, weeding, harvesting, and food
processing. Among peoples with a higher level of agri-
cultural technology including irrigation, draft animals,
and plows (e.g., rural villagers of India), the need for
domestic labor is less and children may be indulged and
have more free time. The actual utility of child labor in
a particular setting, however, depends on the specific
crops cultivated, their seasonal cycles, the availability
of resources, such as water, and whether children can be
hired outside the family. When new technology is intro-
duced, the situation changes, and children may be freed
from labor, unless they are drafted into craft production
at home or sent elsewhere as hired hands.
In foraging (i.e., hunting-gathering) and fishing
communities and among pastoral nomads, children also
participate in productive activities at early ages ( by the

standards of contemporary industrialized societies), but
the degree to which they are confined or free to play in
the course of the day and the year varies with the
rhythm of the work cycle. Similar to agricultural com-
munities, domestic economic production largely deter-
mines the functional world of children’s social lives.
The Size of Domestic Groups
The number of persons coresiding in domestic units is
extremely variable among human societies, and al-
though some of this variation depends on the definition
of the unit, it is certain that the nuclear family house-
hold of Europe and North America is among the
smallest in the world. Anthropologists have reported
large domestic groups (up to and more than a hundred)
under a single roof or surrounded by a single wall in
places as diverse as New Guinea, lowland South Amer-
ica, West Africa, and indigenous North America: Al-
though such groups have internal social boundaries,
they certainly provide a child of any age with opportu-
nities for interacting with many and diverse persons
most of the time.
This is also true, in a more limited way, of societies
with extended or joint family structures in which the do-
mestic unit encompasses two or more nuclear families of
two or more generations. B. B. Whiting and Whiting
(1975) pointed out that when adult women share cook-
ing facilities and yard space, they are more likely to in-
teract with each other’s children and cooperate in child
care. The joint families of India are an example, as are
the large compounds of the Yoruba of southwestern
Nigeria, the smaller compounds of the Giriama of
coastal Kenya (Wenger, 1989), and the Hausa of north-
western Nigeria (R. A. LeVine, LeVine, Iwanaga, &
Marvin, 1970; Marvin, VanDevender, Iwanaga, LeVine,
& LeVine, 1977). In all these environments, the sheer
size of the domestic group guarantees that the child will
interact with a large number of women and children
from infancy onward.
The Composition of Domestic Groups
In contemporary urban-industrial societies, the domestic
group is coterminous with the household, and composi-
tion of households with children can usually be classified
by whether one or both parents reside there and whether
there are other adults such as grandparents. It is more
complicated among agrarian and other nonindustrial so-
cieties in which households as physical structures can be
situated in larger domestic units usually referred to as
compounds or homesteads by anthropologists.
The Social Organization of Childhood Experience 735
Among the Gusii of southwestern Kenya, a married
woman and her younger children live in a house by
themselves, but it is a unit embedded in a homestead
owned by her husband or father-in-law, along with the
(nearby) houses of her parents-in-law, brothers-in-law,
and co-wives. If her husband is a polygamist, he may
live in the houses of his other wives all or part of the
time or even in a hut of his own separate from all of
them, though near enough for children to bring him hot
food from their houses.
Furthermore, as the children get older, they leave the
mother’s house to sleep in the house of an older brother
(for boys) or a grandmother (for girls), all within the
homestead. The Gusii mother-child household is the ele-
mentary unit of family residence, but the homestead is
the basic unit of domestic social life from the viewpoint
of adults, and its male members form the nucleus of
a local patrilineage (R. A. LeVine et al., 1994; R. A.
LeVine & LeVine, 1966). This complex composition of
domestic groups is common to many nonindustrial soci-
eties and often means that the child grows up in a more
complex residential environment than that of the average
American child.
The Social Density of Domestic Groups
The interactive settings in which children spend their
early lives—including those of eating, sleeping, work,
and play—vary widely in social density across cultures
regardless of the size and compositional complexity of
domestic groups. Gusii children may grow up in a home-
stead with as many as 58 inhabitants but spend all their
hours in and around their mother’s house, interacting
only with mother and older siblings during the pre-
school years.
In contrast, Hausa children, in a much smaller com-
pound, may experience greater social density because
the sharing of cooking facilities and yard space among
the Hausa women in a walled compound creates more
crowded settings for daily interaction involving chil-
dren. The social density a child experiences, especially
during the less mobile early years of life, depends not
only on the wealth or resources of the family but also on
the rules that govern family interaction. It seems hard
for Americans and Europeans to believe that people in
other cultures may enjoy, indeed prefer, crowded set-
tings in which to eat, sleep, work, play, and even breast-
feed babies (Tronick, Morelli, & Winn, 1987), but such
preferences are widespread among the world’s peoples,
even when they have enough domestic space in which to
carry on these activities in isolation.
736 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
The Boundedness of Domestic Groups
Interactive patterns in the child’s world are constrained
by the social boundaries recognized by adults. Bound-
aries can be physical in form, like the mud walls of a
Yoruba or Hausa compound or the cultivated fields that
divide the mother-child households of a Gusii home-
stead from each other. Boundaries can also be invisible
or conceptual barriers, as in the local traditions of inter-
household visiting, greeting, and hospitality that limit
the interaction of children and adults in many Western
and Japanese urban neighborhoods.
In urban India, by contrast, there are middle-class
apartment dwellings occupied by kin-related families
whose children wander in and out of each other’s homes
without such restriction. From the children’s perspec-
tive, the permeability of the household and other domes-
tic units in the immediate environment provides the
basis of a cognitive map of their social world.
Care-Giving Relationships
Mothers are the primary caregivers of their children for
at least the first 2 years of life in most human societies,
but there are significant exceptions, and there is even
greater variation in the array of supplementary care-
givers who assist mothers and form relationships with
young children. The ethnographic record as a whole does
not suggest that there is a single system for human child
care but rather a range of parental patterns flexible
enough to respond to and enable varying economic, de-
mographic, and technological conditions with diverse
care-giving arrangements that affect the interpersonal
experience of the growing child.
When women have a heavy workload due to a primary
role in food production, then the resultant scarcity of fe-
male labor may create a demand for supplementary care-
giving arrangements. When children are scarce relative
to adult women (due to high rates of infertility, infant
and child mortality, or contraception), adult women who
are infertile or postmenopausal may be eager to take
care of young children born to others. When wet nurses
or synthetic milk formulas become available, maternal
breast-feeding may decline. Thus, variations in caregiv-
ing practices and relationships are generated by the dif-
fering conditions to which human populations adapt.
There are some human populations in which a major-
ity of children under 2 years of age live with and are
cared for by someone other than their mothers. These
fostering and adoption practices have been documented
in Micronesia (Carroll, 1970) and West Africa (Bledsoe,
1989). In these cases, young children are distributed
among kin, often to mothers and sisters of the women
who gave birth to them, after a period of breast-feeding
by the mother. There is usually no effort to disguise the
original relationship, and children often go back to their
mothers after a period of years. Although some mothers
do this because they feel obliged to meet the demands of
their own mothers or sisters, they usually also feel that
the child will benefit from additional sponsorship, as
Goody (1982) has described for the fostering of older
children among the Gonja of Ghana. All these practices
are infused with the assumptions of a kinship ideology
in which children are seen as belonging to, and as poten-
tial beneficiaries of, a descent group wider than the bio-
logical parents. Mothers who do not care for their own
children are not viewed as irresponsible or neglectful in
these cultural communities.
In a much larger range of societies, children are
raised by their mothers, though often with help from
others such as sibling caregivers, grandmothers and
other related adult women, and fathers or other men.
Sibling care of infants is widespread not only in sub-
Saharan Africa (where it is ubiquitous) but also in Ocea-
nia, Okinawa, and parts of Southeast Asia (Weisner,
1982, 1987, 1989a, 1989b; Weisner & Gallimore, 1977).
It is more frequent where mothers have extensive re-
sponsibility for agriculture.
The practice of sibling caretaking raises the question
of whether leaving infants in the care of 5- to 10-year-old
children, which would be considered criminal neglect in
the United States, harms babies when it has achieved the
status of a custom complex and is the routine practice of
an entire population.
From the available evidence, the answer to this ques-
tion is: No, babies are not harmed by this practice. For
several reasons, first, 5-year-old children can be, and
are, trained to be responsibly protective, if not necessar-
ily sensitive, caregivers, particularly for babies carried
on the back. Second, child care is largely conducted in
the open air during the day, and neighbors are within
earshot in case anything goes wrong. Third, the child
nurse is not expected to substitute for the mother in a
general sense, but simply to complement her care by pro-
tecting and feeding the baby for a few hours at a time.
The mother breast-feeds during the day and sleeps with
the baby at night, and infants raised under these condi-
tions become attached to their mothers.

Finally, and in light of the foregoing, it seems that
the American or European American concern about
psychological harm is probably exaggerated. Babies can
accommodate comfortably to sibling care, and back-
carrying as well as other widespread forms of tactile
stimulation promote both physical growth and psy-
chosocial attachment during the 1st year (R. A. LeVine
et al., 1994, pp. 257–258).
Furthermore, sibling care can initiate a strong lifelong
relationship between an older sister and younger brother,
which some cultures selectively promote. Among the
Hausa, the marriage of a sister’s son to the daughter of
the brother she cared for as an infant is a preferred form
of cross-cousin marriage. Even in the short run, the rela-
tionship of the toddler to his sibling caregiver often intro-
duces the child to a larger group of children who become
salient nonparental figures in his life.
Grandmothers and other adult women often play an
important supplementary role in infant care, especially
where children are raised in large domestic groups. From
West Africa to India and China, grandmothers are not
only caregivers in the early years but also, as the child
grows older, complements to the mother’s disciplinary
role with their unconditional nurturance and emotional
support. Children can, and often do, form intense and
long-lasting relationships with other resident women in
extended family situations.
Fathers and other men are more rarely observed as
caregivers for young children, but there is variation
across human populations. Hewlett (1992) has provided
substantial data from diverse peoples. He distinguishes
between the father’s investment in the child, which may
be indirect and consist of providing resources through
the mother, and involvement with the child, which refers
to interaction.
Although paternal interaction with young children is
rare relative to that of the mother and other females, and
it is unusual cross-culturally for males to be constant
and responsible caregivers (as opposed to occasional
playmates) for infants or toddlers, the range is quite con-
siderable. Among the Dinka of the Sudan, for example,
the exclusion of men from attending the delivery of a
child is extended through the early years of a child’s
life, and the father only interacts with his older children
(Deng, 1972). Aka pygmy fathers in Cameroon, how-
ever, participate substantially in the care of young chil-
dren (Hewlett, 1991), and among high-caste Hindu
farmers of the Katmandu Valley in Nepal, various men
in the extended family take care of infants and toddlers
The Social Organization of Childhood Experience 737
for periods of time during the day (S. LeVine, n.d.). As
Harkness and Super (1992) point out, fathers can be in
the presence of young children without interacting with
them, and it is only when cultural practices and mental-
ities favor it, that fathers and other men will assume re-
sponsibility for the care of children or engage them in
interaction. Infants become attached to their father and
other men who interact with them, as they do to their
mother, siblings, grandmothers, and other adult women
(Ainsworth, 1967).
Parental Practices
An important and culturally variable part of the child’s
social environment is constituted by the customary activ-
ities that parents and others arrange for them. Observa-
tional investigators of human and other primate offspring
have created a number of dichotomous categories to de-
scribe these activities: Child-centered communications
versus those that do not include the child, distal (often
verbal) versus proximal (usually physical) stimulations,
reciprocal or contingent vocalization versus unilateral
speech to a child, positive versus negative emotional
arousal, soothing versus stimulation, and sensitive versus
insensitive response to infant signals.
These dichotomies are behaviorally specified to be
unequivocally observable in differing contexts of pri-
mate behavior, but they nevertheless seem to reflect
European American middle-class preferences for
child-centered, distal, verbal, reciprocal, emotionally
positive, stimulating, and sensitive patterns of parent-
child interaction. Studies using these categories cross-
culturally usually show that parents in other cultures
exhibit some or all of these behaviors less frequently
than middle-class European Americans (R. A. LeVine
et al., 1994; Richman et al., 1988; Richman, Miller, &
LeVine, 1992).
However valid these findings of difference in fre-
quencies may be, they are only part of the story. Taking
European American custom complexes as the reference
point for comparison almost inevitably means overlook-
ing activities and dimensions that are salient only in the
other cultures. Without a complementary account of the
mentality and point of view of the other culture, this is
grossly uninformative, like an African account that
might describe the American family as lacking cattle
and agriculture.
The findings may indicate that parents in the other
culture are not committed to the same custom complex
738 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
in their observable practices and do not share the Euro-
pean American mentality, but the findings do not de-
scribe what custom complex they are committed to and
what goals, values, and pictures of the world they are in
fact and in practice following. To make sense of observ-
able differences in parents’ practices, it is necessary to
describe the parents’ cultural models of social relations.
It is necessary to describe the mentalities that guide and
give meaning to their practices and to a child’s social
participation. Some illustrations are provided in the
next section.
Age-Graded Activities
In all societies, the social interaction of children is al-
tered by their age-related participation in activities at
home or school. The institution of schooling creates an
extreme form of age-grading. In most schools children,
from the ages of 5- to 8-years-old onward, tend to be
rigidly segregated by age from those older and younger
for many of their daytime activities.
The peer groups that result are neither natural nor
universal. In societies without schools, children’s rela-
tionships with each other are formed among siblings or
other multiage groups of juveniles (Konner, 1975). In
these multiage groups, participants are much more
sharply differentiated by authority and knowledge than
in school-based peer groups. In such groups, relation-
ships among older and younger children may facilitate
the learning of skills by the younger, who observe ma-
ture practice performed by someone old enough to be
more skilled but close enough in age to be easily imi-
tated (Dunn, 1983).
Sibling relations may also promote interpersonal
responsibility, cooperation, and sensitivity to the
vulnerability of others on the part of the elder children
(Schieffelin, 1990; Weisner, 1982, 1987, 1989b; B. B.
Whiting & Edwards, 1988). Schools, alternatively,
may foster interpersonal comparison and competi-
tion among peers and, by obstructing the child’s obser-
vational access to mature practice, make learning more
problematic and hence more self-conscious (Lave,
1990; R. A. LeVine, 1978; Scribner & Cole, 1973).
Cultural variability in age-graded social activities is
widened further by specific combinations of siblings,
school and work in the local environments of children,
and culture-specific norms that elaborate or diminish
age ranking.
CULTURAL MENTALITIES CONCERNING
CHILDHOOD SOCIAL RELATIONS
Parents do not always try to control the interpersonal en-
vironments of their children in detail, particularly after
the first 2 or 3 years, and when they try to, they are
often far from successful. Nevertheless, parents care
about and can usually influence the settings in which
their children interact with others, their caregivers and
companions, and the kinds of interactions that take
place (B. B. Whiting & Edwards, 1988; B. B. Whiting &
Whiting, 1975). Thus, it matters what parents think and
feel about such things, and socially inherited beliefs,
values, and pictures of the world frame what they think
and feel. Parents are culture bearers, and their models
of childhood social relations are as variable as their
culture’s conceptions of the good life and how to live it
(Harkness & Super, 1996; R. A. LeVine et al., 1994;
R. A. LeVine, Miller, & West, 1988).
Parental Models and Strategies
Parental behavior is symbolic action in Geertz’s
(1973b) sense of the term and reflects a local mentality
about what parenthood and child development are and
ought to be, as formulated in the symbols of a particu-
lar culture. The local cultural mentality gives meaning
to the actions of parents and children and motivates
parents to promote certain behaviors and dampen oth-
ers. A cultural mentality of child care has three compo-
nents: (1) moral direction, (2) a pragmatic design, and
(3) customary scripts for interaction (R. A. LeVine
et al., 1994).
Moral Direction
Cultural mentalities of child care are goal driven; they
are formulated by cultural concepts of virtue toward
which a child’s behavioral development should move.
The vernacular words (e.g., independence, autonomy,
and self-reliance for the European American middle
class) and the images associated with them that repre-
sent virtuous goals of development help provide parents’
rationales for their observable child-care practices.
Research on comparative ethics and development,
however, has revealed that the humanly recognizable
virtues or moral ends of life can be culturally organized
in ways that do not privilege an “ethics of autonomy”
(Haidt et al., 1993; Jensen, 1996, 2005; Shweder, 1990b;

Shweder et al., 1990, 1997) and that in some societies an
“ethics of community” and/or an “ethics of divinity”
leads to an emphasis on alternative virtues and goals of
development such as duty, respect, hierarchical interde-
pendency, purity, and sanctity.
Furthermore, each type of ethics highlights a partic-
ular view of the self. Shweder et al. (1997) argue that (a)
the ethics of autonomy is associated with a conception
of the self as an individual preference structure, where
the point of moral evaluation is to increase choice and
personal liberty; ( b) the ethics of community is associ-
ated with a conception of the self as an office holder in
which a person’s role or station in life is intrinsic to
their identity; and (c) the ethics of divinity is associated
with a conception of the self as a spiritual entity con-
nected to some sacred order of things and as the bearer
of a legacy that is elevated and pure. The meaning of
child-care practices in any particular community, from
disciplinary practices to sleeping arrangements to the
practice of circumcision, is often most understandable
with reference to the particular moral ends that justify
and rationalize those practices in the minds of parents in
that local cultural world (on initiation and circumcision
see, e.g., Kratz, 1994, pp. 341–347).
Pragmatic Design
Cultural mentalities of child care embody strategies not
only for facilitating the child’s behavioral development
in a morally virtuous direction but also for achieving
other ends (e.g., survival, health, and economic returns)
and for overcoming obstacles to the attainment of all
these ends. This utilitarian aspect of child-care mentali-
ties provides a practical value and convinces parents that
they are doing what is necessary and right.
Customary Scripts for Interaction
The moral and pragmatic aspects of a child-care mental-
ity may or may not be explicitly formulated in general
terms, but they are always represented in the social cus-
toms that guide the interaction of parents and other
caregivers with young and older children. At this level of
specificity in social interaction, for example, the script
for responding to a baby’s cry among the Gusii of Kenya
is an immediate soothing response. This response is
seen as promoting the calmness and compliance of a
young child (the moral direction) as well as the child’s
health and survival in the early months (part of the
pragmatic design). However, it is so customary that al-
The Ef fects of Early Interpersonal Experience 739
lowing a baby to cry more than a few seconds is experi-
enced by Gusii adults as an intolerable breach of care-
giving norms.
THE EFFECTS OF EARLY
INTERPERSONAL EXPERIENCE
What effects do cultural variations in interpersonal en-
vironments and symbolically mediated experience have
on the behavioral and psychosocial development of the
child? A cultural community or population-level ap-
proach provides a clearer picture of the effects of early
experience than a focus on the psychology of individual
differences (R. A. LeVine, 1990a). For example, chil-
dren who grow up in China obviously learn to speak
Chinese, just as those who grow up in Turkey learn
Turkish. Less obvious, but well established by sociolin-
guistic investigators of child language, is that as young
children acquire a first language they also master the
communicative practices regulating interpersonal be-
havior in their communities (Ochs & Schieffelin, 1984;
Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986a, 1986b).
The symbolic mediation of experience and commu-
nicative practices are discussed in a following section.
The main point of emphasis here is a very simple one:
For young children the development of communicative
competence reflects their early experience in a particu-
lar language environment and constitutes an important
part of their early enculturation.
By age 3, children have culture-specific capacities for
and expectations of emotionally salient interpersonal
behavior, embedded in speech routines and other cus-
toms of face-to-face interaction, in the context of spe-
cific relationships (Schieffelin, 1990). Their behavioral
development has taken a culturally distinctive character
and direction, diverging from that of other cultures.
Relatively little research has been done on the
behavioral consequences of cultural variations in early
social experience, but there is some evidence of
measurable effects. Social behaviors shown to differ
across culturally varying samples of children include
infant-mother attachment (Grossmann & Grossmann,
1981, 1991; Grossmann, Grossmann, Spangler, Suess,
& Unzner, 1985), attention-seeking (R. A. LeVine
et al., 1994; B. B. Whiting & Whiting, 1975), depend-
ence (Caudill & Schooler, 1973), cooperation (Thomas,
1978), and gender orientation (B. B. Whiting & Ed-
wards, 1988). In each of these cases, the evidence of
740 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
behavioral difference has been interpreted by the inves-
tigators to reflect the impact of the children’s prior ex-
perience in divergent cultural environments, although it
is probably not possible at this time to choose between
different interpretations of this impact (e.g., facilita-
tion, attunement, or maintenance/ loss, as discussed
earlier; Werker, 1989).
An example from infancy research is the Gross-
manns’ (1981, 1991; Grossmann et al., 1985) study
of infant-mother attachment in Bielefeld, North Ger-
many. This German replication of Mary Ainsworth’s
Baltimore study (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall,
1978) found that the majority of a nonclinical sample
of 12-month-olds was classifiable on the basis of the
videotaped Strange Situation as “insecurely” attached
to their mothers. Forty-nine percent of the sample was
classified in the “A” category or “anxious-avoidant,” al-
most twice as large a proportion as in American sam-
ples. The Grossmanns related this departure from
American norms to the German mothers’ custom com-
plex—their mentality and practices. German mothers, in
this region of Germany, prefer a greater physical and in-
terpersonal distance from their infants than Americans,
leaving them alone more often and sometimes pushing
them away. They would consider American infants rated
as “optimal” by attachment researchers to be spoiled.
According to the Grossmanns’ interpretation, the
culture-specific preferences of the German mothers was
based on a broader cultural mentality, even ideology,
emphasizing an ideal of pure independence that is even
more exaggerated than the European American ethics of
autonomy. For these mothers, this cultural ideology was
translated into maternal practices that affected not only
their infants’ routine expectations for social interaction
and comforting but also their response to separation and
reunion in the Strange Situation. Their interpretation of
their findings implies, though the Grossmanns do not
say so, that the profile of attachment ratings of Ameri-
can infants in the Strange Situation can be seen as re-
flecting the culturally influenced parental practices of
European Americans rather than a universal norm for all
human populations (LeVine & Norman, 2001).
If this is so, then claims of species-typical universal-
ity for attachment as observed in the Strange Situation
should be considered premature. Infant reactions to re-
union with their mother after a brief separation at 12
months of age can be reinterpreted as indicators of early
enculturation to a cultural standard of interpersonal dis-
tance mediated through parental practices of infant care.
The German evidence provides the starting point for
a cultural critique of the Bowlby-Ainsworth model of at-
tachment, especially its claims to have discovered the
evolutionary origins of human social relationships and
the biological basis for judgments of optimality, normal-
ity, and pathology in early development. As more de-
tailed and culturally informed evidence on behavioral
development in diverse cultures accumulates, a cultural
critique of developmental models may serve a useful
purpose, particularly if the models themselves continue
to ignore cultural variation in early social experience.
At this point, it may not be possible to launch robust
generalizations about the psychological effects of
early interpersonal experience based on population-
level comparisons across cultures. However, as the con-
cepts and techniques for observing and recording infant
care and early communicative exchanges involving chil-
dren have improved, and as comparative evidence has
grown, so have the grounds for believing human behav-
ioral development to be culturally divergent from the
early years of childhood onward.
THE SYMBOLIC MEDIATION OF
EXPERIENCE: LANGUAGE AND
COMMUNICATIVE CUSTOMS IN
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY
It is a major assumption of cultural psychology that one
mind is transformed into many mentalities through the
symbolic mediation of experience and that the human
conceptual capacities that support culture also support
language use, which is the primary means by which the
symbolic and behavioral inheritances of a cultural tradi-
tion are passed on to the next generation. It is primarily
by means of language that human beings negotiate
divergent points of view and construct shared cultural
realities. In this section, we selectively discuss the role
of certain pragmatic forms of linguistic analysis in re-
search on the cultural psychology of development.
As children learn language, they gain entry to exist-
ing meaning systems and access to the tools for recreat-
ing and transforming those systems. In a wide-ranging
review of the literature, Nelson (1996) concludes “lan-
guage and the surrounding culture take over the human
mind” (p. 325), profoundly changing the nature of cog-
nition and communication during the time from 2 to 6
years of age. Language is fundamental not only to mean-
ing construction but to identity. Through its association

with particular contexts, language comes to symbolize
and belong to particular groups. Quite simply, there can
be no cultural psychology without language.
This premise is traceable to many intellectual fore-
bears of contemporary cultural psychology. These in-
clude the eighteenth-century European philosophers who
laid the groundwork for cultural psychology (Jahoda,
1992), Wilhelm Wundt and other nineteenth-century
proponents of a “second” psychology (Cahan & White,
1992), and Edward Sapir (Mandelbaum, 1951) the an-
thropological linguist whose works on language in social
life and on culture and personality anticipated many top-
ics of current interest to cultural psychologists.
We begin this section of the chapter by discussing the
conception of language that is most compatible with the
aims of cultural psychology and by identifying resources
from allied fields of study that hold promise for deepen-
ing our understanding of language in cultural life. We
turn next to socialization, one of the fundamental prob-
lems of cultural psychology, and review studies that
have yielded important insights into the actual process
of socialization by examining the forms and functions of
everyday discourse. We then single out oral narrative as
a paradigm case of everyday discourse, organizing the
discussion around issues of diversity. Throughout this
section, the primary focus is on research with young
children. In keeping with the comparative commitment
of cultural psychology, examples of variation within and
across cultures are included wherever possible.
LANGUAGE AS PRACTICE
The centrality of language to cultural psychology stems
not only from historical precedent but also from the du-
ality of language. Unlike other domains, language is
both a tool and an object of inquiry. On the one hand,
the use of language as an instrument of inquiry is perva-
sive; every study of human development depends on
verbal communication in one way or another. Children
are questioned about the reasons for their moral judg-
ments. Parents are interviewed about their child-rearing
beliefs. Verbal behaviors are incorporated into observa-
tional coding schemes. Experimental tasks have to be
explained to participants. On the other hand, language
serves as the object of inquiry in many studies that seek
to understand the nature and development of the lin-
guistic system itself, including its various subsystems
(e.g., syntax, morphology).
Language as Practice 741
This distinction between language as tool and object
of inquiry serves the interests of cultural psychology by
promoting critical examination of the ways in which re-
searchers use language in conducting their research and
by acknowledging the continued importance of under-
standing the referential function of language. At the
same time, this distinction is limiting because it does
not readily encompass a third, rapidly growing set of
studies of particular interest to cultural psychology.
These studies focus on talk but they are not con-
cerned with language development itself. Instead, they
examine how talk contributes to constituting children’s
experience in other developmental domains (Garvey,
1992) such as social development (e.g., Dunn, 1993),
self construction (e.g., Bruner, 1990a, 1990b), and peer
culture (e.g., Corsaro, 1992, 1997). These studies take
talk seriously as a “substantive, structured, and struc-
turing activity with intrinsic developmental signifi-
cance” (Packer, 1987, p. 253). An important implication
of this perspective is that a particular social phenome-
non may be constituted in qualitatively different ways
within and across cultures and that these differences are
created partly through talk.
Recent research on play deserves to be singled out
because it illustrates this point especially well and be-
cause it represents some of the most richly contextual-
ized research in developmental cultural psychology.
Children use verbal and nonverbal means to frame their
play as nonliteral, to enact pretend roles, and to negoti-
ate pretend transformations with their play partners
(e.g., Garvey & Kramer, 1989; Sawyer, 1997). How-
ever, local customs and belief systems vary dramati-
cally along many dimensions, including who children
play with and how they communicate with one another
(e.g., C. D. Clark, 2003; Göncü, 1999; Göncü, Patt, &
Kouba, 2002; Haight, Wang, Fung, Williams, & Mintz,
1999; Lancy, 1996; Schwartzman, 1978). For example,
when a child has long conversations with an invisible
other, middle-class American parents are likely to as-
sume that she is talking to an imaginary companion;
Hindu parents that she is talking to a real spiritual being
(M. Taylor & Carlson, 2000). In contrast to middle-class
European American children, whose mothers induct them
into pretense by prompting, elaborating, and modeling
(Haight & Miller, 1993), Yucatec Mayan parents do not
play with young children (Gaskins, 1999). When Mayan
children engage in social pretense, they do so exclusively
with other children. Similarly, Indonesian and Mexican
children are socialized into play by older siblings
742 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
(Farver, 1999). Although children in all these groups
engage in pretend play, they do so according to local so-
cial and communicative conventions. As a result, play
assumes different forms, takes on different signifi-
cances, and likely makes different contributions to their
overall development.
Implicit in these studies is a conception of language
that privileges the situated use of language and recog-
nizes that speaking is inherently polysemous when ex-
tracted from context (Bauman & Sherzer, 1989; Duranti
& Goodwin, 1992; Hanks, 1996). This conception con-
trasts with the narrowly referential conception of
language that holds sway in most research on human de-
velopment and cross-cultural psychology. The view of
language that is most compatible with the aims of cul-
tural psychology does not reduce language to a represen-
tational system or repository of knowledge. Rather, it
goes beyond grammatical and lexical meaning to include
processes of indexical meaning that anchor utterances to
their linguistic and nonlinguistic contexts and to unspo-
ken background assumptions.
Hanks (1996) describes speech as “a form of engage-
ment in the world. . . .To speak is to occupy the world,
not only to represent it, and this occupancy entails vari-
ous modes of expression, of which propositional mean-
ing is only one” (p. 236). To speak is to create social
realities—to play, tease, instruct, dominate, transform
oneself, and so on. Just as language cannot be sealed off
from social life, words cannot be sealed off from si-
lence or from gaze, posture, gesture, facial expression,
and other practices of the body. From this perspective,
speaking consists of practices that are organized be-
yond the sentence level into dialogues, genres, and mul-
tichanneled performances. These larger communicative
events, while serving as units of analysis, are them-
selves multiply embedded in larger sociocultural con-
texts and networks of cultural practices. In contrast to
approaches that take the disembodied word, sentence,
or text as the unit of analysis, this approach permits a
deeper cultural analysis, for it recognizes that cultural
principles are expressed not just in the content of talk
but in the way that discourse is organized internally and
in relation to larger events and sequences of talk.
Among the many intellectual currents that have fed
into practiced-centered views of language is sociohistor-
ical theory, with its focus on semiotically mediated
activity (Cole, 1996; Wertsch, 1985) and linguistic an-
thropology, especially the fields of ethnography of com-
munication (e.g., Bauman & Sherzer, 1989; Hymes,
1974) and language socialization (which is discussed
more fully later). These fields have been centrally con-
cerned with cross-cultural comparisons and hence are
especially germane to the comparative mission of cul-
tural psychology. Resting on the assumption that every-
day talk is a pervasive, orderly, and culturally organized
feature of social life in every culture, they seek to un-
derstand the diversity of language use in the conduct
and constitution of social life.
These fields provide a rich set of conceptual,
methodological, and empirical resources that cultural
psychologists should exploit more fully. These include
procedures for grounding interpretations of commu-
nicative practices in the public cues that participants
systematically deploy in interaction and critiques of our
own social scientific methods as communicative prac-
tices whose meaning may not be shared by the people
we study. For example, C. Briggs’ (1986) analysis of in-
terviewing as a social and cultural practice is still
timely and demonstrates the critical importance of
customizing interviewing to local metacommunicative
practices (see also P. J. Miller et al., 2003, for an appli-
cation of this approach).
Another important insight from these fields pertains
to the issue of context. The focus on naturally occurring
discursive practices has led to a much more dynamic
conception of context and practice than is usually as-
sumed in developmental studies. Contexts are treated
not as static givens, dictated by the social and physical
environment, but as ongoing accomplishments negoti-
ated by participants. This shift from static to dynamic is
signaled by the term contextualization, which focuses
attention on the interpretive processes participants
themselves use to determine which aspects of the ongo-
ing activity are relevant (e.g., Bauman & Briggs, 1990;
Duranti & Goodwin, 1992). This conceptual innovation
offers a holistic conception of individual and context as
an interlocking system in which the language practice
changes along with the person (see Goodnow et al.,
1995, for further discussion of this point).
SOCIALIZATION THROUGH LANGUAGE
The growing literature on language socialization de-
serves further consideration because it arises from an
intellectual project that is basic to cultural psychology.
Cultural psychology recognizes that child development
is inextricably bound to the process of socialization—of
orienting oneself in systems of meaning—and seeks to
understand the nature of this process as it is actually en-

acted by living, experiencing human beings. Cultural
psychology is uniquely positioned, by virtue of its inter-
disciplinary character and commitment to meaning, to
claim socialization fully as its own—something that
none of the social sciences has succeeded in doing. Be-
cause of the way in which human action has been parti-
tioned for study, socialization has remained marginal to
the intellectual agenda of any discipline. As a result, it
has been difficult to devise an integrated conception of
socialization that slights neither culture nor children.
The field of language socialization provides an impor-
tant model of how to proceed with this task. Inspired by
Edward Sapir’s famous words, “Language is a great
force of socialization, probably the greatest that exists”
(Mandelbaum, 1951, p. 15), this field rests on the prem-
ise that children are not only socialized through language
but are socialized to use language (Ochs & Schieffelin,
1984). Another touchstone is the Vygotskian idea that so-
ciocultural meanings are created by using language for
particular purposes in socially defined activities (Vygot-
sky, 1934/1987; Wertsch, 1985). If language not only re-
flects meaning but also constitutes meaning, then an
adequate theory of socialization must incorporate talk in
a principled way.
Such a theory confers three advantages. First, the
actual processes of socialization are rendered accessi-
ble through analysis of the forms and functions of
everyday discourse. Second, in keeping with a basic in-
sight of modern developmental psychology, the child is
accorded an active role through a focus on child and
caregivers’ mutual, negotiated participation in dis-
course practices (Brandtstädter, Chapter 10, this Hand-
book, this volume; Rogoff, 1990). Third, the fact that
language practices systematically index social statuses
and ideologies helps to explain the varied affective
stances—eager acceptance, resistance, playfulness—
that children assume as they attempt to invest cultural
resources with meaning (Watson-Gegeo & Gegeo,
1999). Both the nonneutral, ideologically charged na-
ture of the socializing environment and the necessarily
evaluative responses of the child-in-context are taken
into account (Goodnow, 1990a).
Beginning in the 1970s, led by the pioneering work of
Ochs and Schieffelin (1984), researchers began to trans-
late these ideas into a particular kind of empirical work
designed to link macro- and microlevels of analysis. In
an attempt to discover how communities structure chil-
dren’s entry into meaning, they combined ethnographic
fieldwork with the meticulous documentation of interac-
tions between members and novices as they unfold in
Socialization through Language 743
everyday life. Although the process of language social-
ization was assumed to be lifelong, most research fo-
cused on the early years. In contrast to many domains of
human development, some of the best documented cases
were non-Western cultures (e.g., Ochs, 1988; Schieffe-
lin, 1990; Watson-Gegeo & Gegeo, 1990, 1999) and
working-class and minority groups in the United States
(e.g., Heath, 1983; P. J. Miller, 1982).
Research on language socialization has been the sub-
ject of numerous reviews (e.g., P. J. Miller & Hoogstra,
1992; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986a) and collections (e.g.,
Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Corsaro & Miller, 1992; Schi-
effelin & Ochs, 1986b). An important conclusion
emerging from this body of work is that there is enor-
mous diversity in the cultural organization of caregiving
and language learning and that the pattern of sustained
dyadic conversation and mutual negotiation of meaning
so familiar to many middle-class European Americans
is but one variant among many. As noted earlier, groups
differ in the physical and social ecology of child care, in
language ideologies and folk theories about the nature of
children and development, in the practices used to en-
courage mature speech, and in the principles that orga-
nize interaction.
For example, Kaluli mothers of Papua, New Guinea,
believe that infants do not understand and thus cannot be
conversational partners (Schieffelin, 1990). They do not
talk to infants; instead they face babies outwards so that
they can be part of the social flow. When older siblings
greet the baby, the mother speaks for the baby, using
language that is appropriate to the older child. Mothers
do not interpret or paraphrase infants’ vocalizations, a
practice that reflects a dispreference for talking about
another person’s thoughts or feelings. In the working-
class African American community described by Heath
(1983), multiparty talk is the norm and children are al-
most never alone. Talk around the child, rather than talk
directly to the child, is the primary linguistic resource
for novice learners. In a Mayan community in southern
Mexico, both dyadic and “eavesdropper ” models of lan-
guage learning are practiced, and nonverbal interaction
plays an important role in organizing infants’ participa-
tion (de León, 2000).
Coexisting with these and other differences are im-
portant similarities. For example, many groups socialize
children into elaborate forms of teasing and opposi-
tional language (e.g., Briggs, 1998; Corsaro, Molinari,
& Rosier, 2002; de León, 2000; Eisenberg, 1986). Even
more widespread is the use of explicit instruction to so-
cialize young children into valued ways of acting, feeling,
744 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
and speaking (P. J. Miller & Hoogstra, 1992). This is
one of the reasons we could suggest (in our initial dis-
cussion of the custom complex) that the course of pro-
gressive development is sometimes from the reflective
to the unreflective, from the explicit to the tacit. For ex-
ample, Watson-Gegeo and Gegeo (1990), found that
Kwara’ae (Solomon Islands) parents used a symboli-
cally powerful and emotionally intense discourse,
called “shaping the mind,” to pass on traditional knowl-
edge and encourage children to practice reasoning and
argumentation.
Research on language socialization also has revealed
that many of the most powerful socializing messages are
implicit and unintended. They are conveyed through
tacit routine organizations of time and space, with their
associated routines and distributions of social actors,
and through contrastive distributions of language forms
and functions that index meaning. The implication is
that research that depends exclusively on asking care-
givers about their socializing goals is likely to miss
some of the deepest and most subtle dimensions of so-
cialization—those pervasive and fundamental cultural
orderings that feel most deeply natural to participants
and are least likely to be reflected on. For example,
Western Samoan children begin to learn about the social
stratification that pervades their society not only by par-
ticipating in interactions in which higher status care-
givers direct lower status caregivers to care for them but
also by observing how caregivers of different rank dis-
tribute themselves in domestic spaces (Ochs, 1988).
In addition to establishing that there are diverse path-
ways to communicative competence, studies of language
socialization also demonstrate that children come to em-
body diverse ways of being in the world. Particularly rel-
evant to cultural psychology are studies that focus on the
socialization of affect. Like earlier work (e.g., P. J. Miller
& Sperry, 1987; Schieffelin & Ochs, 1986a, 1986b), re-
cent studies show that children are able to express affect
through customary communicative means from an early
age and that they deploy a wide variety of communicative
resources, not just emotion state terms (e.g., Clancy,
1999). Some studies focus on caregivers’ styles of affec-
tive socialization (e.g., Cervantes, 2002). Others show
how culturally salient affective experience—for example,
shame for Taiwanese children (Fung, 1999), interper-
sonal danger for Inuit children (J. Briggs, 1998)—is con-
stituted through children’s habitual participation in
recurring patterns of discourse.
Welcome as such evidence is for developmental cul-
tural psychology, the project of mapping a landscape of
cultural distinctiveness carries with it certain risks. One
of the unintended consequences of the first phase of re-
search on language socialization was to essentialize dif-
ferences across cultures, minimizing variation within
culture and across time (Ochs, 1999). Fortunately, an
emerging trend in recent research on language socializa-
tion is a focus on bilingual and multilingual communi-
ties and other situations in which languages and cultures
come into contact (Bayley & Schecter, 2003; Garrett &
Baquedano-López, 2002). Kulick’s (1992) study of lan-
guage shift and language socialization in Gapun, Papua,
New Guinea is a landmark in this respect. Adults in this
small-scale society traditionally spoke the vernacular
language as well as one or more other languages. How-
ever, under the influence of modernization, Gapuners
began to valorize the local Creole language. Kulick
found that adults unwittingly interacted with children
in ways that systematically denied them access to the
vernacular language, resulting in its rapid decline. This
study not only linked two trajectories of change ( histor-
ical change and childhood socialization) but also
showed that language ideologies linking gender, affect,
and language played a critical role in imperiling the ver-
nacular language.
As scholars turn their attention to language socializa-
tion in heterogeneous situations, such as changing lan-
guage policy in nation states, transnational migration,
postcolonial settings, and linguistically diverse institu-
tions (e.g., Fader, 2001; González, 2001; He, 2001;
Sandel, 2003), they have begun to problematize impor-
tant ideas. Garrett and Baquedano-López (2002) point
out that such studies reveal that the boundaries of lan-
guage communities are fuzzy, permeable, and shifting;
community can no longer be defined as “geography, lan-
guage(s) spoken, or broad presupposed social categories
such as race or ethnicity, but in terms of mutual social
and interactive engagement ” (p. 347). Such studies un-
derscore the need to know more about how children nav-
igate and interweave multiple languages, meaning
systems, and genres, a process that is also gaining atten-
tion in studies of narrative.
Narrative: Getting Those Stories Straight
Narrative is a cultural universal, and one of the most
powerful interpretive tools that human beings possess
for organizing experience in time and for interpreting
and valuing human action. The literature on narrative is
vast, and the list of topics relevant to cultural psychol-
ogy is long. These include the relationship between nar-

rative and memory (e.g., Neisser & Fivush, 1994), the
role of narrative in the construction of selves and iden-
tities (e.g., Bruner, 1990a, 1990b; Gergen, 1991; Hol-
land, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998; Wortham,
2001), narrative as a therapeutic technique in psy-
chotherapy and psychoanalysis (e.g., Polkinghorne,
1988; Spence, 1982), and narrative in family life (Pratt
& Fiese, 2004). Children’s narratives have been of keen
interest to scholars for the light that they shed on lin-
guistic development (Berman & Slobin, 1994), peer
culture (Corsaro, 1997; Goodwin, 1990), literacy (e.g.,
Michaels, 1991; Wolf & Heath, 1992), and classroom
life (Dyson & Genishi, 1994; Nicolopoulou, 1997).
Faced with this embarrassment of riches, we have cho-
sen, to focus on a single issue: the role of oral narrative
in early socialization. This focus maintains continuity
with the previous discussion of socialization through
discursive practices while allowing exploration of cul-
tural diversity in greater depth.
Varieties of Oral Narrative
Keith Basso (1996) begins his classic paper on Western
Apache oral narratives with an interpretive puzzle.
What did Western Apache elders mean when they made
the following statements:
Our children are losing the land. It doesn’t go to work on
them anymore. They don’t know the stories about what
happened at these places. That’s why some get into trou-
ble. (p. 38)
. . . . I recall stories of how it once was at that mountain.
The stories told to me were like arrows. Elsewhere, hear-
ing that mountain’s name, I see it. Its name is like a pic-
ture. Stories go to work on you like arrows. Stories make
you live right. Stories make you replace yourself. (p. 38)
Basso’s (1996) attempts to understand the signifi-
cance of these statements yielded one of the most com-
prehensive accounts available of a group’s shared
understanding of how oral narrative functions in their
lives. Working in collaboration with informants whom
he had known for many years, Basso discovered that
Western Apache storytelling exploited two symbolic
resources—land and narrative—for maintaining the
moral order.
Western Apache use stories about the early history of
the group to establish enduring ties between individuals
and features of the natural landscape. Because of these
bonds, people who have behaved improperly are moved
to reflect on and correct their misconduct. At times, a
member of the community might find it necessary to
Socialization through Language 745
“aim” a story at an offender. If taken to heart, the story
and the place with which it is associated will “stalk ” the
offender and promote beneficial change.
Basso’s study illustrates three issues of plurality that
apply to the study of oral narrative as a socializing
medium. First, the most obvious is the issue of narrative
diversity across sociocultural groups. Basso describes a
distinctive cultural case that is sufficiently detailed to
allow precise comparison and contrast with other cul-
tural cases. Second, although the study focuses primar-
ily on one type of oral narrative—historical tales—it
situates them in the full range of native narrative cate-
gories, including myths, sagas, and gossip. The plurality
of oral narrative types in the culture is thus established.
Third, access to and ownership of narrative genres is so-
cially distributed, introducing another source of intra-
cultural variation.
Storytelling Begins Early
A question left unanswered by Basso’s account is how
Western Apache narrative practices intersect with chil-
dren. For example, when do Western Apache begin to
aim historical tales at errant children? An exciting trend
in recent developmental research is the strong interest in
young children’s narratives. There is a growing body of
evidence that children from many cultural backgrounds
within and beyond the United States begin to tell stories
in conversation during the second or 3rd year of
life (e.g., Eisenberg, 1985; Engel, 1995; McCabe & Pe-
terson, 1991; Meng, 1992; Ochs & Capps, 2001). At this
early age, children step into the narrative practices
of family and community, thereby laying claim to an
important cultural resource for creating their own so-
cialization (Bruner, 1990a, 1990b). Even linguistically
isolated deaf children, whose parents choose not to
expose them to a conventional sign system, were able
to create gestured narratives (Van Deusen-Phillips,
Goldin-Meadow, & Miller, 2001). These stories carried
echoes of culture-specific meaning, suggesting that con-
versational narrative is a remarkably robust medium of
socialization.
Personal storytelling not only emerges early in life
but it also occurs habitually in a wide variety of commu-
nities, occurring especially frequently in working-class
communities. For example, stories involving 21⁄2 -year-
olds occurred at average rates of 3 to 4 per hour in both
middle-class Taiwanese and middle-class European
American families (P. J. Miller, Wiley, Fung, & Liang,
1997; Wiley, Rose, Burger, & Miller, 1998). Narratives
accounted for one-quarter of 2-year-olds naturally
746 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
occurring talk in working-class African American fami-
lies in the Black Belt of Alabama (Sperry & Sperry,
1995, 1996). In working-class European American fami-
lies in Chicago, 3-year-olds participated in co-narrations
at the remarkable rate of 6 times per hour (Burger &
Miller, 1999). When personal storytelling occurs so
abundantly, it gets woven, densely but almost invisibly,
into the fabric of young children’s social experience.
Moreover, regardless of where they occur, these small,
mundane stories are saturated with value and replete
with culturally patterned messages. Stories vary within
and across cultures along a host of parameters that en-
compass how the genre is defined and practiced (P. J.
Miller & Moore, 1989). For example, in her classic
ethnography of neighboring working-class communities
in the Piedmont Carolinas, Heath (1983) found that the
European American residents of Roadville adhered to a
criterion of literal truth when narrating their personal ex-
periences. This contrasted with the African American
community of Trackton, who strongly favored fictional
embellishment. Trackton and Roadville also enacted op-
posing norms toward and away from self-aggrandizement.
Trackton children not only created bold and triumphant
self-protagonists but also asserted their rights to tell sto-
ries by adroitly working their way into adult talk, com-
manding the floor, and receiving approbation for their
verbal artistry.
In their study of an African American community in
rural Alabama, Sperry and Sperry (1995, 1996) found
that 2-year-olds produced more fantasy stories than fac-
tual stories of past experience. “Both caregivers and
children enjoyed telling stories of escaping from ‘Nicou-
dini,’ the ‘Boogabear,’ ‘Werewolf ’, or the spectral deer
who entered their home one misty evening. Families told
such stories easily and frequently, and children gathered
around to be thrilled by the imagined terror and to prac-
tice creating it themselves” (p. 462; Sperry & Sperry,
1996). Boys’ efforts to tell fantasy stories received
much more support than girls’, a finding that may help
to explain how men in this community get to be so good
at “ tall-bragging.”
P. J. Miller, Fung, and their colleagues compared
middle-class Taiwanese families in Taipei and middle-
class European American families in Chicago and found
that in both cases narrators interpreted young children’s
past experiences in interpersonal terms, situating the
child in relationship to other people (P. J. Miller et al.,
1997; P. J. Miller, Fung, & Mintz, 1996). At the same
time, personal storytelling differed dramatically: Tai-
wanese families were much more likely than their Euro-
pean American counterparts to tell stories in which they
cast the child protagonist as a transgressor. In keeping
with local beliefs that parents should take every opportu-
nity to correct young children, many of these stories oc-
curred immediately after the focal child had committed a
misdeed in the here and now. Families repeatedly invoked
moral and social rules, structured their stories to estab-
lish the child’s misdeed as the point of the story, and con-
cluded their stories with didactic codas. By contrast, the
European American families enacted a self-favorability
bias, erasing or downplaying children’s misdeeds. These
differences were also evident in parents’ beliefs about sto-
rytelling (P. J. Miller, Sandel, Liang, & Fung, 2001) and
in pretend play (Haight et al., 1999).
Wang, Leightman, and colleagues compared stories
elicited from Chinese and European American children
and reported similar findings. Chinese mothers from Bei-
jing showed a greater concern with moral rules and be-
havioral standards when co-narrating stories with their
3-year-olds (Han, Leichtman, & Wang, 1998; Wang, Le-
ichtman, & Davies, 2000), and 6-year-olds told stories
exhibited a parallel concern with moral correctness
(Wang & Leichtman, 2000).
Thus, although personal storytelling is a rich pur-
veyor of values for European American children, the
version of personal storytelling practiced by the Taipei
and Beijing children leans more strongly in a didactic
direction, reflecting and reinforcing larger systems of
meaning that privilege moral education. Fung, Miller,
and Lin (2004) link this didactic bias to Confucian
discourses that valorize teaching, listening, and self-
improvement, discourses that continue to circulate in the
complex mix of local and global influences that are re-
shaping childrearing and education in contemporary
Taiwan. Li (2002) found that Chinese college students
viewed learning as a moral process, imbued with pur-
pose, undertaken according to the virtues of diligence,
persistence, and humility, and encompassed by the
larger project of self-perfection, but American college
students saw learning as a neutral, mental process of
knowledge acquisition. The stories told by the Beijing
children and their mothers share a similar moral cast.
In sum, studies of children’s early storytelling in
families and communities demonstrate that this narra-
tive genre is culturally differentiated from the begin-
ning. Wherever personal storytelling is practiced with
young children, it takes on local color, absorbing values,
affective stances, and moral orientations. As children

participate routinely in personal storytelling, they begin
to carve out different versions of personal experience.
Personal storytelling thus highlights—and is implicated
in—an early developmental moment in the co-creation
of person and culture. Particular frameworks of evalua-
tion and interpretation, linked to larger currents of cul-
tural meaning, operate again and again in oral stories,
while narrators and listeners create and respond to here-
and-now social contingencies. Each co-narrated story,
each story aimed at or told around the child provides an-
other opportunity for the child to hear which experi-
ences are reportable and how these experiences should
be assessed. In this way, interpretive frameworks are
not only reproduced but also repeatedly instantiated in
personally relevant terms. To return to the comparisons
between European Americans, on the one hand, and
Taiwanese or Chinese, on the other, we catch a glimpse
of how culturally distinct selves might originate. A
need for positive self-regard may be rooted, in part, in
storytelling that is systematically biased toward self-
favorability, whereas an inclination to self-improvement
may be rooted, in part, in the narration of misdeeds and
the explicit invocation of moral standards (see the fol-
lowing section: “ The Development of Self ”).
Although comparative studies, informed by local
practices and understandings, are necessary for identi-
fying these kinds of divergent developmental pathways,
again we emphasize that it is important not to di-
chotomize such differences, erasing similarities across
groups and variations within groups. Evidence is accu-
mulating, for example, that personal storytelling is es-
pecially rich in gendered meanings (Nicolopoulou,
1997; Ochs & Taylor, 1995). Again, this differentiation
is apparent early in development. Fivush and her col-
leagues found that middle-class European American
children’s oral narratives are gendered in numerous
ways during the preschool years and beyond. For exam-
ple, when asked to elicit stories from their young chil-
dren about specific emotions experienced in the past,
mothers co-constructed more elaborate stories about
sadness with their daughters than with their sons
(Fivush, 1993). Similar findings emerged when fathers
served as co-narrators. Even when parents were asked
to talk with their children about novel past events (with-
out being asked to elicit talk of specific emotions),
mothers and fathers narrated more emotion events with
their 3-year-old daughters, compared with their sons,
and this contrast was especially marked for sad events
(Kuebli & Fivush, 1992). From these and other studies,
Socialization through Language 747
Fivush and Buckner (2000) conclude that by the end of
the preschool years, girls talk much more about sadness
than do boys, and that such talk occurs both with par-
ents and friends, possibly contributing to girls’ vulnera-
bility to depression.
Variability and Heterogeneity
In addition to these ways in which early narrative varies
in and across cultures, a practice approach to narrative
reveals even more sources and dimensions of variability.
Ochs and Capps (2001) developed a dimensional ap-
proach to conversational stories of personal experience,
arguing that personal narrative oscillates between the
narrators’ desire for coherence and their desire for au-
thenticity, but that research has tended to privilege the
former. The “default ” story involves one active teller,
crafting a linearly sequenced, coherent account of a
highly tellable event. Such stories are framed by a con-
stant moral stance and are easily detached from sur-
rounding discourse. Researchers should not assume that
this default version of storytelling is the only adult
model or endpoint of development. Ochs and Capps pro-
pose that development proceeds along two lines. Chil-
dren become able to report norm violations and to
produce temporally ordered, coherent narratives; at the
same time they learn to use stories in a nonlinear manner
to puzzle over events and weigh alternatives.
Ochs and Capps (2001) draw attention to a variety of
overlooked or understudied aspects of storytelling that
could enrich cultural psychologists’ understanding of
narrative as a socializing medium. How do children use
narratives for problem solving; expressing, negotiating,
or failing to negotiate divergent points of view; grap-
pling with moral dilemmas; pondering hypothetical sce-
narios; envisioning the future? How are children’s
stories embedded in surrounding discourse and activity?
What participant roles are available to children?
Much of the developmental research on preschoolers’
stories has focused on children as co-narrators, produc-
ing stories about their experiences in collaboration with
parents or other family members. Less is known about
children as listeners, recipients, overhearers, and eaves-
droppers. By way of illustrating the importance of these
other participant roles, consider two examples. In the
working-class community of South Baltimore, adults
and older children told a great many stories of personal
experience to one another (P. J. Miller, 1994). Young
children were present as bystanders to these stories, free
to tune in or not. Many of these stories fell toward the
748 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
default end of the continuum highlighted by Ochs and
Capps (2001) and were highly performed, riveting ac-
counts, ranging from the hilarious (e.g., the bathtub fell
through the floor with Aunt Sharon in it) to the harrow-
ing (e.g., violent encounters in school or on the street).
This activity not only modeled narrative virtuosity but
also provided curious youngsters with a constantly
updated source of information about the lives of signifi-
cant others, including their mothers’ experiences of
school, workplace, and male-female relations.
Whereas this study illustrates what a rich and varied
socializing medium stories around the child can be,
C. E. Taylor (1995) offers a rare, penetrating analysis of
how keenly children listen to stories told around them.
In one case study of a middle-class family, the 5-year-
old sister and 8-year-old brother were initially silent
when their parents engaged in narrative conflict at the
dinner table. Eventually, the sister protested that the
parents were fighting, a concern that they dismissed and
rationalized as the conversation continued to unfold.
This study not only shows how carefully children moni-
tor adult discourse but also serves as a powerful re-
minder of two other important points: family narrative
is sometimes unfriendly and threatening, exacerbating
rather than solving problems, and children are socialized
as much by the relationships that participants enact—in
this case, parental conflict—as they are by the content
of stories.
In her analysis, C. E. Taylor (1995), like several of
the scholars mentioned in this section of the chapter,
borrowed ideas from Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian liter-
ary scholar and philosopher of language. His vision of
language as culturally shaped and socially situated is
compatible with the conception of language described
earlier (Bakhtin, 1981; Wertsch, 1991). Bakhtin (1986)
stressed that speech is organized into genres associated
with particular speech situations. He argued that speech
is never free of generic constraints but that speakers can
achieve individuality of expression by creatively appro-
priating, combining, and reaccenting existing genres. As
researchers apply Bakhtinian constructs to the analysis
of children’s discourse, it is becoming clear that narra-
tive sense-making involves juxtaposing and interweav-
ing multiple, even conflicting voices and ideological
perspectives and that every community affords such
heterogeneity (e.g., Cazden, 1993; Dyson, 1993; Hicks,
1994; Tobin, 2000; Wertsch, 1991; Wortham, 2001).
This perspective not only underscores the impor-
tance of studying children’s narrative repertories (e.g.,
Preece, 1987; Sperry & Sperry, 1995) but also draws
attention to the many ways in which stories are embed-
ded in, are blended with, or otherwise keep company
with other stories, other genres, and other activities.
For example, ethnographic studies have shown that op-
positional talk is an important means by which working-
class African American children of various ages construct
identities, form friendships, and sustain peer culture
and that narratives are often incorporated into opposi-
tional talk as a way of instigating disputes and project-
ing conflicting points of view (e.g., Goodwin, 1990;
Shuman, 1986). The preschooler studied by Corsaro
et al. (2002) was already adept at this kind of talk and
collaborated with her Head Start peers in producing
pretend scenarios that drew on both oppositional and
narrative elements. Fung and Chen’s (2001) study of
the socialization of shame in Taiwanese families
revealed that naturally occurring events of shame in-
cluded multiple episodes and traversed multiple tempo-
ral and spatial worlds. Young children were led to relive
and reflect on present and past transgressions and to
prepare for a better self in the future. Both of these
studies suggest that stories do not necessarily come
neatly packaged and clearly bounded in children’s
everyday experience. Rather, stories are embedded in
and overlap with other genres in heterogeneous and
shifting configurations that illuminate again and again
particular threads of meaning for young participants.
The Dynamics of Narrative Practices
Thus, when narratives are treated as situated practices,
rather than disembodied texts, it becomes apparent that
storytelling is a dynamic process, emerging from partic-
ular circumstances, shaped by the interests of narrating
participants, recurring in different combinations, and af-
fording children a range of participant roles. Children
engage repeatedly in networks of narrative practices,
characterized by systematic variability and cross-cutting
redundancies. As argued earlier, this is one of the means
by which persons and cultures are cocreated. However,
narrative is also a means by which individuals affect
change and transform identities (Holland et al., 1998;
Wortham, 2001).
The dynamic nature of narrative practices is espe-
cially apparent when narrators tell the same story
repeatedly. Such stories can play a critical role in the
lifelong process of socialization. Adults may be
haunted, baffled, or sustained for decades by stories
from their own or others’ lives (e.g., Coles, 1989; Fung,

2003; Gone, 1999; Hudley, Haight, & Miller, 2003;
Steedman, 1986). As the person tells the story repeat-
edly to self and other, it accrues layer on layer of
meaning and may be used to reinforce favored interpre-
tations or to construct new interpretations. Repeated
tellings and reinterpretations of personal experience are
institutionalized in psychotherapy, Alcoholics Anony-
mous, and religious conversion (Holland et al., 1998;
Stromberg, 1993). Children as young as 2 years of age
develop intense attachments to particular stories, revis-
iting them again and again for weeks, months, and even
years (e.g., Alexander, Miller, & Hengst, 2001; P. J.
Miller, Hoogstra, Mintz, Fung, & Williams, 1993; Nel-
son, 1989; Wolf & Heath, 1992). The middle-class Euro-
pean American children in these studies treated their
special stories as resources for discussion and pretense
and used them to ponder problems and manage emo-
tions, activities that were supported by parents. These
studies suggest that from the time young children enter
into narrative sense-making, they have the capacity to
respond differentially to the ordinary narrative flow,
seizing certain stories for especially active and intense
engagement.
Studies that trace the natural history of stories in
children’s lives are rare. This is unfortunate for cultural
psychology because the process of retelling and revising
stories goes to the heart of the socialization process. It
is assumed to be transformative in theories ranging
from psychoanalysis to the Western Apache model of
historical narrative. We need especially to know more
about how stories operate over the long term in chil-
dren’s lives.
Again, the Western Apache provide a compelling ex-
ample. Basso (1996) relates an incident in which an
adolescent girl arrived at a ceremonial in hair curlers,
a violation of community standards. Some weeks later,
when the girl was attending a party at her grand-
mother’s house, the grandmother narrated a historical
story about an Apache policeman who suffered dire
consequences because he had acted too much like a
white man. At the conclusion to the story, the girl left
the party. When questioned by Basso, the grandmother
explained her granddaughter’s sudden departure by say-
ing that she had shot her with an “arrow.” Two years
later, the young woman told Basso that she threw her
curlers away after reflecting on her grandmother’s
story. Referring to the place where the Apache police-
man had lived, she said, “I know that place. It stalks me
everyday” (Basso, 1996, p. 57).
The Development of Self 749
THE DEVELOPMENT OF SELF
As noted earlier, the psychological side of cultural psy-
chology is the study of the things that the “I’s” (the
subjects, agents, or selves) of particular cultural com-
munities know, think, feel, want, and value, including
what they know, think, feel, want, and value about the
self as a mental being capable of subjective experiences
and of participation as an agent in a cultural commu-
nity. A powerful way in which culture and psyche con-
stitute each other and come to influence individual
behavior, we believe, is through our way of being a sub-
ject or agent in a social world—what is often called
self-functioning.
Indeed, the self can be conceptualized as a primary
locus of culture-psyche interaction and culture-specific
being (see Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, Chapter
11, this Handbook, this volume). It is where the individ-
ual, a biological entity, becomes a meaningful entity—a
person, a participant in social worlds (P. J. Miller, 1994;
Rogoff, Radziszewska, & Masiello, 1995; Weigert,
Teitge, & Teitge, 1990). Developing a sense of self as an
agentic, continuous entity with intentional powers may
appear to arise from highly personal idiosyncratic expe-
riences: A European American self is indeed defined to
be individualized and distinct from other selves. Studies
highlight, however, that although the experience, struc-
tures, and processes of self appear to be primarily indi-
vidual creations, they are also cultural and historical
constructions (Markus & Kitayama, 2003; J. G. Miller,
2003; Oyserman & Markus, 1993).
Before discussing the cultural psychology of the self,
we must acknowledge some of the issues and controver-
sies arising in this area. Several trends in philosophy,
the social sciences, and world affairs have converged on
self and identity as popular topics for research. Perhaps
most obviously, as the headlines of any newspaper con-
firm, nationalism and a concern for maintaining and as-
serting ethnic or cultural identity are now emerging as a
powerful focus in Eastern Europe, the Middle East,
Africa, and Asia. In this climate of heightened ethnic
identification and conflict, we can no longer afford to
ignore the role of cultural practices and mentalities as
sources of personal and social identity or the role of
self-management and self-regard in all aspects of social
life, particularly social conflict (e.g., Crocker, Major,
& Steele, 1998; Kakar, 1996).
Perhaps less obviously, certain eternal disputes
about the character and causal role of personal identity
750 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
in psychological functioning have resurfaced. Several
quite disparate currents of thought, including skeptical
postmodernism, connectionist-parallel distributed pro-
cess models in artificial intelligence, and Buddhist
philosophical thought (Elster, 1987; Gergen, 1991;
Sass, 1992; Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1993) have
concluded that the self is illusory or epiphenomenal
and plays no causal role in mental functioning, whereas
other have argued that the self is “multiple” or “pro-
tean” (Lifton, 1993).
We will not debate here whether the Buddhists are
right that the self is an illusion or whether the Hindus
are right that the self is the real component of pure
being. We will simply note that the very existence of
human social and moral life seems intimately tied up
with the evolution of a species whose central psycholog-
ical makeup is defined by the existence of a causally
active and somewhat unitary self (“One self per
customer,” to use the philosopher Daniel Dennett’s
phrase; Flanagan, 1992): A self that is free, willful, self-
regulating, morally responsible, and conscious; that is
the initiator of action, author of texts, holder of rights;
and that is the subject of evaluation and social scrutiny
when questions about rationality, responsibility, nor-
mality, and pathology arise.
Putting aside “epiphenomenalism” (the self as un-
real), the choice between “mechanistic” and “ vitalistic”
conceptions of self seems uninviting (see Kapstein,
1989). Contemporary mechanistic approaches to per-
sonal identity argue that our sense of self (e.g., our
sense of continuity over time) results merely from the
continuity of our memory for discrete mental states
(perceptions, pleasure, and pain). Contemporary vitalis-
tic approaches argue that our sense of self is prewired
into the human brain. Neither view leaves much room for
social, interpersonal, or cultural processes in the con-
struction and maintenance of personal identity.
Perhaps versions of these approaches can be made
compatible with cultural psychology, which asserts that
the self is not fully reducible to either memory or brain
processes. A cultural psychology approach to personal
identity examines the part of our sense of self that devel-
ops through membership in some local cultural commu-
nity and symbolically mediated experiences with its
practices. This approach examines the effects of labeling
and stereotyping, dialogue and narrative, as well as
moral agency and social practice on self-functions such
as self-regard, self-confidence, and self-definition. It
looks at how the self is described, responded to, evalu-
ated, and often regulated by others. Although cultural
psychologists acknowledge that the “I” (the subject) is
never fully determined by groups’ hegemonic ideologies
or interpersonal forces alone, they aim to clarify the ways
cultural mentalities and practices (including ideologies
of the self and symbolic products such as biographies of
community exemplars) can powerfully constitute an indi-
vidual’s sense of self.
A cultural psychology perspective furthers our un-
derstanding of a self ’s development by emphasizing that
particular ways of representing and being a self, both as
object and subject of experience, are grounded in norma-
tive understandings and behavioral routines of self hood
in a given sociocultural and historical context (Benson,
2001; Murphy-Berman & Berman, 2003; Oyserman &
Kemmelmeier, 1995; Oyserman & Markus, 1993).
From the perspective of cultural psychology, the self
is grounded in the mentalities and practices (the custom
complex) associated with being an “I” (a subject) in a
particular community. Revisiting the insights of some of
the field’s early theorists (e.g., Dewey, 1938; Erikson,
1968) reveals that culture does not merely surround or
cover the “ universal” child but rather that culture com-
pletes the child (Bruner, 1990a, 1990b; Tomasello,
1999). Culture provides the scripts for “ how to be” and
how to participate as a member in good standing in the
cultural community and particular social contexts. Si-
multaneously, cultural psychologists recognize that chil-
dren and adults actively constitute their own cultures,
initiating changes in their relations with others and thus
in their immediate cultural settings (see Brandtstädter,
Chapter 10; Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi, Chapter 9,
this Handbook, this volume).
DEFINING AND LOCATING THE SELF
AS DYNAMIC, MULTILEVEL,
AND MULTIFACETED
The self can be defined as a multifaceted, dynamic sys-
tem that regulates and mediates behavior (Banaji &
Prentice, 1994; Markus & Wurf, 1986). Neisser (1988,
1991) explicitly constructs the self as a multileveled en-
tity, defining five types of self-knowledge: (1) ecologi-
cal, (2) private, (3) interpersonal, (4) conceptual, and
(5) what he labels “extended” (i.e., knowledge of the
self over time). Neisser contends that regardless of dif-
fering locations or beliefs, people are active, embodied
 Defining and Locating the Self as Dynamic, Multilevel, and Multifaceted
agents in the natural and social environments, and thus
show evidence of ecological and interpersonal selves
(Neisser & Jopling, 1997).
This multileveled self is believed to be broadly con-
sequential for individual experience: It provides the
blueprint, frame, and foundation for the psyche. What-
ever cultural form it assumes, a subject’s way of being a
person affords and constrains what he or she feels, val-
ues, assumes responsibility for, perceives and thinks
about, as well as how he or she organizes, understands,
and gives meaning to any experience.
The past decade has seen rapidly increasing interest
in the nature, functioning, and development of self, and
much noteworthy theoretical activity. Several themes
can be identified that raise challenging questions about
what a self is, how to determine who has one, as well as
how and when the self emerges, functions, and develops.
Many researchers advocate analyzing the self as not
only an object of knowledge but also the subject of expe-
rience. Attention to the embodied self, to the role of in-
tersubjectivity in constructing the self, to the situation,
context, or niche in which the self participates and to
the self as socially engaged rather than isolated or
decontextualized is needed (Cole, 1999; Crook, 2003;
Harter, 1996; Higgins & Parsons, 1983; Stern, 1985;
Tomasello, Kruger, & Ratner, 1993). Cultural psychol-
ogy research forcefully underscores such issues’ impor-
tance and raises many complementary concerns (e.g.,
Greenfield & Cocking, 1994; Valsiner, 1988).
The Conceptual Self
The self has been variously defined as the insider’s
grasp on the person, as the answer to the “ who am I”
question, and as a theory or set of schemas that provides
the individual with a sense of continuity. The focus has
been on the self as object of knowledge (Allport, 1937;
Eder & Mangelsdorf, 1997; Epstein, 1973; Kihlstrom &
Cantor, 1984; Sullivan, 1940). Historically, despite
many theoretical statements to the contrary, the ten-
dency has been to reify the self and regard it as a thing,
as exemplified in thousands of studies on the self-
concept, the self, or self-esteem.
Research on the development of self has tended to
concentrate on what Neisser labels “ the conceptual
self.” Given the general European American tendency to
imagine the mind as the source of experience and thus
equate selves with minds, the emphasis on how children
think about and represent the self is perhaps obvious.
751
From this theoretical perspective, the self becomes an
object of knowledge and it becomes natural to imagine
that the self as represented or the self-concept is the
most significant aspect of individual experience.
In research on development of the self-concept, the
critical indicator of the self has been visual self-
recognition as assessed by mirrors and photographs.
Summarizing the work in this paradigm, Bullock and
Lütkenhaus (1990) conclude that self-recognition begins
between the ages of 9 and 16 months and by 2 years
of age, most children recognize themselves in the mirror
and photographs. Some (e.g., M. Lewis, Sullivan,
Stanger, & Weiss, 1989) have argued that self-awareness
requires such self-recognition. Other studies have exam-
ined speech for cognitive representations of self. During
their 2nd and 3rd years, children begin to use their
name, the pronouns “I” and “me,” and possessively
claim objects as theirs (L. E. LeVine, 1983; Van der
Meulen, 1986).
The idea that thinking about the self is the main ele-
ment of self is also underscored by a large collection of
studies that have explicitly tied the development of self
to advancing cognitive capacities (Leadbeter & Dionne,
1981; Leahy & Shirk, 1985; Montemayor & Eisen, 1977;
Rosenberg, 1986). Many studies based on the Piagetian
model of cognitive development have shown that as a
child advances from preoperational thought to formal
operations, the focus of self-definition shifts from con-
crete, objective, and visible characteristics to abstract,
private features of the psychological interior. A widely
cited review by Harter (1983) notes:
Young children focus on concrete, observable aspects of
self such as physical attributes and behaviors, whereas
older children increasingly couch their self-descriptions in
terms of traits. With adolescence, there is a further shift
toward the use of abstractions and psychological processes
such as thoughts, attitudes, and emotions in defining the
self. (p. 305)
Still other studies have shown a link between the
level of cognitive development and characteristics of the
self-concept such as hierarchical organization, integra-
tion of opposing conceptions of the self, and the stabil-
ity of self-conceptions across time and context (see
Harter, 1990; Rosenberg, 1986, for reviews).
Indeed, studies with people living in European
American contexts demonstrate that such self-concepts
exist. These self-concepts include images and concep-
tions of the person in the present but also in the past and
752 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
in the future—narratives of what could have been and
what might be (Higgins, 1990; Markus & Nurius, 1986;
Oosterwegel & Oppenheimer, 1993). This self-concept
is also functional: It mediates behavior and is implicated
in all aspects of behavior from strong academic and ath-
letic performance to general well-being and life satis-
faction. A negative self-concept of this type is related to
delinquency, drug use, and depression (for a review see
Bracken, 1996).
The Cultural Self
A cultural psychology approach emphasizes the need to
analyze more extensively the experience and under-
standing of self and to examine critically the cultural
presuppositions implicit in much research on the devel-
opment of self. As stated earlier, the cultural psychology
approach to development is skeptical of most attempts to
universally define progressive development using ab-
stract criteria, for instance, from behavior to traits or
from context-dependent to context-free.
In studies of selves in non-European American cul-
tural contexts, one quickly confronts selves that are not
easily characterized by complex mental representation of
traits, attributes, preferences, or possessions. It becomes
evident that studies on the development of self have pro-
ceeded primarily from one cultural viewpoint and drawn
on a set of invisible and untested assumptions about the
self as an idea or as an objectified and cognitively repre-
sented entity.
Comparative research in other cultural communities
suggests that selves are not primarily more-or-less stable
concepts at all but rather a set of processes or ways of
being. Moreover, in some groups, a description of self or
others in terms of internal, decontextualized attributes or
qualities simply does not occur (Fajans, 1985; Hart, Feg-
ley, Hung Chan, Mulvey, & Fischer, 1993; Lillard, 1996;
J. G. Miller, 1984; Ochs, 1988; Rosen, 1995; Shweder &
Bourne, 1984). Hart and Edelstein (1992) describe a study
conducted with adolescents in Iceland in which one stu-
dent struggled mightily to answer the “ who am I” question
and finally in despair looked up from his blank question-
naire and asked, “Are people meant to have these kinds of
thoughts about themselves?” In many cultural communi-
ties, the nature of self is referenced not to an internal self
but instead to a particular social context and characteriz-
ing a self outside that context is unnatural and irrelevant.
Goodnow (1990a, 1990b) has argued that cognitive
development involves learning the community’s defini-
tion of being intelligent. Similarly, developing a self re-
quires incorporating the community’s definitions of
being a self. Once self-development is considered in cul-
tural context, it is almost immediately apparent that what
a self is and what it means to be an acceptable or good
self can vary dramatically from one cultural place to an-
other (Markus & Kitayama, 1991b; Shweder & Bourne,
1984). As C. Taylor (1989) has argued:
My self-definition is understood as an answer to the ques-
tion Who am I. And this question finds its original sense
in the interchange of speakers. I define who I am by defin-
ing where I speak from, in the family tree, in social space,
in the geography of social status and functions. We first
learn our languages of moral and spiritual discernment by
being brought into an ongoing conversation by those who
bring us up. The meanings that the key words first had for
me are the meanings they have for us, for me and my con-
versation partners together. So I can only learn what
anger, love, anxiety, the aspiration to wholeness, and so on
are through my and others’ experience for us in some com-
mon place. (p. 35)
THE ONTOLOGICAL BASIS OF SELF
The study of self in psychology, as with many aspects of
child development, has incorporated the European
American definition of being a person and has been
firmly rooted in the ontology of individualism (Green-
field & Cocking, 1994; Ho, 1993; Markus & Kitayama,
1994a; Sampson, 1988). This ontology is extensively in-
corporated in most child-care practices and the main so-
cietal institutions such as schools.
The Person as an Individual
The Latin word “individual” means indivisible and
whole, and the central tenet of individualism is the epis-
temological priority accorded to the separate, essen-
tially nonsocial, individual. The person is assumed to
exist independently and to enter into social relations
based on need and by mutual consent with other individ-
uals. The focus is on the individual rather than on the
social unit of which the individual is a part. The person
is cast as an entity whose behavior is determined by
some amalgam of internal attributes apart from the ex-
ternal situation.
Individualism is typically analyzed as the critical ele-
ment of Western society (e.g., Baumeister, 1987; Car-

rithers, Collins, & Lukes, 1987; Guisinger & Blatt, 1994;
Sampson, 1985; Triandis, Bontempo, & Villareal, 1988),
and many analysts argue that the Enlightenment gave
birth to the notion of the Kantian individual and the im-
portance of individual reason and free will. Others sug-
gest that individualism shows the stamp of late industrial
capitalism or results from a Cartesian categorization sys-
tem that draws a sharp distinction between the self and
others (Lebra, 1992).
In the framework of individualism, it seems natural to
assume that selves are objects and should be unified and
integrated, reflecting but not focusing on the concerns of
others. Thus, a child’s central task is to progressively real-
ize that he or she is separate from others and autonomous,
efficacious, in control of his or her actions. The idea of a
bounded individual separate from and not unduly influ-
enced by others also leads to a consistency ethic in which
a good or authentic self is the same, unchanging self
across different situations. (See Fiske, Kitayama, Markus,
& Nisbett, 1998; Gergen, 1968; Johnson, 1985; Markus &
Kitayama, 1994b; Morris, 1994; Shweder & Bourne,
1984, for a more elaborate discussion.)
The literature on the development of self is also re-
plete with unexamined presuppositions that reflect indi-
vidualism interwoven with other cultural and historical
assumptions. In this literature, interest persists in being
a true rather than a false self, which probably echoes
Victorian concerns with secret or hidden parts of the
self (Baumeister, 1987; Harter, 1986). Currently, there
is also pervasive attention to raising children who feel
good about themselves and have high self-esteem, aims
that derive from societal appropriation of expressing
rather than inhibiting feelings, actualizing the self, and
fulfilling our potential (Maslow, 1954). The literature
on self development also incorporates presuppositions
about what type of parenting practices produce these
proper or good selves. Thus, the child with high self-
esteem is believed to be a product of accepting and ap-
proving parenting that highlights a child’s successes
rather than failures (e.g., Coopersmith, 1967; Heine,
Lehman, Markus, & Kitayama, 1999).
The Person as Relational
The individualist model of self that provides the infra-
structure for the field’s understanding of self is an obvi-
ous, natural model for European American researchers.
This model is rooted in a set of Western philosophical
positions about human nature and in layers upon layers
The Ontological Basis of Self 753
of practice and institutions that give it an objective real-
ity. This model is indeed powerful and practical for
characterizing selves in European American contexts,
but it is not the only model of how to be. Other ontolo-
gies and ideologies of human nature exist that are as yet
unrepresented in the literature on the development of
self. Analyzing the self in cultural context brings these
other ontologies and ideologies of self to light.
Another model of self contrasts significantly with in-
dividualism and is pervasive throughout Japan, China,
Korea, Southeast Asia as well as much of South America
and Africa (Triandis, 1989). According to this perspec-
tive, the self is not and cannot be separate from others or
the surrounding social context, but is experienced as in-
terdependent with the social context: the self-in-
relation-to-other(s) is focal in individual experience
(Markus, Mullally, & Kitayama, 1997; Triandis, 1989,
1990). According to Kondo (1990), the self is funda-
mentally interdependent with others from a Japanese
perspective, and understanding this Japanese sense of
self requires dissolving the self-other or self-society
boundary that forms such an obvious starting point in
European American formulations.
An important imperative in this alternative way of
being is to avoid becoming separate and autonomous
from others and, instead, to fit in with others, to fulfill
and create obligations and, in general, to become part of
various interpersonal relationships. Individuals are nat-
urally understood to exist interdependently with others.
Sharing, interweaving, or intersubjectivity is the estab-
lished cultural rule, not a mystical or magical project
(Ames, Dissanayake, & Kasulis, 1994). From this per-
spective, the individual is an open, communicating cen-
ter of relationships and thus is intimately connected
with other selves. From a Confucian perspective, groups
are not separate from individuals. The nature of individ-
uals is to work through others, and to reveal themselves,
they must be parts of groups such as families, communi-
ties, and nations (Tu, 1994). Moreover, sources of action
are found in a person’s pattern of involvements with oth-
ers, rather than internal mental states or processes.
An interdependent view of self does not, as might be
imagined from a European American perspective, result
in a merging of self and other, nor does it imply that peo-
ple lack a sense of themselves as agents originating their
own actions. This interdependent view requires a high
degree of self-control, self-discipline, and agency to
effectively adjust oneself to various interpersonal con-
tingencies. Control, however, is directed primarily to
754 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
personal desires, goals, and emotions that can disturb the
harmonious equilibrium of interpersonal transaction.
This understanding of self stands in contrast to a
European American notion of control that entails assert-
ing our desires, goals, and emotions, and attempting to
change features of the social situation. Hamaguchi (1985)
for example, reports that for Japanese the “straightfor-
ward claim of the naked ego” (p. 303) is experienced as
childish. Self-assertion is viewed as a sign not of authen-
ticity, but instead of immaturity. This point is echoed in
M. I. White and LeVine’s (1986) description of the
meaning of sunao, a term Japanese parents use to charac-
terize what they value in children:
A child that is sunao has not yielded his or her personal
autonomy for the sake of cooperation: Cooperation does
not suggest giving up the self, as it may in the West: It im-
plies that working with others is the appropriate way of
expressing and enhancing the self. Engagement and har-
mony with others is, then, a positively valued goal and the
bridge—to open-hearted cooperation. (p. 58)
Being responsive to or influenced by others does not
indicate inconsistency or false selves at work; rather, it
reflects tolerance, self-control, flexibility, and maturity.
In many Asian perspectives, children are assumed to be
both naturally good and capable of developing the
needed sensitivity to and empathy for others through en-
couragement and example. The good child is believed to
be a product of highly responsive parenting practices at-
tuned to the child.
Nevertheless, good parenting does not ignore a child’s
failures, shortcomings, or transgressions. In Japan, chil-
dren are encouraged to engage in self-reflection and
self-criticism as necessary steps to self-improvement
and mastery (e.g., C. C. Lewis, 1995). Similarly, Chinese
parents often use an explicitly evaluative, self-critical
framework with their children as opposed to an overtly
self-affirming one (P. J. Miller et al., 1996). Chinese
caretakers claim that shaming as a caretaking practice
keeps children from falling into disgrace or losing their
all-important connection to others.
Much more could and must be said about these appar-
ently startling differences in ontological assumptions, to
which we are alerted when we conduct research in other
cultural communities. A comprehensive investigation
would not merely contrast “individualism” and “interde-
pendency,” but also draw on other ontologies that must
exist on a worldwide scale. Nor should we imply a lack
of variability in Japanese, Chinese, or Korean popula-
tions. We simply underscore that comparative research
reveals divergent views of what the self is and should be
on a worldwide scale, and that these views critically un-
derpin self-relevant experiences.
If the self functions as an interpretive, integrative, or
orienting framework for individual behavior, then whether
one has a self shaped by prevalent European American or
Asian ontological traditions can matter greatly for indi-
vidual psychological processing. Comparing behavior con-
structed in a European American individualistic frame to
behavior constructed in other cultural frames may illumi-
nate how cultural processes are implicated in the etiology,
nature, and functioning of psychological systems, and how
“multiple, diverse psychologies” arise.
CULTURAL DIVERSITY IN WAYS OF BEING
Much of the rapidly expanding literature relevant to cul-
tural variation in the development of self does not focus
directly on the nature and functioning of the psychologi-
cal self system as it has been operationalized in American
and European studies. Nevertheless, such comparative lit-
erature is pertinent to research on the origins of culture-
specific selves.
In examining the culture-specific nature of selves,
Markus et al. (1997) have described the custom com-
plexes associated with being a person. They suggest that
cultural and social groups in every historical period are
associated with characteristic patterns of sociocultural
participation or, more specifically, with characteristic
ways of being a person in the world, which they call self-
ways. Selfways are patterns or orientations, including
ways of thinking, feeling, wanting, and doing, that arise
from living one’s life in a particular sociocultural con-
text structured by certain meanings, practices, and insti-
tutions. People do not live generally or in the abstract:
They always live according to some specific, substantive
set of cultural understandings (goals, values, pictures of
the world). Selfways thus include important cultural
ideas, values, and understandings of what it means to be
a self and how to be a good self. Selfways, however, are
not just matters of belief, doctrine, or ideology, but are
also manifest in everyday behavior, language practices,
patterns of caretaking, schooling, religion, work, the
media, and social episodes, both formal and informal.
The notion of selfways implies that every sense of
self will be grounded in some shared meanings and cus-
tomary practices and will necessarily bear some mean-
ingful resemblance to similarly grounded selves. From

this perspective, to act, live, or function well in a given
culture means practicing the underlying cultural views
of how to be. Thus, although any two American selves
will obviously differ in countless ways, as will any two
Japanese selves, cultural participation in either current
American or Japanese practices and institutions will
produce some critical similarities.
Speaking probabilistically and in central tendencies,
culturally acceptable European American selves are
likely to be (a) separate, bounded, stable, and consis-
tent; ( b) attribute-based (e.g., based in traits, preferences,
goals); (c) clear, confident, articulated, elaborated; (d) in
control; (e) different from others and uniqueness-
oriented; (f ) particularly sensitive to positive regard,
self-enhancing; (g) success-oriented; and ( h) expressive
and enthusiastic. Culturally acceptable East Asian
selves are likely to be (a) connected; ( b) context-based;
(c) relational, flexible, malleable, responsive to others’
expectations, preferences, and feelings; (d) similar
to others and concerned with fitting in; (e) particu-
larly sensitive to potential inadequacy, self-critical;
(f ) improvement- and mastery-oriented; (g) open, re-
ceptive; and ( h) fully engaged.
From the moment of birth (and even earlier in some
cultural contexts), individuals are given meaning and
engaged as persons. Through this cultural participation,
they become selves. An infant’s mentality or way of
being in the world is thus patterned according to the
meanings and practices of a given cultural community,
and the communities, in turn, are maintained by these
mentalities. A continuous cycle of mutual attunement
and coordination connects psychological tendencies
with the social realities on which these tendencies are
brought to bear. From our perspective, features of the
cultural system, such as the characteristic ways in which
one is led to focus on and attend to others, can become
directly incorporated into individual systems of experi-
encing and organizing the world. They become selfways.
As Ingold (1986, 1991) characterizes it:
Like organisms, selves become, and they do so within a
matrix of relations with others. The unfolding of these re-
lations in the process of social life is also their enfolding
within the selves that are constituted within this process,
in their specific structures of awareness and response—
structures which are, at the same time, embodiments of
personal identity. (p. 367)
In the following section, we briefly review studies
relevant to how selfways develop through cultural par-
Cultural Diversity in Ways of Being 755
ticipation in the custom complexes characterizing Euro-
pean American and East Asian cultural contexts. We
aim to highlight the diverse selfways that develop from
such participation. Most of the recent research has fo-
cused on a contrast between patterns of cultural partici-
pation that construe the person as an independent,
autonomous entity and those that construe the person as
an interdependent part of a larger social unit. Some re-
searchers suggest that variations on the interdependent
pattern characterize about 70% of the world’s popula-
tion (Greenfield & Cocking, 1994; Triandis, 1989).
Selfways in Some European American Contexts
Speaking generally and probabilistically, the European
American middle-class cultural region is characterized
by selfways that promote independence of the self.
Being a European American person requires the individ-
ualizing of experience. A person’s subjectivity is sensed
as a more-or-less integrated whole, configured by attri-
butes and values distinct from others’ or society’s (see
Geertz, 1984). The self is experienced as the individ-
ual’s meaningful center and is understood to be rooted
in a set of internal attributes such as abilities, talents,
personality traits, preferences, subjective feeling states,
and attitudes. A major cultural task often mutually
pursued by caretakers, friends, and teachers is to contin-
ually, progressively individualize the child. As re-
searchers become aware that conceptualizing the self as
an object and describing one’s self in abstract psycho-
logical terms are culture-specific tendencies rather than
consequences of general cognitive development, they
can investigate practices that afford these tendencies.
Despite an explicit cultural emphasis on being nice
and caring and helpful (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swi-
dler, & Tipton, 1985; Deci & Ryan, 1990), development
in the European American style is almost synonymous
with individualizing and decontextualizing the self.
Even as people seek and maintain interdependence with
others—social tasks that must be accomplished every-
where—they will maintain a sense of boundedness, rela-
tively greater separation from others, and being in
control. Caring, connecting, and relationality will likely
assume a more individually agentic form. Many cultural
practices that contribute to a sense of agency are so
much a part of everyday, domestic life that they are, for
all practical purposes, invisible.
In many English-speaking cultural communities, lan-
guage use itself helps create the decontextualized, agentic
756 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
“I.” Ikegama (1991) notes that English is a language
“ which focuses on the human being and which gives lin-
guistic prominence to this notion, while Japanese is a
language which tends to suppress the notion of the
human being, even if such a being is involved in the
event ” (p. 301). In characterizing an event, English fo-
cuses on the particular person involved, but Japanese
emphasizes the event as a whole, submerging the indi-
vidual in it. Because the human subject is foregrounded
in English, one might say “I have a temperature,” but in
Japanese, one would say roughly “As for me, there is a
temperature” or “A temperature goes with me.” The En-
glish phrase “John ran out of money” might become “As
for John, money became null” in Japanese.
Along with foregrounding the subject (the “I”) in En-
glish, American English speakers tend to be direct and
assume that a speaker must make him- or herself clear to
listeners. This tendency begins early. Compared to Japa-
nese mothers, American mothers talk more, and more
directly, to their children (Azuma, Kashiwagi, & Hess,
1981; Caudill & Weinstein, 1969). In a study of mother-
infant interaction patterns, Morikawa, Shand, and Ko-
sawa (1988) compared American and Japanese mothers
interacting with their 3-month-old infants. Americans
mothers elicited more vocalizations and exhibited more
expressions of positive affect, and vocalizations oc-
curred while mothers looked at the baby and the baby
was happy and alert. This pattern contrasts with the
Japanese studied who more often expressed negative af-
fect and did so while the baby was looking away.
Direct, explicit verbal instruction characterizes
teacher-child interactions in the American cultural con-
text (Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989; Wu, 1994). In such
interactions, the child’s distinctive attributes are identi-
fied, then persistently noted and affirmed. Personal at-
tributes and abilities are assumed to define the self—to
sustain one’s uniqueness and drive one’s current, past,
and possible actions. The explicit goal is the develop-
ment of individuals’ potential. American institutions
may realize the idea of defining attributes by grouping
and tracking children according to ability (Stevenson &
Stigler, 1992). When resources permit, the curriculum
is often individualized on the assumption that each child
has a unique learning style and pace.
The American schoolchild is objectified, made to feel
special, praised, encouraged, and complimented. In
many schools, children may be a VIP or star for a day or
a week, celebrate their birthdays, and be honored
(Markus & Kitayama, 1994a). Writing projects often
involve autobiographies and personal narratives, and art
projects focus on self-representation. Many middle-
class American children are thus continually encouraged
and given chances to express themselves and present
their ideas in speech and writing. A common elementary
practice in school is show-and-tell: Children bring items
then stand before the class and tell a story about their
object. All these everyday practices foster an objectifi-
cation of self and a sense of self as a source of action
(Heine et al., 1999).
Moreover, children are encouraged individually and
collectively to think of themselves positively as stars,
winners, above average, and the repositories of special
qualities. It has become routine for every child who
plays on a soccer or basketball team to receive a trophy.
This practice may discourage competition or invidious
comparison among team members, but it underscores
the importance, not of the group, but of each individual.
Even as many current educators worry that they may
have used praise too liberally in the past and try to focus
on the learning process rather than on evaluating the
child (Damon, 1984, 1995; Damon & Hart, 1988),
teachers are persistently urged to find some unique as-
pect of each child’s product.
American children are also encouraged to be inde-
pendent, autonomous, and self-determining (Bellah
et al., 1985). Families in European American middle
class contexts often give infants their own beds and
bedrooms to foster autonomy (Shweder et al., 1995).
Similarly, most developmental markers center on au-
tonomous activity—rolling over, sitting up, walking,
and eating by oneself.
Additionally, American children are socialized to
have distinct preferences. Long before the child is old
enough to answer, caretakers pose questions like “Do
you want the blue cup or red cup?” Caretakers’ ques-
tions signal to children that the capacity for independent
choice is a necessary, desirable attribute (Markus & Ki-
tayama, 1994a), and thereby instantiate an “ethics of
autonomy” that prevails in certain cultural communities
but not others (Haidt et al., 1993; Shweder et al., 1997).
Moreover, the availability of choice necessitates prefer-
ences by which to make choices. Preschool settings are
arranged such that children have an extensive choice of
activities and need not conform to the group except dur-
ing limited parts of the day (C. C. Lewis, 1995). Pre-
sumably, such efforts to incorporate self-determination
into the school day are designed to safeguard the child’s
intrinsic motivation.

This is an instance of culture and psyche making each
other up. Particular kinds of psychological processes
(e.g., construing the self as a positive, unique entity)
emerge through years of socialization and enculturation
as an individual receives then perpetuates social prac-
tices and meanings recurrent in a given cultural commu-
nity (Kitayama, Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit,
1997). These psychological processes, in turn, repro-
duce those same cultural patterns. Becoming a self (a
meaningful cultural participant) in a European Ameri-
can context thus involves maintaining an autonomous
self separate from other selves and the social context.
Those with such independent selves may be more at-
tuned to positive characteristics of the self, and may be
especially motivated to discover them, express them in
public, and confirm them in private. They often develop
processes to buoy their own self-esteem.
The data on European American selves in middle-
class contexts support these generalizations. Examining
earliest childhood memories and self-reports, Wang
(2001a) found that Americans described themselves
using individual attributes and reported lengthy, spe-
cific, self-focused, and emotionally elaborate memo-
ries. Chinese self-reports were briefer and respondents
described themselves by roles. Their memories centered
on collective activities, general routines, and emotion-
ally neutral events.
In a series of studies with young children, Hart and
his colleagues (Hart, 1988; Hart & Edelstein, 1992)
asked American children to imagine a “person machine”
that makes the original person (respondent) disappear
but at the same time manufactures other people (copies
of the original) who receive some, but not all, of the
original person’s characteristics. The respondent’s task
is to judge whether the new manufactured person with
the same physical attributes ( looks like respondent),
with the same social attributes ( has same family and
friends), or with the same psychological attributes
(same thoughts and feelings) will be most like the origi-
nal person. They have found that by the ninth grade most
respondents believe the copy with the original’s psycho-
logical characteristics is most like the original.
Consistent with a number of earlier studies of the de-
velopment of the self-concept (e.g., Harter, 1983), Stein,
Markus, and Moeser (1996) have found that 11- to 14-
year-old European Americans asked to describe them-
selves depict a consensual self whose attributes include
being caring, friendly, nice, and worried. Moreover, the
self-descriptions of adolescents with high rather than
Cultural Diversity in Ways of Being 757
low self-esteem matched the consensual self more
closely. Such findings suggest that adolescents’ tendency
to characterize themselves in abstract terms stems from
a particular collective idea of “ how to be” rather than
from increased cognitive ability. These findings are con-
sistent with several other studies on cultural variation in
self-categorization (Cousins, 1989; Harter, 1983; Trian-
dis, 1990), which suggest that internal features of the
self—the traits, attributes, and attitudes—are privileged
and regarded as critical to self-definition.
Furthermore, in a study comparing the self-efficacy
levels of children from Los Angeles, East and West
Berlin, and Moscow, researchers (Little, Oettingen,
Stetsenko, & Baltes, 1995) found that children from Los
Angeles had the most optimistic self-efficacy beliefs,
while children from East Berlin had the most pes-
simistic beliefs about personal efficacy. The authors ar-
gued that the higher self-efficacy ratings of the Los
Angeles elementary school students reflect the high lev-
els of individualism and the low power distance between
students and teachers.
Oettingen (1995) argues that efficacy depends
largely not only on one’s own evaluations in individual-
ist cultures but also on evaluation by in-group members
in collectivist cultures. In cultures with a large power
disparity between members, children will tend to treat
parents and teachers as clear superiors. Children in cul-
tures with a lesser power disparity will have more op-
portunities to see themselves as “origins” of their own
actions. It would be interesting to know how those chil-
dren of Bielefeld, North Germany, who were reared to
be hyper-independent and unspoiled (Grossmann &
Grossmann, 1981, 1991; Grossmann et al., 1985; and
see earlier discussion of culture-specific presupposi-
tions in attachment research) would have fared on a self-
efficacy index.
As researchers develop methods of assessing the
selves of ever-younger children, they have found that
apprehending and experiencing the world through
bounded selfways begins quite early in individualistic
cultural communities. European American children ap-
pear to have some sense of who they are and which at-
tributes characterize them by 3 years of age (Eder &
Mangelsdorf, 1997), and by 4 years of age they show
psychological tendencies that reflect the cultural em-
phasis on individualization and separation from others.
They describe themselves as better than their peers in
all domains, and studies with adults suggest that this
type of self-serving bias or false uniqueness correlates
758 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
positively with self-esteem (Josephs, Markus, &
Tarafode, 1992). In a cultural system organized around
promoting the individuality and uniqueness of the self,
a general proclivity to positive self-regard has positive
social and psychological consequences.
Selfways in Some East Asian Cultural Contexts
A rapidly expanding literature in psychology, anthropol-
ogy, and philosophy now provides an increasingly nu-
anced understanding of the cultural form of Japanese,
Chinese, and Korean selves. Systematic analyses of
Japanese settings reveal a pervasive concern with and
attention to the relational side of social life and to indi-
vidual position in the social structure (Bachnik, 1994;
Lebra, 1993; Peak, 1987; Rosenberger, 1992). Markus
and Kitayama (1991a, 1991b) suggest that Asian self-
ways emphasize the fundamental relatedness of individ-
uals to each other and that the relationship rather than
the individual may be a functional unit of conscious-
ness, and claim:
Experiencing interdependence entails seeing oneself as
part of an encompassing social relationship and recogniz-
ing that one’s behavior is determined by, contingent on,
and to a large extent, organized by what the actor per-
ceived to be the thoughts, feelings and actions of others in
the relationship. (p. 227)
Lebra (1994) argues that among the Japanese, empa-
thy is a psychological mainstay and must be understood
if one is to comprehend almost any aspect of Japanese
behavior. Empathy (omoiyari) “refers to the ability and
willingness to feel what others are feeling, to vicari-
ously experience the pleasure or pain that they are un-
dergoing, and to help them satisfy their wishes” (Lebra,
1976, p. 38). Lebra sees this focus as diametrically op-
posed to the self-focus common in many European
American practices.
This emphasis on empathy implies that Japanese
selves should not be conceptualized as lacking individu-
ality or a separate identity or that autonomy is unimpor-
tant in Japan (Greenfield & Cocking, 1994; Kim, 1987;
Oerter, Oerter, Agostiani, Kim, & Wibowo, 1996). It
does imply, however, that such empathic ways of being a
self, which explicitly highlight the state of being-in-
relation, are different from selfways that emphasize and
reify the individual. In this particular Japanese mode of
being, subjectivity is sensed as interdependence with a
larger whole that includes both the person and others
and is configured by constantly referencing the self to
the situational setting or context.
Throughout much of the world, the task of child rear-
ing is not the European American one of making a de-
pendent baby into an independent adult, but instead one
of cultivating an unruly asocial baby into a civilized so-
cial being (Caudill & Weinstein, 1969). The need to up-
hold interpersonal obligations as well as to maintain
connection and harmony with others is highly elabo-
rated in every sphere of social life. Caudill and Wein-
stein (1986) find that Japanese mothers hold their 3- to
4-month-old infants more and have more body commu-
nication with them than mothers in the United States.
Furthermore, as noted earlier, co-sleeping and co-
bathing are common. Sleeping babies are rarely left
alone in Japan. The close, fully interdependent mother-
child dyad is particularly idealized in Japan, and many
other relationships (e.g., between boss and subordinate)
are organized around this familial model. Greenfield
and Cocking (1994) characterize interdependent and in-
dependent developmental scripts as sharply contrasting,
intertwined but never fully balanced. From an East
Asian cultural perspective, a self European American
style—distinct, positive, and attribute-based—is not a
mature, fully civilized form of human agency. A
strongly held, clear sense of self signals childishness be-
cause it entails failure to take full account of and show
sufficient regard for the relationships of which the self
is a part. Agency Japanese style results from (a) the
sense that the self is afforded and appreciated through
the relationships in which it participates, and ( b) the
sense that the self must flexibly maintain and further
the welfare of those relationships.
Such a sense of agency does not mean that the self is
passive or just going with the flow. Inter-individual har-
mony requires active attention. Mulder (1992), in de-
scribing Indonesian harmony (rukun), notes that it “does
not come as a gift but is the result of the active orienta-
tion toward mutual respect and adjustment to each
other.” From this orientation, one must be empathic and
flexible to avoid hurting or embarrassing others by one’s
action. Oerter et al. (1996), in characterizing a Japanese
perspective on human nature, quotes a respondent as
claiming that “adulthood” means “good understanding,
being flexible and following the general rules set by so-
ciety. The more you grow as an adult, the smaller your
own private fantasy world becomes. . . . You become
softer-minded, better fitted to the society, but you also
become less sensitive” (p. 41).

Interdependence characterizes many different aspects
of Japanese life. As noted previously, the Japanese lan-
guage minimizes the person as an agent. Self-reference in
Japanese is accomplished with an elaborated set of com-
municative customs based on individual status in each
particular relationship. The Japanese word for self (jibun)
means “my share of the shared space between us.”
Japanese-style interdependence emphasizes living cor-
rectly and self-improvement.
Even maternal practices toward infants in Japan seem
to involve communicating correct and expected ways to
be. Caudill and Schooler (1973) noted that Japanese
mothers’ speech is apparently aimed to shape directly
their infants’ physical and emotional states in normative
directions. They seem especially concerned with pre-
venting infants’ crying and with calming babies whose
serenity has been disturbed (Morikawa et al., 1988).
Compared to European American mothers, Japanese
mothers appear especially alert to infant vocalizations,
which they often interpret as signs of distress to
which they must respond (Bornstein, Azuma, Tamis-
LeMonda, & Ogino, 1990). American mothers, by con-
trast, seem to talk more to their infants, without trying to
directly influence their infants’ behavior. Bornstein and
colleagues cite a Japanese mother saying to her 3-month-
old baby who was looking away (“What is wrong with
you?” and “Look at me”). Apparently, to reestablish a
dyadic connection when the infants were gazing away
from them, Japanese mothers were more likely than
Americans to express negative affect, try to establish
mutual gaze, or seek information (see also Rothbaum,
Pott, & Azuma, 2000; Rothbaum, Weisz, & Pott, 2000;
Shimizu & LeVine, 2001).
Such East Asian parenting and teaching practices en-
courage interdependence through interaction and mu-
tual engagement. When American mothers and toddlers
interact with a new toy, American mothers typically
focus on the object and draw the child’s attention to it.
Japanese mothers use the toy to engage the child in a re-
lational or interactive game and do much less talking,
explaining, and questioning (Bornstein et al., 1990; Fer-
nald & Morikawa, 1993). According to Lewis’s (1995)
survey of over 50 Japanese preschools, the focus is on
developing children’s connections to one another and
engaging them in the pleasures of group life. Instead of
celebrating individual success, special events recognize
the whole group. Children routinely produce group pic-
tures or storyboards, and no child may go to the play-
ground until all are ready. Attention to others is among
Cultural Diversity in Ways of Being 759
the primary aims of Japanese education and is fostered
in many routine practices. Classroom walls are adorned
with group goals, such as “let’s cooperate” or “let’s pool
our strength” (C. C. Lewis, 1995).
Similarly, Chinese parents and teachers consider de-
veloping a sense of connectedness to be essential for
children’s socialization. Child-rearing practices focus
on obedience, reliability, proper behavior, social obliga-
tion, and group achievement (P. J. Miller et al., 1997;
Mullen & Yi, 1995; Wu, 1996). In a study that content-
analyzed children’s stories and early memories, Wang
and Leichtman (2000) found that compared to American
children, Chinese children showed greater orientation
toward social engagement, a greater concern with moral
correctness, greater concern with authority, a less au-
tonomous orientation, more expressions of emotion, and
more situational details. To illustrate these differences,
Wang and Leichtman provided the following examples
from 6-year-olds:
Memory 1 (American boy): When I didn’t get to get a toy.
I like to get lots of Legos and there was an underwater one,
and it was a little big. It was a medium one and it had one
of the things I’ve been waiting for. But I forget what it was.
Memory 2 (Chinese boy): One day, my mom bought many
flower seeds. They were alive. She planted them there. I
stepped on them by accident. Then my mom scolded me
and spanked me twice. So I cried. I felt a little angry that
she spanked me.
Differences by cultural context are especially evi-
dent with respect to emotions (Mesquita, 2001; Tsai,
Simenova, & Watanabe, 1999). In many middle-class
European American contexts, emotions constitute an
important aspect of the self and should be emphasized
and explained as one develops individuality. In Chinese
contexts, emotions result from the child’s relations with
significant others and serve to both encourage proper
behavior in the child and reinforce a sense of connect-
edness (Wang, 2001b).
Studies of East Asian child-rearing and schooling
practices also suggest an emphasis on knowing one’s
place, role, station, and duties in the social order, partic-
ularly in Chinese cultural contexts that explicitly value
self-improvement, order, and hierarchy. In a study of
Chinese American and European American mothers’ be-
liefs about what matters for raising children, Chao (1992)
found that Chinese American mothers stressed sensitiv-
ity to other’s expectations and the situation, while Euro-
pean American mothers emphasized nurturing the child’s
760 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
sense of self. Here the former were primarily concerned
with the hierarchical, interdependent relationship be-
tween self and others and the integrity that derives from
doing your duty, but the latter were primarily concerned
with furthering their children’s independence and en-
couraging a strong, positive, even assertive, self-regard.
Chao (1993a, 1993b) found an emphasis on order and
respect for hierarchy among Chinese American mothers.
They scored higher on scales of parental control, author-
itarianism, and what Chao calls “Chinese child-rearing
ideologies” than their European American counterparts.
These Chinese American mothers were more likely to
endorse items such as “I have strict, well-established
rules for my child,” “I do not allow my child to question
my decisions,” “I make sure I know where my child is
and what he is doing at all times,” “I teach my child that
in one way or another punishment will find him when he
is bad,” “Mothers can teach children by pointing [out]
good behavior in other children,” “When children con-
tinue to disobey you, they deserve a spanking,” and
“Children should be in the constant care of their moth-
ers or family members.”
Similarly, Rohner and colleagues found that, in con-
trast to Americans, Korean adolescents perceived
parental control as manifesting not hostility and mistrust
but love and concern (Rohner, 1984; Rohner & Pettengill,
1985). Notably, strictly controlling parental practices
that aim to create a morally dutiful, disciplined sense of
agency are also found in some European American con-
texts and merit further study.
Differences in selfways also come across in play prac-
tices. Farver, Kim, and Lee (1995) found that in free
play among European American and Korean American
preschoolers, European American children primarily
described their own actions, rejected their partners’
suggestions, and used directives (e.g., “I am your king!
Do not obey the bad king! I’ll save you!”). Korean Amer-
ican children described their partners’ actions, used tag
questions, semantic ties, statements of agreement, and
polite requests (e.g., “He is a king, isn’t he? He’s the bad
guy, isn’t he? The good guy caught him, right?”).
Overall, in many East Asian contexts, personal
sense of well-being is tied less to meeting an individ-
ual’s goals (the ethics of autonomy) and more to doing
what is required in a given situation, or doing some-
thing the right or appropriate way (ethics of commu-
nity; for more on the ethics of autonomy and
community see Shweder et al., 1997). Already in the
first months of preschool, Japanese children are re-
quired to perform complicated activities, such as ar-
ranging their lunch boxes or putting on their clothes for
outside activities, in the required way (Peak, 2001). As
a child, being part of a family or a school group often
means thinking about the social unit and your place in
it, and then doing what is proper for this situation. It
involves considerations such as “What do my parents or
my peers want me to do?” or “Did I do what they
wanted me to do?” In a Japanese cultural context, a
sense of self is developed by being finely attuned to the
expectations of others, by not being left out of their
sympathy, and by making sure you are part of the so-
cial process. Perceptually, cognitively, emotionally,
and motivationally, others—the encompassing social
unit, the group and its standards of excellence—are
important. Thus, the most useful kind of information
about the self concerns your shortcomings, problems,
or negative features. Self-criticism is encouraged in all
societal settings from the classroom to the boardroom.
Cultural participation entails discovering what may be
lacking in your behavior and then closing the gap be-
tween the actual and expected behavior (Kitayama
et al., 1997; Markus & Kitayama, 1994a, 1994b).
In Japan, a constant focus on social expectations and
meeting them appears to go hand in hand with a simulta-
neous focus on self-improvement and self-criticism.
In studies comparing self-improving and self-enhancing
motivations (Heine et al., 1999, 2001), Japanese partici-
pants who failed on an initial task persisted more on a
follow-up task than those who succeeded. In contrast,
North Americans who failed persisted less on a follow-
up task. In Japanese contexts, failures are important and
diagnostic and thus serve to highlight where corrective
efforts are needed. The emphasis on self-improvement
as a virtue can be seen everywhere in Japanese life. An
advertisement urging Japanese workers to take vaca-
tions exhorted, “Let’s become masters at refreshing our-
selves” (New York Times, May 1995).
The desire for self-improvement has cognitive con-
sequences: Many Japanese tend to focus on areas need-
ing improvement while discounting positive aspects of
their performance. This tendency to discount the posi-
tive is often misinterpreted by European Americans as
self-depreciation, but in Japan it works very well to es-
tablish the person as a community member in good
standing. Humility might better describe this culturally
valued disposition. In contrast to European Americans,
who often focus on a self ’s positive features and
equate self-improvement with individual achievement,

Japanese are more sensitive to a self ’s negative fea-
tures in a given context.
Further, Japanese practices are often framed in
terms of hitonami (average as a person). Difficult as it
may be for European Americans to believe, many Japa-
nese feel relieved to know that they are average because
being different entails the risk of being insensitive to
and not belonging in your community. From an interde-
pendent perspective, the self seems best described as a
process of self-improvement that requires being sensi-
tive to the expectations of others and not disrupting har-
mony or equipoise.
Studies of self in Asian contexts all point to self-
criticism as integral to the self. Chinese respondents an-
swer the Twenty Statements Test using fewer positive
statements about themselves than Americans do (Bond
& Cheung, 1983; Karasawa, 1998). Ryff, Lee, and Na
(1995) also found that Korean respondents were more
likely to endorse negative than positive statements about
themselves; European American respondents showed the
reverse pattern. Stigler, Smith, and Mao (1985) found
similar results among Chinese and United States ele-
mentary school students’ perceptions of competence:
Chinese students rated their competence lower in cogni-
tive, physical, and general domains than did European
Americans.
These studies suggest that members in good standing
in Asian cultural contexts avoid calling attention to the
self, deemphasize their own specialness, and adjust to
the immediate situations in which they participate. Even
the universally necessary social tasks of individuation,
independence, and maintaining autonomy are grounded
in an appreciation of interdependence.
These orientations exist at odds with the very prac-
tice of personal self-description and thus with com-
monly exported social science methods requiring people
to evaluate and categorize the self. Interdependent (or
sociocentric) and individualistic (or independent or ego-
centric) mentalities and practices are distinct and may
require different methods of study. Considered in their
respective cultural contexts, notably, these two selfways
are equally normal, reasonable, or viable ways of being,
although they are associated with patterned or system-
atic diversity in psychological functioning.
Both types—individualistic and interdependent self-
ways—involve the participation and support of others
and are saturated with cultural meanings. The instantia-
tion and realization of individualism is then a type of in-
terdependence and a socially endorsed and constructed
Cultural Diversity in Ways of Being 761
cultural practice. As Vygotsky (1987) suggests, “Every
function in the child’s development appears twice; first
on the social level, and after on the individual level, first
between people (interpsychological) and then inside the
child (intrapsychological)” (p. 57).
Selfways in Still Other Cultural Contexts
We have focused on the comparison between European
American and East Asian children to highlight diver-
gent selfways. Nevertheless, important variations in
selfways can also be found within cultural groups and
are increasingly a focus of attention (Strickland, 2000).
For example, Harwood and colleagues (Harwood &
Miller, 1991; Harwood, Schoelmerich, Ventura-Cook,
Schultz, & Wilson, 1996) compared Anglo and Puerto
Rican mothers in the United States. They found that rel-
ative to Puerto Rican mothers, both middle- and lower-
class Anglo mothers placed significantly greater value
on self-confidence and independence and significantly
less value on obedience, the capacity for relatedness,
and proper demeanor. Miller, Potts, Fung, Hoogstra,
and Mintz, 1990; Miller and Hoogstra, 1992; Miller,
Mintz, Fung, Hoogstra, and Potts, 1992, report that au-
tonomy is important in both working-class and middle-
class U.S. communities, but is fostered differently
according to social class. In a study of the co-narration
of mothers and toddlers in two Midwestern communi-
ties, they found that middle-class mothers accorded
children speech and author privileges in creating stories
about past events, and were less likely than working-
class mothers to challenge the toddlers’ versions of
reality. Working-class mothers also granted children
speaker rights—and involved children in longer co-
narratives than middle-class children—but challenged
children more often to tell the “correct ” version rather
than their own story. Similarly, recent ethnographic
accounts of selves in working-class contexts find less
focus on self-confidence, self-expression, and develop-
ing potential and more emphasis on stability, integrity,
and resilience (Harwood, Miller, & Irizarary, 1995;
Kusserow, 1999; Snibbe & Markus, 2004).
A study by Rogoff et al. (1993) comparing U.S.
middle-class and Guatemalan Mayan toddlers finds that
autonomy also matters in the socialization of Mayan chil-
dren, particularly among toddlers who are accorded
special privileges and not expected to conform to
the same rules as older siblings. In contrast to the Ameri-
can children, however, older Mayan siblings cooperated
762 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
interdependently with the toddlers without caregiver in-
tervention, suggesting that among the Mayans developing
autonomy is associated with understanding that one is an
interdependent member of the community and is not as
completely autonomous as infants are allowed to be.
Only recently have investigators began to describe
how contexts other than European American and East
Asian ones influence the constitution of self. For exam-
ple, a review of parenting among U.S. Latino families
finds that despite considerable within-group heterogene-
ity, Latino parents tend to emphasize the main cultural
values of respeto and familismo (Harwood, Leyendecker,
Carlson, Asencio, & Miller, 2002). Respeto refers to
maintaining proper demeanor, which involves knowing
the proper decorum required in a given situation with
people of a particular age, sex, and social status. Famil-
ismo refers to a belief system linking loyalty, reciproc-
ity, and solidarity toward members of the family, which
is seen as an extension of the self (Cortés, 1995).
African American parenting, according to a review
by McAdoo (2002), must often address persistent issues
that African American children confront, such as deval-
uation of their own worth and future potential, inade-
quate financial resources, and the challenge of teaching
children about race. Moreover, in African American
contexts maintaining communal family traditions is es-
sential. Coresidential extended families and their sup-
port systems are common and regarded as an important
survival system for African American families (Hatch-
ett, Cochran, & Jackson, 1991).
Research in cultural psychology challenges some gen-
eralizations about self and self-development and signifi-
cantly strengthens others. In the next decade, these shifts
will likely result in new paradigms for studying the self.
Recent theoretical debates and discussions in psychology
and anthropology aim to clarify and elaborate the gen-
eral propositions that the self is (a) constituted in inter-
action with others, ( b) collectively constructed through
sociocultural participation, and (c) a product of history
(see Elder & Shanahan, Chapter 12, this Handbook, this
volume). Each of these propositions reflects a central
claim of cultural psychology, namely, that processes of
self-functioning encompass not only a single psychology
but also multiple psychologies.
The Self Is Constituted in Interaction with Others
It is an old idea that one cannot be a self by one’s self.
Although life in the middle-class European American
cultural region has highlighted the conceptual self, stud-
ies of self in other cultural locations underscore the im-
portance of what Neisser (1988, 1991) terms the inter-
personal self. Selves are constituted and develop in inter-
action with specific others (J. M. Baldwin, 1911; M. W.
Baldwin & Holmes, 1987; Cooley, 1902; Hallowell,
1955; Ingold, 1991; Rosaldo, 1984; Shweder & LeVine,
1984). Echoing Mead (1934) and the early symbolic in-
teractionists, the self literature includes a growing ap-
preciation of the dynamic, socially constructed nature of
self. This idea has the appeal of potentially bridging the
gap between focusing primarily on the individual as a
cultural learner (Tomasello et al., 1993) versus on the
cultural collective of which the individual is an interde-
pendent part (Cole, 1995). This synthesis promises to get
the person back in the practice and the practice back in
the person.
Efforts to understand the mutual constitution of self
and other in the development of self, or just how it is that
selves and others make each other up, are ongoing. Out-
side of middle-class European American cultural com-
munities many people prefer crowded living conditions
and regard the physical presence of others, especially
family members, as essential to mental health and well-
being. Peak (1987), writing about Japan, claims that be-
coming a person involves learning to appreciate the
pleasures of group life and living in human society.
Similarly, Ochs (1988) reports that Samoans are self-
conscious about their need for others to acknowledge
and sympathize with them. Menon’s (1995) interviews
with Oriya Hindu women living in extended joint family
households reveal that in local moral worlds steeped in
an ethics of community the idea of living alone while
sane and happy is almost a contradiction in terms (see
also Kakar, 1978).
In much European American research on the devel-
opment of self, others become relevant when selves
learn to take the perspectives of these others and get in-
side their heads (Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1995), or as
specific relationships are forged with particular others.
It is increasingly evident, however, that others have a
pervasive impact on any person’s psychological develop-
ment throughout life in all cultural contexts. Even prior
to birth, individuals are immersed in social relations and
activities. Human infants only become selves through
their engagement in particular, culturally organized set-
tings (Markus et al., 1997; Weisner, 1982, 1984, 1987).
Ever more investigators now assume that mutual involve-
ment of self and others is so fundamental to human
functioning that others are automatically perceived as
relevant to one’s sense of self. Gopnik (1993) refers to
an innate bridge or intersubjectivity between self and

others. Infants are responsive to others’ affective ex-
pressions, and thus others are immediately expected,
implicated, and involved in one’s becoming a self (see
also Ingold, 1991).
The Self Develops through
Sociocultural Participation
A cultural psychology perspective places considerable
emphasis on what Kitayama and colleagues (Kitayama,
Markus, Matsumoto, & Norasakkunkit, 1995; Markus
et al., 1997) term the collective construction of self. The
concept is that selves develop in a dynamic, recursive
process in which sociocultural participation in a given
cultural system of meanings, practices, and institutions
affords characteristic tendencies of the self that further
serve to integrate the person into the meanings and
practices of a given cultural community (see also Bour-
dieu, 1972; Giddens, 1984; Martin, Nelson, & Tobach,
1995). This perspective emphasizes that from their ear-
liest moments, selves arise from being a person in par-
ticular worlds. From a child’s earliest days, partial,
incomplete, rudimentary gestures and vocalizations are
“infused with specific meanings and significances cru-
cial to enabling the child to become a progressively
more competent partner ” (Bruner, 1993, p. 532). Chil-
dren are immediately engaged in the settings of daily
life and are subject to the specific normative expecta-
tions and the institutional entailments of what Super
and Harkness (1986) label a “developmental niche.”
People always live in culture-specific ways. To live oth-
erwise is impossible.
Super and Harkness’s theorizing is one of many at-
tempts to resolve the tension between psychology’s ex-
cesses in viewing development as natural growth or an
unfolding of abilities in stages and anthropology’s ex-
cesses in viewing development as cultural molding or
conditioning. Super and Harkness claim that a child’s
developmental experience is regulated by (a) the set-
tings—physical and social—in which the child lives; ( b)
the customs of child care and child rearing; and (c) the
mentality of the caretakers. These three mutually inter-
active subsystems function together with other elements
of the large culture and environment to constitute a
culture-specific child.
Cultural psychology’s approach to the study of self
does not deny the individuality, idiosyncrasy, and
uniqueness of the self observable in even the most tight-
knit and coherent collectives. Children do not become
general people; they become particular persons or selves.
One of the most significant facts about us, writes Geertz
Cultural Diversity in Ways of Being 763
(1973a), “may finally be that we all begin with the natu-
ral equipment to live a thousand kinds of life but end in
the end having lived only one” (p. 45). Every person par-
ticipates in combinations of significant cultural settings
or niches, which in contemporary American society
could include specific groups, such as the family or
workplace, as well as contexts defined by ethnicity, reli-
gion, profession, social class, gender, birth cohort, and
sexual orientation. Some of the remarkable variation
among people arises at least in part because people are
unlikely to participate in identical configurations of
group memberships. Even those living in similar config-
urations of cultural contexts will diverge in the specifics
of their everyday, symbolically mediated experiences
and due to prior, innate, received, or temperamental dif-
ferences in their sense of self will differentially attend
to, seek out, elaborate, or reflect some features of these
experiences and not others. Moreover, participation or
engagement in the activities of a given cultural setting
can assume divergent forms. Cultural participation can
be straightforward and unquestioning, resistant, or
ironic. Consequently, there is little danger that people of
the same sociocultural and historical niches will be
clones of one another. Between-group differences do not
imply within-group homogeneity.
The Self as a Historical Product
A cultural psychology approach to the development of
self has led researchers to appreciate Bourdieu’s idea
that processes of self are “ history turned into nature”
(1991, p. 7). Many Western researchers focusing on the
self have participated in their discipline long enough
now to have observed historical change in the European
American cultural zone in the natural and normative
self. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a need
to discover the true self and feelings. Currently, there is
the need to say no not yes to experience and to create the
proper self. Many current self researchers were them-
selves raised according to the dictates of Dr. Spock but
as parents find his prescriptions rigid and inappropriate.
Similarly, American educators note that requiring chil-
dren to be happy and feel good about themselves has
produced a generation of children with high self-esteem
and no basic skills. Programs under development aim to
raise the educational expectations for American chil-
dren and to replace an emphasis on positive self-
evaluation with an emphasis on building specific skills
(Damon, 1995).
General societal imperatives of “ the way to be”
promulgated by the advertising industry and media have
764 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
a strong effect on nurturing practices and on both lay
and scientific conceptions of self. In a comprehensive
historical overview of the American self, Cushman
(1995, p. 24) argues that to understand the formation of
the American self one must understand the interplay be-
tween this nation and what it means to be American, be-
tween what it means to be an American and what it
means to be human, and between the construction of the
self and the construction of the country. It is of no small
significance to the renewed field of cultural psychology
that self researchers are beginning to heed Kessen’s
claim (1983):
The study of children is not exclusively or even mainly a
scientific enterprise in the narrow sense but stretches out
toward philosophy and history and demography. If we were
to recognize such an expanded definition of child study,
we might anticipate a new (science) whose object of study
is not the true child or a piece of the true child but the
changing diversity of children. (pp. 37–38; see also Bron-
fenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner, Kessel, Kessen, &
White, 1985; Kessel & Siegel, 1983; Lerner, Chapter 1,
this Handbook, this volume)
CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY AND
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
In the previous sections, we have been considering some
selected content areas, using these to bring out features
of cultural psychology and to demonstrate how these
alter our understanding and analysis of development, in-
fluencing concepts, methods, and research questions.
Those content areas have had to do with interpersonal
relations during childhood, language and communica-
tion practices, and the development of self. The fourth
and last area chosen is that known as cognitive develop-
ment. Terms with a cognitive cast to them—mind, men-
tality, meanings, understandings, competencies—have
already appeared throughout the chapter. The area of
cognitive development, however, gives them a particular
place and deepens their analysis.
The material is necessarily selective. We have given
preference, however, to proposals and issues that alter
our views not only of cognitive development but also of
development in general, and that focus on concepts, re-
searchable questions, and possible methods. Struc-
turally, the section is in three sections, each concerned
with ways of moving beyond constraining divisions.
The opening material—on separations between
thought and action—focuses on links between ways of
thinking and ways of acting, on the nature of activities
or practices, and on the concept of participation. The
section that follows—reexamining separations between
hearts and minds—links ways of thinking to feelings,
values, and identities. To the analysis of cognitive devel-
opment, the argument runs, we need to bring the study
of accompanying feeling states. We need also to add the
recognition that areas of competence and ways of learn-
ing differ in the extent to which they are seen as impor-
tant by the individual or by others, and in the extent to
which they are seen as appropriate to a person’s current
self or possible selves.
For the third large concern—moving beyond tradi-
tional separations between persons and contexts—the
material is in two parts. Both stem from the challenge of
giving specific shape to the general recognition that per-
sons and contexts make each other up. The first starts by
considering changes in approaches to the specification
of contexts, asking how these fit with views of cognitive
development. Here we give special attention to accounts
of contexts as both exerting pressure and allowing inno-
vation, as changing rather than static, as heterogenous
rather than monolithic and as composed of contested or
competing positions, with room for individuals to nego-
tiate what is to be learned or what may be questioned.
The later part starts by considering changes in accounts
of cognition and cognitive development, asking how
context enters into these. Here we give special attention
to accounts of cognition in contrasting domains (do-
mains where biological predispositions are major and
domains where the bases is more one of gaining expert-
ise), to the nature of expertise, and to the specific role of
language and communication in an area—the area
known as “ theory of mind”—where age-related changes
have been seen as biologically based, with little impact
from sociocultural experience.
The brief final comments then bring together some
comments on the methods highlighted by a cultural psy-
chological perspective: Methods applicable to all as-
pects of development but particularly illustrated by
studies of cognitive development.
Reexamining Thought and Action
The conventional assumption is that the mind comes
first. Thought precedes action, at least as an ideal in
development. We then find it reasonable to account for

what people do in cognitive terms. To take an example
from law, we find it reasonable to ask if children are old
enough to know the difference between right and wrong
and, given that knowledge, whether they can be held re-
sponsible for what they do. We also see it as appropriate,
in studies of development, to place our emphasis on
changes and variations in the way people think rather
than on changes and variations in what they do.
That conventional assumption has been questioned on
several grounds. Noted especially in the previous edition
were two alternative proposals. The first is that we re-
verse the usual order, with the flow now from actions to
thought. To take a well-known example, we begin by
“doing gender.” We use, and see others use, different
names, games, clothes, spaces, and tasks for males and
females. Those everyday practices provide the bedrock
for the category of gender. They lead us also to think of
gender distinctions as fixed and natural, and they move
development in the direction of less reflection rather
than more.
The second proposal is that we specify both contexts
and the course of development in activities, practices,
and the nature of participation. In one society, for exam-
ple, the main activities for children may be strongly age-
graded, with each school group or playgroup made up of
children much the same age, and children usually dis-
tanced from adult activities. In another society, school-
based activities may play a minor role, younger and older
children may be more often part of the same group, and
children may be present while adults work, talk, or play.
The main directions seen as prompted by those pro-
posals took the form of closer looks at (a) links between
particular ways of thinking and particular ways of act-
ing and ( b) ways of specifying the nature of activities,
practices, and forms of participation. We now take up
those directions, asking what has been added since the
previous edition, and highlighting some particular gaps
that remain.
Examining links between ways of thinking and ways
of acting. A view of actions and ideas as intrinsically in-
terwoven is a core part of the concept of custom com-
plex. The challenge lies in finding ways to bring out the
forms of that interweaving. Two ways of doing so may be
distinguished. One starts from particular forms of activ-
ity and asks about associated ways of thinking. The
other starts from ways of thinking and asks what prac-
tices or activities might establish or maintain them.
For the first method—starting from particular forms
of activity—this chapter has already provided a major
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 765
example. It takes the form of working from language and
communicative practices, asking for example how these
are associated with particular divisions between truth
and fiction, particular distinctions among relationships
or events, and particular ways of perceiving or repre-
senting the self. That direction is also very much evident
in analysis of the extent to which an understanding of
“mind” and of what others know or believe is shaped by
the presence of lexical terms such as thoughts or beliefs,
by adults’ questions to children, and by games such as I
Spy or 20 Questions. In acquiring adults’ language, the
argument runs, children also acquire their theory of
mind (e.g., Vinden, 1996; Vinden & Astington, 2000).
For a further example involving language, we turn to
a study that is especially relevant to the under-explored
question: What ways of acting can substitute for one
another? We surely learn to distinguish among relation-
ships, for example, by more than one route, by involve-
ment in or exposure to more than one kind of practice.
The nature of interchangeability, however, is so far
poorly understood. The content area in the study singled
out has to do with narrative development. It compares
hearing children whose parents are deaf with other chil-
dren. Narrative development turns out to be the same for
both (Van Deusen-Phillips et. al., 2001). The narrative
practices of people other than parents, it appears, are
sufficient to model the expected structures.
Spoken language and communicative practices are by
no means the only practices to attract continuing atten-
tion in the study of cognitive development. Anthropol-
ogy and cultural psychology draw attention to a variety
of other tools, ranging from sticks to written scripts,
number systems, or maps: Tools that bring out the nature
of both cultural variations and historical changes. There
are by now many analyses of how various tools come to
be available, used, or altered and to shape the way think-
ing or problem solving proceeds. Several of these are
contained in the papers brought together by Cole, En-
geström, and Vasquéz (2000). A set of chapters edited
by Hatano and Wertsch (2001) provides several further
examples, ranging from the use of a globe in learning
about astronomy (Schoultz, Säljö, & Wyndhamn, 2001)
to the use of models or diagrams in planning construc-
tions (Gauvain, 2001).
From these several sources, we abstract two points
that may well be extended to the analysis of many prac-
tices. The first is that with extended use we are likely to
learn more than how to use a particular kind of tool. We
may also develop an understanding of it, a mental model
766 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
of how it works, and its possibilities (Oura & Hatano,
2001, describing a particular aspect of development in
the course of learning to play the piano). The other is a
strong reminder that all such understanding is socially
shaped. What is written and used as a basis and purpose
for reading, for example, may in some groups cover a
wide range of material and of situations. In others, ma-
terials and purposes may be strictly limited to writing
certain kinds of letters, keeping certain kinds of ac-
counts, or developing religious commitment (Scribner &
Cole, 1981).
For the second method—starting from a way of
thinking and asking about its possible background—we
single out, as a particular case, thinking that involves
the emergence of change or innovation.
There are, for example, clearly occasions when peo-
ple develop ways of being original or creative rather
than being only technically and reproductively expert.
That kind of development appears to be influenced by
the ways in which forms of teaching and definitions of
skill allow some individuality of expression rather than
only the strict following of prescriptive directions.
Cooking and the performance of music, for example,
often allow for some individuality of expression—at
least at some levels of competence more readily than do
areas such as the feeding of animals or plants (Hatano &
Inagaki, 1992; Oura & Hatano, 2001).
There are also clearly occasions when reflection,
questioning, or resistance occurs rather than the simple
acceptance of a customary way of thinking or acting.
Most analyses of practice lead us away from exploring
that aspect of development. They emphasize instead the
extent to which the routine, everyday quality of prac-
tices diminishes the likelihood that they will be re-
flected on, questioned, or resisted. That emphasis has
offered a powerful contrast to accounts of cognitive de-
velopment that emphasize people as making sense of the
world in optimal scientific fashion: asking questions,
being quickly alert to discrepancies, and investing effort
in resolving ambiguities. It leaves open questions about
shifts in conventional views and practices, both across
generations and in an individual’s lifetime.
For the circumstances that encourage questioning or
resistance, we have so far little developmental evidence.
One relevant circumstance, however, seems likely to be
what children learn about the fate or status of question-
ers. They may be pointed out as odd people, as godless
or lost souls whose afterlife is not what one would aspire
to. “Curiosity killed the cat,” it is said (more often than
the rejoinder “Information brought it back ”).
A further possible circumstance has to do with repeti-
tions of the same message. Repetition in itself, however,
is a concept still in need of unpacking. It may take the
form of everyone delivering the same message. There are,
for example, experimental studies showing that consen-
sus—especially consensus about the affective signifi-
cance of a particular view—tends to limit the degree of
monitoring for exceptions (Frijda & Mesquita, 1994).
Repetition may also take the form of the same message
emerging from several practices. Involvement in Western-
style schooling, for example, is low among Samoan chil-
dren. Both adults outside school and the nature of school
practices in Samoa, however, all convey the same mes-
sage: the irrelevance of school for the children’s current
or future ways of living (Watson-Gegeo, 1993).
In specifying activities and forms of participation or
nonparticipation, any approach to development that em-
phasizes the importance of activities needs to move to-
ward distinctions among them. Activities have been
distinguished by, for example, where they take place, the
people who are present, and the psychology of the peo-
ple present (e.g., their views of how development takes
place; e.g., Super & Harkness, 1986). They have also
been distinguished by the tools or artifacts that are
available or used (e.g., Gauvain, 2001), the patterns of
accompanying talk (Gutiérrez, 2002), and the forms and
impacts of repetition (e.g., Hatano & Inagaki, 1992).
Practices, for example, are activities where repetition,
by oneself or others, gives rise to the sense of the natu-
ral or proper ways to act (e.g., Goodnow et al., 1995; P. J.
Miller & Goodnow, 1995).
Activities may differ also in the extent to which they
allow various forms of participation. We draw particu-
lar attention to this aspect. One reason for doing so is
that changes in participation have been proposed as
promising ways of characterizing the forms that devel-
opment takes. They may then characterize both the
shape and the bases of development. Another is that de-
scriptions of participation build on descriptions of ac-
tivities as joint and on distinctions among them as how
two or more people contribute to a task.
Currently, the most familiar form of attention to
changes in participation revolves around teacher-learner
or expert-novice relationships. Prompted, especially by
Vygotskian theory, the course of development is often
seen as one in which the expert provides guidance and
structures the task in ways that allow the novice to take
over more and more responsibility for the task.
That description of a shift is a rich starting point, but
it needs, several expansions that involve (a) the kinds of

relationships considered, ( b) the steps or processes in-
volved, and (c) the nature of nonparticipation.
On the first score (the nature of relationships), we
need to continue questioning the benign and cooperative
quality presented as typical of teacher-learner relation-
ships. Teachers or experts are not always eager to give
up their control and novices are not always eager to learn
or to take on responsibility (Goodnow, 1990b). Teacher-
learner relationships are also not the only forms of rela-
tionship that can apply. In some situations, for example,
people function or are expected to function more as a
team. In still others, one person (e.g., a concert pianist)
may seem to take the only active part. Even here, how-
ever, the audience listens with expectations about what
will be played and how pieces will be played. The per-
former will take those expectations into account and
also try to persuade the audience that the choice of
pieces or of interpretation is a reasonable or exciting one
(Oura & Hatano, 2001).
For expansions on the second score (specifying steps
or processes in participation), we turn to proposals from
Rogoff and from H. Clark. Rogoff (2003) describes par-
ticipation as involving two processes. In one, people
seek to achieve some mutual understanding: for exam-
ple, some mutual understanding of what each knows,
what each seeks, what each understands the task to be.
In the other, they seek to structure what each will do.
They offer choices, invite some actions rather than oth-
ers, or shape events so that some actions become more
likely than others. In effect, they engage in some “mu-
tual structuring of participation” (Rogoff, 2003, p. 287).
H. Clark’s (1996) analysis starts from conversation or
“language in use” as a prime example of “joint activity.”
His analysis is not developmentally oriented; however, it
does suggest several new directions for developmental re-
search. In any joint activity, Clark (1996) argues, we
should ask what each person contributes and is expected
to contribute, what they regard as their shared task, how
they go about that task, and when some perceived limit to
what they can do is reached. In a conversation between a
telephone operator and a caller, for example, one person
seeks information and the other provides it. Each person
checks from time to time that the other has heard what
was said, has heard accurately, that the information pro-
vided is what was sought and has been understood (in
essence, “are you with me?”). Moves toward establishing
mutual understanding (Rogoff, 2003) are not only a way
of describing what people do but also an indication of a
particular competence whose acquisition we might well
seek to trace.
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 767
In any joint activity, to take a second part of H.
Clark’s (1996) argument, we should specify the rules,
regulations, and etiquette that apply. In any team game,
for example, people may be present as players, referees,
coaches, fans, or observers. Each is expected to act
within certain limits. Acting in violation of these limits
incurs penalties. For any game also, the number of peo-
ple and the rules for participation define the game. Peo-
ple can play football with fewer than the number of
required players, for example, but then the game is no
longer an official game. Varying the rules as to what
each piece may do in a game of chess is also possible but
the game is then no longer chess.
In any area, that kind of description suggests, the ac-
quisition of skill may lie in learning both the rules of the
game and the limits to which they can be pushed. We
learn, for example, that some departures from the ex-
pected rules or procedures rule one out of the game
while others are tolerated. We learn also that failing to
observe the expected patterns (e.g., the patterns for con-
versations) may not rule one out of the game but is likely
to result in fewer invitations to join in on later occasions.
Learning the collaborative rules (Goodnow, 1996b)
seems likely to apply to many situations, from turn taking
to story telling, school tasks, or teamwork of any kind.
How children learn such rules, however, is still far from
clear. An intriguing beginning is Martini’s (1994) obser-
vation that young children who spend a great deal of time
with older children (the older children are often their
minders) learn quickly that their presence is tolerated as
long as they do not interrupt the older children’s games.
Household tasks bring out a similar aspect of develop-
ment. They also bring out the extent to which what needs
to be learned or negotiated are the reasons for participat-
ing, the expected styles for doing so, and the limits to
variations in what can be contributed (e.g., variations in
what can be delayed, downsized, delegated, swapped,
substituted, or taken over; Fuligni, 2001; Goodnow,
1996c, 2004b).
The third and last needed expansion that we single out
has to do with the occurrence and the nature of nonpar-
ticipation. Most analyses of participation assume that
participation always occurs, even at times—as in the ex-
ample of a concert pianist’s audience—when participa-
tion is not highly visible. What needs to be accounted for
then are the timing and the shape of changes in the way
people participate. Nonparticipation, however, can also
occur, and may be encouraged in some areas, with at-
tempts at participation regarded as forms of interference
(Goodow, 1996a). Where it is encouraged, learning how
768 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
not to do so, in acceptable ways, may be a major part of
developmental skill (Goodnow, 2004a).
At this point, before we go further in attempts to
track down sources, the major need appears to be one of
differentiating among forms of nonparticipation. People
may, for example, be physically absent. They may stay
away or drop out. More subtly, they may be present but
unengaged in what occurs. Children may, for instance,
participate in the sense that they stay in the classroom
(they do not drop out physically). They are, however, un-
involved, uninvested, or not engaged ( behaviorally, cog-
nitively, or emotionally) in the formal work of the
classroom. Increasingly, that kind of nonparticipation is
attracting both attention and proposals to the effect that
the difficulty may lie more in the nature of social and
classroom contexts than in characteristics of the nonpar-
ticipants (e.g., Blumenfeld et al., in press). Delineating
forms of nonparticipation, establishing how they come
about, and finding ways to change them seems to be one
of the next challenges to rise to in analyses of how
thought and action are related to one another.
Hearts and Minds
Cultural anthropology has long contained an awareness
that matters of the mind cannot be separated from mat-
ters of the heart. Feeling cannot be regarded as a sepa-
rate state from thinking or treated simply as a force that
provokes thought (Shweder, 1992). Forms of compe-
tence need to be regarded as the skills that communities
value (D’Andrade, 1981). Development needs always
to be framed by the social group into which one moves:
for example, “Becoming a Kwoma” (J. W. M. Whiting,
1941). At issue, to take a statement that has moved into
popular discourse, is the battle for hearts and minds.
Cognitive psychology has tended to cover a somewhat
different set of concerns. A set of chapters on “affective
minds,” edited by Hatano, Okada, and Tanabe (2001),
illustrates two recurring lines of approach. One focuses
on the ways in which emotions influence the nature of
processing, with effects ranging from what is attended
to or given processing priority to how far information is
sought. The other focuses on the ways in which aspects
of cognition prompt various emotions, ranging from
fear in the face of perceived threat to the way pride,
shame, or embarrassment rest on some sense of self and
of standards.
What does our cultural psychology perspective add
to such analyses of hearts and minds? To consider that
question, we take up the place of feelings, values, and
identities, again summarizing very briefly the points
made in the previous edition and asking what might
now be added.
Feelings
The only point covered in the previous edition was the
widespread recognition of the need to avoid a two-box
approach to thinking and feeling. We now expand on that
point in three ways.
One is the use of feeling states as a way of differenti-
ating among shared points of view (D’Andrade, 1992).
All members of a cultural group, for example, may hold
the view that “everyone should help the poor ” or that
“each of us can be whatever we want, provided we work
hard enough.” For some members of the group, however,
that idea may be held at the level of a cliché. For others,
the idea may be held with a conviction that guides action
when a choice arises. For still others, the idea may be
held at a level that initiates action: We seek ways to im-
plement it. How some ideas come to be held with various
levels of commitment is clearly a question about devel-
opment that still needs to be explored.
The second expansion has to do with occasions when
some ways of thinking or problem solving give rise to
strong negative emotions. These ways strike us as terri-
bly wrong, as violating some basic principles, as—to
borrow from others—unthinkable, heretical, or taboo
(Fiske & Tetlock, 1997; Tetlock, Kristel, Elson, Green,
& Lerner, 2000). These feelings may well be an impor-
tant part of our sense of a major difference between cul-
tures. They also suggest that people may be regarded not
only as “intuitive scientists” but also as “intuitive the-
ologians”(Tetlock, McGraw, & Kristel, 2004). That
kind of proposal is not only an interesting challenge to
any “cool scientist ” view of cognition but also nicely
linked to a useful method: presenting people with errors
of various kinds (essentially variations of expected pat-
terns) and exploring both judgments of seriousness and
the kinds of emotions reported.
The third and last expansion to the place of feelings
attracts attention because it also challenges conven-
tional concepts and some particular methods. It has to
do with variations in the level of attention paid to feel-
ing states as part of understanding others. A study of at-
tention to two aspects of words provides an example.
Adult speakers of English and Japanese were presented
with words that were pleasant or unpleasant in meaning,
and spoken with either a smooth, round tone or a harsh,
constricted tone. They were then asked to ignore vocal
tone and judge whether the words are pleasant or un-

pleasant in meaning, or to ignore meaning and judge
whether the tone was pleasant or unpleasant. Japanese
speakers found the first task more difficult than English
speakers did. English speakers found the second task
more difficult than Japanese speakers did (Ishii & Ki-
tayama, 2001). The course of development for that kind
of difference would now be of interest to establish, with
one possibility being that English speakers grow out of
an initial sensitivity to tone and into a preoccupation
with the lexical meaning of words.
Values
At first glance, it may seem strange to use the term val-
ues in relation to cognition. Values surely belong to ac-
counts of social or moral development. Cognitive values
are ubiquitous: embodied in distinctions between what
we call basics and frills, significant problems and trivial
pursuits, elegant and pedestrian approaches to a prob-
lem, original and regurgitated pieces of writing, and
proper and odd ways of adding up numbers.
In the previous edition, we noted the ubiquity of cogni-
tive values and raised the question: How are these ac-
quired? What is the nature of such cognitive socialization
(Goodnow, 1990a)? We can now offer three expansions:
one related to where values occur, a second to how values
are acquired, and a third to the range of value tags or
value judgments that are made.
For the areas where values are salient, we focused in
the previous edition on the nature of the end product: on
what is to be learned, what is said, understood, written,
or worked on. Values are also attached to particular ways
of proceeding or learning. In many cultures, for example,
learning by watching is valued over learning by doing
(Rogoff, 2003). In any culture, teachers and students may
also vary in the value they attach to various ways of
learning. Teachers in many Western societies, for exam-
ple, often favor a process of learning by exploring dif-
ferences of opinion—by argument or by attempts at re-
solving different views. Pupils, however, often devalue
that procedure and avoid it on the grounds that it may
jeopardize their relationships with one another (Lampert,
Rittenhouse, & Crumbaugh, 1996). The values attached
to play and to formal or academic learning provide a fur-
ther example. Chinese parents of preschoolers place far
less value on play as a source of cognitive development
than European Americans. Moreover, their preschoolers
themselves also place high value on learning in ways that
suggest an “awareness of the unity of learning and moral-
ity” (Li, 2004, p. 126) that is slower to develop among
European American children. The difference is seen as
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 769
reflecting—for the Chinese preschoolers—a cultural
model of learning in which a combination of “ heart and
mind for wanting to learn” is central (Li, 2002, p. 246).
For the acquisition of cognitive values, we turned in
the previous edition to accounts that are essentially bor-
rowed from theories of social learning. The emphasis
was on what happens in dyadic interactions: on the way,
for example, that what is said is responded to, built on,
ignored, scorned, or actively corrected. We drew espe-
cially from accounts by Wertsch (1991) of how children
even in the early years of school learn to use “ the voice
of science”: sprinkling their stories or arguments with
references to numbers, citing “evidence,” and talking
about the physical properties of objects rather their per-
sonal meaning for the speaker. Noted also were several
closely observed accounts of what happens when chil-
dren bring to school ways of speaking and story telling
that are not in a teacher’s preferred style. They are
quickly made aware that their stories and their ways of
story telling are not good, and teachers actively seek to
dismantle (Michaels, 1991) the children’s styles.
The ways in which we acquire cognitive values, how-
ever, need not be limited to such direct interpersonal
interactions. Values are also embodied in practices.
Take, for example, a school timetable or a school curricu-
lum. In a timetable, some school subjects are allotted the
prime times of day, taught every day, and seldom
rescheduled. Others are given lower priorities: inevitably
dropped or cut short whenever class juggling needs to
take place. In the material used for teaching, there may
be no references to a child’s country of origin, no images
of people from a child’s identity group, or no stories that
are part of a child’s heritage. It may not even occur to
kindergarten teachers that there is something absurd
about using stories such as Red Riding Hood in Samoan
classrooms (Watson-Gegeo, 1993). School subjects may
also acquire various status tags: Some are thought of a
must-be-taken course, some are only for the brightest
(Latin and Greek once had this status), and some are
best for the less bright (typing once had this status). Still
others seem to exist on sufferance: In most secular West-
ern schools, for instance, religion or scripture—if taught
at all—is usually an option, and it is often taught by
someone who is not part of the regular school staff. In
many ways, its position parallels the low degree of atten-
tion given in most current analyses of development to re-
ligious ways of viewing events and people (Hudley et al.,
2003). It is small wonder then that many of us are unpre-
pared for the significance of religious thought in many
other parts of the world.
770 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Direct social learning and embedding in the teaching
and linguistic practices of a group are then two lines of
cognitive socialization. To these, a third needs to be
added. It has been considered so far in terms only of
judgments about the work of adults, yet is extendable to
children. It also points to a way in which practices may
be linked to one another: a recurring concern in this
chapter. This core proposal is part of Bourdieu’s (1979)
analysis of intellectual values—of “ taste” or “distinc-
tion”: An analysis that brings out the extent to which
some of the same criteria for judging value may apply in
several situations. For example, we bring many of the
same dimensions to judgments about intellectual pro-
ductions that, we use for judgments about food, distin-
guishing between rich and thin, refined or rough, and
well or poorly presented. The essence of taste for the
European middle-class, Bourdieu (1979) comments,
may well lie in the values it attaches to various forms of
presentation, for both material and intellectual produc-
tions. That proposal not only helps illuminate an area of
difference among social groups but also raises develop-
mental questions about the extent to which a common
presence makes values easier to pick up or more diffi-
cult to set aside in successive situations.
The third and last expansion in the area of values has
to do with the range of value judgments. We have so far
described various kinds of thinking, learning, or problem
solving only as being more versus less valued, more ver-
sus less privileged. That is surely an incomplete descrip-
tion. At the least, we might extend the range by adding a
term dispreferred from Ochs (1990, p. 299), which cov-
ers what is actively discouraged. We might extend it also
by describing values as what is regarded as ideal, what is
tolerated, what is discouraged, and what is regarded as
out of the question, impossible, intolerable (Goodnow,
1995, 1996a), heretical, or unthinkable (Fiske & Tet-
lock, 1997; Tetlock et al., 2000).
We have a great deal to learn about what are regarded
as the most serious violations of expected ways of think-
ing. Building on Fiske’s (1991) account of social orienta-
tions, Tetlock and his colleagues propose that the
underlying base is a violation of “spheres of exchange.”
With one example being the violation of a distinction be-
tween what can be treated as a commodity (traded, sold,
or discarded) and what cannot. All cultures, for exam-
ple, draw distinctions between what can be sold and
what cannot. They may differ in their views of what can
be sold (e.g., people, sex, loyalties), but the distinction is
always deeply felt. We have as well a great deal to learn
about the developmental background to such distinctions
and the feelings associated with them. At the least, how-
ever, these judgments at the far end of a scale of values
point to the need for expanding the range of value tags or
value judgments among ways of thinking beyond any
simple sorting into the more versus the less valued.
Identities
In the previous edition, we divided the argument for the
need to link analyses of cognitive development to issues
of identity into three ways, which break the line often
drawn between analyses of cognitive development.
The first noted that certain ways of thinking, problem
solving, or expressing oneself mark one as a schooled or
educated person, promoting the choice of some ways of
proceeding even when others are available (Nunes, 1995),
and often provide the motivation needed to acquire a dif-
ficult skill (Hatano, 1995). The second was that changes
in competence can lead to some changes in the identity
that others assign to us. A person may now, for example,
be recognized as a legitimate member of some commu-
nity of practitioners (Lave & Wenger, 1991): a change in
status noted as not always occurring. The third was that
the acquisition of competence covers only part of the
story. Not acquiring certain forms of competence can
also be a way of signaling identity (e.g., an identity as one
of “ the lads”; Willis, 1977) or a way of protecting one’s
identity, one’s sense of an essentially capable self (e.g.,
Cole & Traupmann, 1981). The critical skill may also lie
in managing to maintain a double identity: for example,
an official identity, for teachers, as a reasonable child
who obeys the rules and, for one’s peers, an identity as
one who appears to stay in the letter of the rules but sub-
tly bends or flouts them (Corsaro, 1992).
We have still a great deal to learn, as we noted in the
previous edition, about the strategic presentation of
identity in the course of development and about what is
seen as in keeping with an assigned identity (e.g., the
identity of child or beginner). Not in keeping with some
definitions of a child, for example, is a precocious
knowledge of sex or of money values. Not in keeping
with some concepts of a beginner is the open and non-
deferential display of skill or ease.
What might now be added? The expansions seen as
especially needed have to do with (a) the nature of
membership, ( b) asking which members of a group mat-
ter, and (c) the implications of moves toward recogniz-
ing social and personal identity, multiple identities, and
both a current self and possible selves.

On the first score (membership), developmentalists
are now familiar with the argument that increasing com-
petence needs to be seen as involving not only a change
in the individual but also in the individual’s coming to
be an accepted, recognized member of a group. One
needed expansion on that argument consists of noting
that this second shift may not always happen. In a less-
than-ideal world, acceptance may still be withheld. The
official qualifications may never be enough. More
finely, we now need to take a closer look at the meanings
of terms such as community and membership.
Rogoff (2003) provides one example of that move,
distinguishing participation from membership. She de-
scribes herself, for example, as having “participated for
several decades in a Mayan community in Guatemala,
but people from that community (and I ) do not regard
myself as a member of that community” (p. 83). We
may, she continues, do better to focus on “ the more dy-
namic concept of participation, rather than the categori-
cal concept of membership” (p. 83). We may also need
to think more about the defining features of a commu-
nity. Communities need not, for example, be “limited to
people who are in face-to-face contact or living in geo-
graphic proximity” (p. 81). They should, however, “ be
defined as groups of people who have some common and
continuing organization, values, understanding, history,
and practices. . . . A community involves people trying
to accomplish some things together, with some stability
of involvement. . . . A community involves generations
that move through it, with customary ways of handling
the transitions of generations” (pp. 80–81). Moreover,
“participants in a community often continue to regard
their involvement and their continuing relationships as
central to their lives, whether this is expressed in affec-
tion or loyalty or efforts to avoid community ways”
(p. 81). How people acquire these understandings of
community and these feelings of belonging are ques-
tions still to be pursued.
On the second score (some people in a group matter
more than others), we take as an example some propos-
als by Minsky (2000, 2001). Those proposals start by
considering people as equipped by nature with “detec-
tors” for praise or censure. The impact of praise or cen-
sure, however, depends on the extent to which there is
an attachment or close relationship between the person
making judgments and the person receiving them. The
remarks of a stranger, for example, generate less shame
than do the remarks of a parent to whom the child feels
attached. The experience of emotions such as pride and
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 771
shame, and the development of the standards, rules, and
goals that M. Lewis (1993) sees as their basis, depend
then on the development of attachments and, presum-
ably, the range of people that in any culture are re-
garded as sources of praise or censure that should “cut
to the quick.”
The last expansion (closer analyses of identity) takes
several forms. Each suggests a different facet of what
develops and, in some cases, of conditions that shape
cognitive development.
One is a distinction between social identity and per-
sonal identity. Personal identity is identity captured by
asking whether people see themselves as competent or
creative or as being the same person now that they were
at an earlier age. Social identity refers to the social cat-
egories in which we place ourselves or others place us.
We may, for example, describe ourselves as Asian
American, Chinese, or Cantonese, or as first-, second-,
or third-generation. Others may assign a person to a
looser category, using a term such as Asian to cover
everything from India to Japan. Interest in social identi-
ties and social categories has a considerable history, es-
pecially since the work of Tajfel (1981). Much of that
work, however, has stayed in the realm of social psychol-
ogy and in references to the life of adults. Increasingly,
it shows signs of a much-needed move into analyses of
development.
Seen as a mark of cognitive development, for example,
is an increasing skill in the description of oneself in ways
that fit what is required in various situations and with
varied audiences (e.g., Banarjee, 2002). There are age
changes, for example, in the appropriateness of chil-
dren’s answers on a task such as the following: “Imagine
you are lost in a mall. I’m a detective and it’s my job to
find you. I’ve never seen you before and I don’t have any
pictures of you. Tell me what I would need to know about
you to find you.” What may also develop with age or ex-
perience is skill in shaping a presentation of identities to
suit one’s own strategic needs. To take an example from
observations by Cooper, Garcia Coll, Thorne, and Orel-
lana (in press) two girls in an Oakland school use to good
purpose their mixed backgrounds (mixed is the term
used in the school and the playground). For one, the
mother is described in this report as Chinese-American,
the father as Jewish. For the other, the mother is de-
scribed as white, the father as Egyptian. Both girls were
noted as using their mixed backgrounds as ways “ to
avoid fights (mixed meant not on either side of ethnically
charged conflicts) or avoid the slight stigma of being
772 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
white and build alliances (I told the Black kids that I’m
Egyptian and that’s in Africa).”
A second expanded look at identity distinguishes be-
tween personal and collective identity. It is collective
identity that is involved in the sense of “ we” (Thoits &
Virshup, 1997): reminiscent of J. W. M. Whiting’s
(1941) description of development as “Becoming a
Kwoma.” As Ruble and her colleagues point out, most of
the work on collective social or cultural identity has
been with adults. In contrast, most of the work with
children has been on the developing sense of gender and
gender constancy (Ruble et al., in press). There is some
initial work on the extent to which a sense of racial con-
stancy and a sense of gender constancy follow similar
lines (Rhee, Cameron, & Ruble, cited by Ruble et al., in
press). There is also the beginning of work on whether
and when a sense of collective identity in children has
similar consequences to those observed in adults (e.g.,
an effect on what is attended to and how information is
processed, or—a point taken up in research with adoles-
cents by Yip and Fuligni, in press—an effect from the
strength of collective identity to successful coping with
transitions such as changes in school).
A third expansion is the recognition of identities as
multiple, especially when an individual occupies more
than one social world: Most children occupy more than
one world—home, school, and peers, for example. The
children of foreign-born parents have been regarded as
especially likely to occupy social worlds that differ
markedly in their linguistic practices and values, with
the inevitable development of a sense of being torn be-
tween two worlds. What they—and all children—may in-
stead develop is a set of border-crossing skills that make
it possible to negotiate a reasonably comfortable time in
more than one place (Phelan, Davidson, & Yu, 1988).
A fourth and last move in analyses of identity is a dis-
tinction between a current self and future possible selves.
What may matter most for performance or engagement in
school, for example, may be not only an image of oneself
at present but also an image of what one might become,
and an awareness of the steps that need to be taken to
achieve those futures. That kind of proposal not only
makes intuitive sense but also is well supported by the re-
sults of a California program designed to provide the chil-
dren of immigrant families with both an understanding of
the paths they needed to take from one point in school to
another (e.g., the particular levels in mathematics that
they needed at various points) and a strengthened belief in
their ability to move along the “pipeline,” in their “iden-
tity pathways” (Cooper, Dominguéz, & Rosas, in press).
Much of this work is in its early stages. What is clear,
however, is that these directions of research promise to
yield a richer understanding of the ways in which issues
of identity, along with feelings and values, are part of
cognitive development.
Persons and Contexts
Salient in many areas of development is the issue of how
to consider contributions from characteristics of both
the individual and the social contexts in which they live.
Surprisingly, an emphasis on both is still needed because
there are still times when an emphasis on instruction or
socialization seems to treat the individual as a blank
slate or a sponge that needs only to have information pro-
vided in absorbable amounts. There are also times when
an emphasis on the individual as actively constructing
meanings seems to treat the outside world as essentially
blank, ignoring the history and the directiveness with
which individuals must work or make sense:
Once both contributions are fully acknowledged, questions
arise about how the two are interwoven. The first move has
been a recognition of the need to regard “persons” and
“contexts” as influencing each other in ways that are not
one-directional, static or linear. The second has been to-
ward some ways of specifying interdependence. Persons
and contexts have been described, for example, as “creat-
ing each other ” (Briggs, 1992), “shaping each other ”
(Cole, 1990), “making each other up” (Shweder, 1990a), or
“co-constructing each other ” (Valsiner, 1994).
What are the specific meanings of such phrases, es-
pecially in relation to cognitive development? To answer
that question, we divide a large body of material into
two parts, varying in their starting points. The first
starts from several descriptions of contexts and asks
what do these imply for the shape or course of develop-
ment? The second starts from several descriptions of
cognitive development and asks how do social or cul-
tural contexts enter into these pictures?
Both parts start with the recognition that any de-
scription of either term (context or individual develop-
ment) carries implications for the nature of the other.
Ecological descriptions of context (e.g., the world as a
set of nested circles starting from the home and working
outwards into parts of society) carry with them the con-
notation of development as a journey, with the individual
discovering routes, acquiring navigational skills, or
finding helpful guides. Descriptions of the world as a
stage in which we all play roles or learn our place carry

with them the implication that development involves ac-
quiring effective ways of self-presentation or emotional
management.
To take the reverse direction, descriptions of devel-
opment as coming to make sense of events or to discover
regularities imply a world that is not immediately com-
prehensible, a world in which order or structure is hid-
den beneath a shifting surface appearance. Descriptions
of development as coming to make effective use of the
symbols or artifacts available imply worlds in which
various tools are available, with some probably more ac-
cessible or more promoted than others, varying over
groups or across time. Descriptions as activities and
changing forms of participation imply worlds that vary
in the opportunities they offer for participation or for
establishing routines in what one does. In effect, one
way of mapping part of the person /context universe al-
ways suggests a way of mapping the other. Working from
such cross-mapping is likely to be more productive than
trying to link analyses that use quite separate dimen-
sions for the description of persons and contexts (Good-
now, 2004a, 2004b, in press).
Starting from Descriptions of Contexts
There are by now many descriptions of contexts: a vari-
ety especially brought out in a review by Cooper and
Denner (1998; see also Cole, Chapter 21, this Handbook,
Volume 2).
As an opening step, we distinguish between descrip-
tions by content and descriptions by quality. Descrip-
tions of a culture as shared meanings and practices, or
as a warehouse of narratives, for example, place their
emphases on content. Descriptions of contexts as always
changing, or as multiple and contested, place their em-
phasis on quality.
The descriptions we choose for particular comment
are far from exhaustive, and the selection leaves us with
a sense of regretted omissions. We would have liked, for
example, to give more space to descriptions of contexts
that emphasize opportunities for children and families
to establish the routine, everyday activities that are seen
as so crucial to development (e.g., Gallimore, Weisner,
Guthrie, Bernheimer, & Nihira, 1993; Weisner, 2002).
The descriptions chosen for closer comment, however,
strike us as offering some particular shifts in the way we
think about the shape and course of development and as
containing some particular gaps.
We start with some examples of context descriptions.
The first two are descriptions of cultural contexts as
linked practices and warehouses of narratives. For both,
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 773
and for all other descriptions, we take it for granted that
cultures, like people, are always changing.
Contexts as Linked Practices. We noted in the pre-
vious edition (p. 913) that “it is always an open empirical
question whether a mentality generalizes across many
practice domains (the Hindu mentality) or is specific to a
particular practice domain (the mentality of Hindu sleep-
ing arrangements).” That question is prominent also in
the present chapter. We are still, however, short of pro-
posals that consider the nature of linking among prac-
tices. We noted earlier a possible linking by ways of
similar dimensions being used for evaluative judgments
about what is produced, using as an example Bourdieu’s
(1979) analysis of “ taste” or “distinction” in judgments
about food and about intellectual productions. A further
example comes from Rogoff ’s (2003) analysis of the
practices that go with the kinds of arrangement usually
found in Western schools. Occurring together are age-
grading, a concern with readiness in relation to age, the
use of praise for a child’s interest or achievement, the
asking of questions to which answers are known, particu-
lar kinds of demands by children for adult attention, and
the move of school type conversations into home settings.
In another grouping, Rogoff (2003) sees an emphasis on
particular kinds of relationships ( horizontal or vertical,
dyadic or multiparty in type) as related to differences in
“sleeping arrangements, discipline, cooperation, gender
roles, moral development, and forms of assistance in
learning” (p. 9).
We now need further examples of such possible
groups, further indications of the occurrence and the ex-
tent of linking, and a check on whether—where linked
practices occur—this makes a difference to the pattern
of development. The indications of linking come so far
from the way adults pattern a child’s social world. Do
children then shift easily from one linked practice to an-
other? Do they, for example, pick up a distinction em-
bodied in one practice more easily when they have
already experienced a linked practice rather than one
that is not linked?
Contexts as Warehouses for Narratives or Inter-
pretations. This way of viewing cultural contexts
picks up the argument that all social contexts need to be
seen in historical terms. In essence, the argument is that
the past provides a set of texts or narratives. Each gener-
ation may then draw from the warehouse, add to it, or
rediscover forgotten treasures. Each generation may also
bring, to the available set, attitudes ranging from respect
774 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
to indifference, disdain, or scorn. Among cultural psy-
chologists, Wertsch (1991) best exemplifies this ap-
proach to culture. More broadly, this concept is central
to the work of Bakhtin, who noted the ways in which
novelists such as Rabelais or Joyce broke the pattern of
previous narratives: the one by covering topics previ-
ously regarded as not proper topics, the other by changes
in structure, even at the level of sentences (Kristeva,
1980, provides a brief and readable account). In time,
the argument continues, some ways of breaking up past
patterns become taken up by others. They then become
part of what Valsiner (1994) has described as a spiral of
influence that alters the nature of what is available to
draw from or is regarded as a reasonable selection:
Novels, we would add, are not the only kinds of texts or
narratives that have attracted this kind of attention and
that raise questions about aspects of selection or transfor-
mation. Martin-Barbero (1993), for example, is one
scholar who has brought a similar style of analysis to the
way cultural expressions in the form of art, music, film, or
television spread from one culture to another. It is not the
case, he argues, that cultures in areas such as South Amer-
ica are “over-run” or “swamped” by the cultural expres-
sions of the North. What occurs instead is a process of
selection, utilization, and adaptation.
What are the implications of that kind of position for
the nature of cognitive development? One is that we may
now see development as including the acquisition of a
stance toward the texts of the past. That stance may be
one of respect and a view that the best way to approach a
problem or to provide evidence for one’s argument is to
turn to the past. In contrast, it may be one of regarding
the past as having nothing to do with the present, or as
inevitably biased (the product, for example, of old peo-
ple). That stance, for reasons we still need to pin down,
may well change over the course of development.
Overall, warehouse accounts of contexts remind us
that the central processes are likely to take the form of
selection and transformation. Turning those processes
into developmental form then becomes the challenge.
Children’s selections and transformations of narrative,
an earlier section of this chapter suggests, are likely to
provide an especially productive starting point. They
clearly offer a base for asking about the particular nar-
ratives or narrative styles that are held out for children
as the best or the ones they should take as models. We
may explore also the ways in which children come to in-
corporate the texts they read into what they themselves
produce. When a 10-year-old, for example, starts a story
with the sentence—The sun rose over both worlds: the
world Sven knew and the one he would be transported
to—we can readily hazard a guess that the background
reading includes some form of science fiction. What
parts of a setting, a plot, or a collection of characters are
more readily taken over or more quickly transformed
than others? What makes them more likely to be treated
in some ways rather than others? All told, narrative se-
lection and transformation seems to capture especially
well historical and cultural variations in what children
encounter as well as processes of selection, rejection,
and transformation.
Contexts as Shared Meanings or Practices.
These descriptions of contexts are especially prominent
in anthropology in the form of emphases on the presence
of cultural models (shared ways of viewing events or
people), cultural practices (shared ways of proceeding),
or custom complexes (an approach that combines both
actions and meanings). We have, throughout the chapter,
brought out several implications of these positions for
the study of development. We now add several others,
prompted by a focus on cognitive development and on
the quality of ideas or practices as being shared.
In some anthropological work, the quality of shared-
ness has given rise to questions about the degree to
which there is consensus and about the position of peo-
ple whose views are modal for the group as against being
out on the edge of the variations that occur (e.g., Rom-
ney, Weller, & Batchelder, 1986). That work is with
adults but suggests a new way of viewing development.
In any content area and at any age, what is the degree of
consensus? Are there some areas or some ages when not
being part of the consensus—to be out on the margin or
to disagree—is to be avoided, virtually seen as the kiss
of death? What promotes an interest in coming to share
the same understandings or to act in the same ways as
others? The usual emphasis is on the wish to understand
others and to be understood by them in ways that make
easy the communication of meanings. The reasons seem
likely to involve also the strategic presentation of self.
The quality of sharedness prompts other questions
about what happens when there are clear departures
from everyone being of one mind or acting in the one
way. How do children deal with such situations? We use
the example of a California classroom that served as a
base for observing how children dealt with social cate-
gories (Cooper, Garcia Coll, et al., in press). In this
classroom, children came from several ethnic back-
grounds, signaled in some cases by skin color and in oth-

ers by the style of dress, with the most obvious dress sig-
nal being that of girls from Islamic families wearing a
veil or headscarf. Teased by another child for wearing
something so different, the reply by one girl was “It’s
part of my tradition,” a reply taken from the school’s
orientation—conveyed in many lessons—of respecting
others’ traditions. The shared meaning, in effect, was
used as a way of justifying an unshared practice. The se-
lection of the reply, and its quick effect, illustrate as-
pects of shared meanings and practices for which other
developmental examples might be sought.
Contexts as Multiple and Contested. No society
is monolithic. In most industrialized societies, for exam-
ple, there are usually to be found more than one religion,
political party, or form of schooling, more than one
class, and more than one country of origin. Some of the
alternate forms may be known by adjectives that imply
their minority status (e.g., alternative medicine, alterna-
tive schooling, or independent film producers). It is not
only the presence of variety that matters but also the
way in which these several segments compete or negoti-
ate with one another. The people in one group, for exam-
ple, may regard the people in another as best avoided,
kept at arm’s distance, or suppressed. Where these ac-
tions do not achieve one’s purposes, some form of nego-
tiation or takeover needs to occur. Churches may unite,
union activists may be pushed into management, or in-
dependent film producers may be co-opted into studio
affiliations and productions.
This way of viewing cultures is widespread in the area
often known as cultural studies (the work cited by Martin-
Barbero, 1993, is from this field). Part of its attraction for
the study of development is that it leads us away from a
view of culture or context as a state or thing. The emphasis
falls instead on the presence of various cultural groups, on
their perceptions of each other, and on their relationships
with each other. In addition, recognition of the extent to
which encounters with other people or other positions are
usually controlled is prompted.
Control over access to knowledge is a long-standing
theme in sociological analyses (e.g., Bourdieu &
Passeron, 1977; Foucault, 1980). In developmental stud-
ies, it is represented by studies comparing the under-
standing of animal biology that develops when children
can vary their approaches to feeding and care against
being restricted to the teachers’ prescriptive routines
(Hatano & Inagaki, 1986). In a more social fashion, it is
represented by questions about the nature of children’s
encounters with other people. Parents may act in cocoon
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 775
fashion, structuring a child’s world so that experience
with different others is at least delayed (Goodnow,
1997), or they may engage in more direct preparatory
work. When a child is seen as likely to encounter dis-
crimination, for example, parents may encourage pride
in the group’s own history, or teach specific ways of re-
sponding to name-calling or other derogatory actions
(Hughes & Chen, 1999). Both kinds of experience
should affect the social categories, the stances toward
others, and the degree of reflectiveness about differ-
ences among people that children develop. We have a
great deal yet to learn about the nature of such effects.
They are likely to provide, however, some sharp exam-
ples of how particular qualities of social /cultural con-
texts are related to some particular qualities of cognitive
development.
Starting from Descriptions of
Cognitive Development
In the previous section, we started from descriptions of
cultural contexts and asked about links to descriptions of
cognitive development, noting any suggested new ways of
considering development or new research questions. In a
change of method, we now reverse directions. We start
from some particular descriptions of cognitive develop-
ment and ask how cultural contexts enter the picture.
There are many ways of describing cognitive devel-
opment. In the previous edition, we noted three: (1) a
shift from an initially weak or fluid state to one that was
better established or more smooth in its execution; (2) a
change in the nature of information processing: changes,
for example, in what is attended to or rehearsed; and (3)
a move toward dividing cognitive development into do-
mains, with proposals for differences in the nature of
development by domain.
The third direction is the one to which we gave most
attention then and now. The focus reflects the extent to
which debates about domain specificity have been prime
sites for exploring questions highlighted at the start of
this chapter such as whether, in the area of cognitive de-
velopment, there is a place for social or cultural factors
(innate predispositions might offer a sufficient account
of development), what that place might be, and how
given abilities and cultural circumstances might be
brought together.
In essence, the synthesis regards two kinds of do-
mains as varying considerably in the way cognitive
development proceeds. A distinction is drawn between
core or privileged domains and other domains (Keil,
1984; Siegler & Crowley, 1994; Wellman & Gelman,
776 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
1998). First, in privileged domains, humans are geneti-
cally prepared to acquire knowledge systems that deal
with important aspects of the world. Second, in nonpriv-
ileged domains, development relies on general learning
mechanisms (Keil, 1984) or module acquisition modules
(Sperber, 2002). In these domains, cognitive develop-
ment is usually conceptualized as the gaining of expert-
ise. In both domains, sociocultural perspectives have
something to offer. Because the two kinds of domain
have been conceptualized differently, suggestions from
cultural psychology vary from one to the other.
Nonprivileged Domains: Cognitive Development
as Expertise. Traditionally, expertise means the ac-
cumulation of rich and well-structured domain knowl-
edge, consisting of “chunks” that can readily be used
(Chi, Glaser, & Farr, 1988). There is also wide agree-
ment among cognitive researchers that gaining expertise
requires years of experience in solving problems in the
domain, carried out with concentration and often taking
the form of deliberate practice (Ericsson, 1996).
What does cultural psychology add to these character-
izations? A central addition, as we see it, is the elabora-
tion of what expertise consists of and how it is acquired.
We begin with the argument that through repeated
participation in culturally organized practices, both
children and lay adults acquire the skills and knowledge
needed to perform competently in those practices
(Goodnow et al., 1995). To this we add, first, what mat-
ters is not only the amount of time spent in repetition but
also the nature of what is repeated. Studies by Oura and
Hatano (2001) with a group of nonprofessional pianists
bring out this point especially. All of these pianists had
started piano lessons at 6 years of age or younger. Some,
however, had reached a junior expert level. Others were
still at a more novice level. Oura and Hatano (2001)
asked both to practice a short piece of music. Those who
had stayed at the novice level tried only to perform ac-
curately and smoothly. Those who had reached the jun-
ior expert level checked and refined their performance
from the perspective of an audience in mind. In effect,
the two differed in the practice in which they had en-
gaged. The less successful students had expected to play
for the teacher who would evaluate how smoothly and
how accurately they played. In contrast, the successful
students had practiced for playing in public, with an eye
to ways of creating their own expression.
Second, we add that the process of gaining expertise
is assisted by other people and artifacts: Novices are not
expected to solve problems all by themselves. A study by
Takahashi and Tokoro (2002) of experienced amateur
photographers (senior shutterbugs) brings out this point.
Most senior shutterbugs explicitly expressed their ap-
preciation of their supporting networks: networks in-
volving peers, the instructor, and family members who
provided transport, prepared lunchboxes, and so on.
Even when learners’ problem solving activities were ap-
parently solo, other people entered the picture in the
form of possible competitors or possible buyers of what
one produced. The senior shutterbugs, for example,
wanted to take at each moment shots that they and others
would regard as good. Their skills improved, unlike
school learning, almost as a by-product of keeping these
audiences in mind.
A third addition, again broadening our understanding
of what is acquired in the course of gaining expertise,
emphasizes that the acquisition of knowledge and skills
is accompanied by socioemotional changes—for exam-
ple, changes in interest, values, and identity. That posi-
tion has been stated with particular strength in Lave’s
(1991) argument that the practices that developing indi-
viduals engage in are embedded in a community of prac-
titioners. All practices, it has come to be recognized,
involve socioemotional interactions as well as cognitive
divisions of labor. The process of gaining expertise is
not likely to be an exception. It cannot be purely cogni-
tive. In one example, Japanese students who develop
expertise in the use of the abacus do so in a national cli-
mate of admired expertise and in the company of others
who are also members of abacus clubs or competitive
teams (Hatano, 1995). To take another, volunteers serv-
ing at a soup kitchen for homeless people became not
only skilful at helping them but also, more important,
more favorable toward and sympathetic to those people
(Youniss & Yates, 1997).
Finally, cultural perspectives help us as well to dis-
tinguish among domains in terms of the kind of expert-
ise required and the occurrence of innovation. Some
domains of expertise are knowledge lean: Expertise in
these domains is reproductive in nature. Other domains
are knowledge rich: In these, individuals, after gaining
expertise, are most likely to contribute to cultural
change. Expert cooks, for example, may invent new
dishes by combining a variety of materials and modes
of cooking. The invented dishes may then be incorpo-
rated into the culture of cooking, if the new productions
attract a number of members constituting the commu-
nity of cooks.

Conceptual Development in Core or Privileged
Domains. In these domains, cognitive development is
conceptualized quite differently from what happens in
nonprivileged domains. The accounts start from the ar-
gument that human beings are biologically predisposed,
prior to any experience, to attend to some events rather
than others and to make some inferences rather than
others (e.g., Keil, 1984). Coherent bodies of knowledge
about important aspects of the world are then built on
these bases, with many researchers assuming that the
acquisition of core domains of thought such as naive
physics, psychology, and biology is early, easy, and al-
most universal. The ways in which this construction
takes place may be varied. As Karmiloff-Smith (1992)
notes, the innate constraints may “potentiate learning by
limiting the hypotheses entertained” (p. 11), but they
may also place limits on what is readily learnable. One
early assumption was that the evidence for predisposi-
tions tended to minimize the role of culture in earlier
conceptual development, especially in the first few
years (e.g., Carey & Spelke, 1994).
How do cultural psychologists challenge views that
exclusively emphasize human inheritance from evolu-
tion? The domain of naive psychology or theory of mind
(TOM) provides a nice illustration, bringing out how
cultural-psychological views change the characteriza-
tion of the course of development as well as the research
methodology.
In a large-scale meta-analysis of studies by Wellman,
Cross, and Watson (2001), for example, many studies
emerged as focused on identifying age-dependent devel-
opmental patterns. The overall pattern of results is that
younger children fail to, but children a few years older
correctly, recognize that people act in accordance with
what they believe is the case, whether it corresponds
with the reality that the child has come to know. The
overall assumption is that experience makes little dif-
ference in this sequence.
An increasing number of innovative studies are com-
patible with, if not influenced by, cultural-psychological
views. Some of these studies assume that attention to
forms of communication with significant others may
yield different perspectives on the development of
TOM. Some, as we noted earlier, assign particularly im-
portant roles in TOM development to the use of lan-
guage as a tool representing mental states (Astington &
Baird, in press).
In terms of research methods, these studies aim to
connect children’s sociocultural experiences to their de-
Cultural Psychology and Cognitive Development 777
veloping understanding of mental states of themselves
and others. One such method is to analyze children’s
everyday conversation in families prior to a check on
their understanding of beliefs as determinants of be-
havior. For example, family differences in explanatory
conversations have been found to be associated with
children’s later development of TOM (e.g., Dunn,
Brown, Slomkowski, Tesla, & Youngblade, 1991; Dunn,
2000). Another research strategy is to compare the TOM
performances of different populations of children.
Convincing evidence for the importance of complex
communication with significant others for the TOM de-
velopment, for example, is given by Peterson and Siegal
(1995): Deaf children’s development of TOM is delayed
when their parents are hearing individuals who had to
learn a sign language later in their life but is not delayed
when the parents are fluent signers. Still another method
that can show the causal effect of linguistic interaction
in the TOM development consists of training studies.
Lohmann and Tomasello (2003), for example, have
demonstrated that 3-year-olds’ false belief understand-
ing is facilitated both by perspective-shifting discourse
and by sentential complement syntax that represents a
belief decoupled from reality.
The domain of naive biology also contains both
mainstream conventional studies of age-dependent de-
velopment and innovative sociocultural studies. For ex-
ample, among the studies reviewed by Inagaki and
Hatano (2002), the majority started from a traditional
view of development and focused on the ages at which
children would acquire “autonomous” biology. A small
number of studies, however ( harmonious with cultural-
psychological views) showed that the age-dependent de-
velopmental patterns observed among urban children
(typical experimental participants) are not universal.
Instead, the pattern varies with particular kinds of
experience.
Most studies have shown that young children’s naive
biology is human-centered: The properties attributed to
other animals tend to be generalized from what is known
to be the case for humans. This tendency is weaker or
nonexistent, however, among children who have had fre-
quent direct contact with nonhuman animals and plants
(Atran et al., 2001; Ross et al., 2003). Even among urban
children, active and enduring involvement in animal-
raising activity mitigates the human-centered nature of
biology. Their enriched knowledge about animals they
have raised serves as an extra source for the analogical
understanding of animals not yet experienced (Inagaki,
778 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
1990). Children’s understanding can also be influenced
by cultural ideas about the categories in which humans,
other animals, and plants can be placed (Hatano et al.,
1993; Stavy & Wax, 1989). In short, even young chil-
dren’s naive biology is instantiated differently in differ-
ent sociocultural environments.
Moving beyond specific areas of knowledge are sev-
eral proposals for the need to take an interactive view of
genetic predispositions and sociocultural facilitations or
constraints. Gelman (1990), for example, proposes that
innate constraints are so skeletal that they always have
to be complemented socioculturally. Another possibility
is that both types of constraints usually operate in a mu-
tually facilitating or bootstrapping way, with innate
constraints becoming less important as rich domain
knowledge is acquired through cultural learning. Worth
particular note is the argument that, in a few years after
birth, children begin to learn in a uniquely human way,
exemplified by joint attention and imitation (Tomasello
et al., 1993).
Those several proposals go beyond a view of develop-
ment as shaped only by genetic predispositions or by so-
ciocultural circumstances. People undoubtedly come
equipped to make some distinctions—between inside
and outside or animate and inanimate objects. Cultures,
however, provide usable artifacts that are shared by a
majority of people in a community or a subgroup. These
artifacts include physical facilities and tools, social in-
stitutions and organizations, documented pieces of
knowledge, and commonsense beliefs. They also include
the behavior of other people, interactions with them,
and social contexts created by them. Cognitive develop-
ment is best seen as interactively constrained by both
sociocultural circumstances as well as genetic predispo-
sitions (Hatano & Inagaki, 2000).
A Summary Comment on Cognitive
Development: Methods
The account just concluded—covering several ways in
which people have explored the place of sociocultural
experience in cognitive domains often proposed as the
province of genetic predispositions—has brought to the
surface a variety of methods. Variety in method pro-
vides a way of bringing this section on cognitive devel-
opment to a close and of underlining again some points
about method that have been made in earlier sections of
the chapter: in particular, the place of shifts in method
as one of the prime features of a cultural psychology
perspective.
Making comparisons across cultures, although often
informative, is not the only method possible. The most
informative route may be a concentration on a culture
and on some local practices or ways of thinking. Also
valuable is working from a local practice and asking
what ideas accompany it or, conversely, starting with a
stated or inferred belief and asking what practices
might be associated with it.
That aspect of methods (across or in cultures) is not
only a pragmatic issue. It reflects also, as Cole (2001)
has pointed out, the recognition that “all human groups
inhabit a world suffused with their predecessors’ his-
tory . . . culture and cultural mediation are universal
features of human life and an integral part of human
development. Consequently, the process of cultural me-
diation can be studied in a broad range of practices
within any large, demographic, culturally constituted
group” (p. 168).
We hope it has been evident that we see great benefit
in borrowing freely from both experimental and ethno-
graphic approaches, with psychologists perhaps benefit-
ing from a fuller knowledge of how a variety of
ethnographic methods may be used (P. J. Miller et. al.,
2003, is a useful source). Borrowing conceptual analy-
ses from outside psychology is also important. We have
drawn on occasion from anthropology, sociology, and—
less frequently than we might do—areas often known as
cultural or narrative studies. We have regrettably made
the least use of history, a deficit that Cole (2001) points
out as applying to many psychological analyses of the
cultural nature of human development. The historical
analysis of how mind, body, and soul or heart have at
various times been separated or merged with one an-
other would in itself, for example, round out our steps in
this chapter toward moving beyond current dichotomies.
Our hope is that the benefits of cultural psychology for
the analysis of cognitive development lie not only in its
prompting fresh approaches to questions about what de-
velops and how this takes place but also in enriching the
repertoire of methods that we bring to those questions.
CONCLUSION
It is the hope of all those who welcome the return of
cultural psychology as a vibrant research enterprise
that more and more social scientists from various
home disciplines (psychology, anthropology, linguis-
tics, sociology) will become developmental experts on

the psychological functioning of members of particular
cultural communities around the world. Only then will
the many questions raised in this chapter begin to be
answered. Only then will the abstract pluralistic idea
of “one mind, many mentalities” become substantial
and concrete, and thereby come fully to life. It is when
another culture’s taken-for-granted categories appear
to us to be counter-intuitive, or out of line with what
we assume to be present early in life, that we are most
likely to experience the need to rethink our sense of
what is natural.
REFERENCES
Abbott, S. (1992). Holding on and pushing away: Comparative
perspectives on an eastern Kentucky child-rearing practice. Ethos,
1, 33–65.
Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1967). Infancy in Uganda. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978).
Patterns of attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situ-
ation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Alexander, K. J., Miller, P. J., & Hengst, J. A. (2001). Young chil-
dren’s emotional attachments to stories. Social Development,
10(3), 374–398.
Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychological interpretation.
New York: Holt.
Ames, R. T., Dissanayake, W., & Kasulis, T. P. (1994). Self as person
in Asian theory and practice. Albany: State University of New
York Press.
Astington, J. W., & Baird, J. (Eds.) (in press). Why language matters
for theory of mind. New York: Oxford University Press.
Atran, S., Medin, D., Lynch, E., Vapnarsky, V., Ek, E. U., & Sousa, P.
(2001). Folkbiology doesn’t come from folkpsychology: Evidence
from Yukatek Maya in cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Cog-
nition and Culture, 1, 3–43.
Azuma, H., Kashiwagi, K., & Hess, R. D. (1981). The inf luence of at-
titude and behavior upon the child’s intellectual development.
Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.
Bachnik, J. M. (1994). Uchi/soto—Challenging our conceptualiza-
tions of self, social order, and language. In J. M. Bachnik & C. J.
Quinn Jr. (Eds.), Situated meaning: Inside and outside in Japanese
self, society, and language (pp. 3–37). Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1981). The dialogic imagination. Austin: University
of Texas Press.
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Baldwin, J. M. (1911). The individual and society. Boston: Boston Press.
Baldwin, M. W., & Holmes, J. G. (1987). Salient private audiences
and awareness of the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, 52, 1087–1098.
Banaji, M., & Prentice, D. (1994). The self in social contexts. Annual
Review of Psychology, 45, 297–332.
Banarjee, R. (2002). Audience effects of self-presentation in child-
hood. Social Development, 11, 487–507.
References 779
Basso, K. (1996). Wisdom sits in places: Landscape and language
among the Western Apache. Albuquerque: University of New
Mexico Press.
Bauman, R., & Briggs, C. L. (1990). Poetics and performance as crit-
ical perspectives on language and social life. Annual Review of
Anthropology, 19, 59–88.
Bauman, R., & Sherzer, J. (Eds.). (1989). Explorations in the
ethnography of speaking (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Baumeister, R. F. (1987). How the self became a problem: A psycho-
logical review of historical research. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 52, 163–176.
Bayley, R., & Schecter, S. R. (Eds.). (2003). Language socialization
in bilingual and multilingual societies. Tonawanda, NY: Multilin-
gual Matters Ltd.
Bellah, R. N., Madsen, R., Sullivan, W. M., Swidler, A., & Tipton,
S. M. (1985). Habits of the heart: Individualism and commitment
in American life. New York: Harper & Row.
Benedict, R. (1934). Patterns of culture. New York: Houghton Miff lin.
Benson, C. (2001). The cultural psychology of self: Place, morality
and art in human worlds. New York: Routledge.
Berlin, I. (1976). Vico and Herder. London: Hogarth Press.
Berman, R., & Slobin, D. (1994). Relating events in narrative: A
crosslinguistic developmental study. Hillsdale: NJ: Erlbaum.
Berry, J. W., Poortinga, Y. H., Segall, M. H., & Dasen, P. R. (1992).
Cross-cultural psychology: Research and applications. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Bledsoe, C. (1989). Strategies of child-fosterage among Mende
grannies in Sierra Leone. In R. J. Lesthaeghe (Ed.), Reproduction
and social organization in sub-Saharan Africa. Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press.
Bledsoe, C. (1990). No success without struggle: Social mobility
and hardship for foster children in Sierra Leone. Man, 25,
70–88.
Blumenfeld, P., Modell, J., Bartko, T., Secada, W., Fredricks, J.,
Friedel, J., et al. (in press). School engagement of inner city stu-
dents during middle childhood. In C. R. Cooper, C. García Coll,
T. Bartko, H. Davis, & C. Chapman (Eds.), Hills of gold: Rethink-
ing diversity and contexts as resources for children’s developmen-
tal pathways. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boesch, E. E. (1991). Symbolic action theory and cultural psychology.
New York: Springer-Verlag.
Bond, M. H., & Cheung, T. S. (1983). College students’ spontaneous
self-concept: The effect of culture among respondents in Hong
Kong, Japan, and the United States. Journal of Cross-Cultural
Psychology, 14, 153–171.
Bornstein, M. H., Azuma, H., Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., & Ogino, M.
(1990). Mother and infant activity and interaction in Japan and in
the United States: I. A comparative macroanalysis of naturalistic
exchanges. International Journal of Behavioral Development,
13(3), 267–287.
Bornstein, M. H., & Cote, L. R. (2004). Mothers’ parenting cogni-
tions in cultures of origin, acculturating cultures, and cultures of
destination. Child Development, 75(1), 221–235.
Bourdieu, P. (1972). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge, En-
gland: Cambridge University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1979). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of
taste. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bourdieu, P. (1990). A logic of practice. Stanford, CA: Stanford Uni-
versity Press.
780 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Bourdieu, P. (1991). Language and symbolic power. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P., & Passeron, J.-C. (1977). Reproduction in education,
society and culture. Beverly Hills: Sage.
Bracken, B. A. (1996). Clinical applications of a context-dependent,
multidimensional model of self-concept. In B. Bracken (Ed.),
Handbook of self concept. New York: Wiley.
Brazelton, T. B. (1990). Parent-infant co-sleeping revisited. Ab Initio:
An International Newsletter for Professionals Working with Infants
and Their Families, 1, 1–7.
Briggs, C. L. (1986). Learning how to ask: A sociolinguistic appraisal
of the role of the interview in social science research. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Briggs, J. L. (1992). Mazes of meaning: How a child and a culture
create each other. In W. A. Corsaro & P. J. Miller (Eds.), Inter-
pretive approaches to child socialization (pp. 25–50). San Fran-
cisco: Jossey-Bass.
Briggs, J. L. (1998). Inuit morality play: The emotional education of a
three-year-old. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U., Kessel, F., Kessen, W., & White, S. (1985). To-
ward a critical social history of developmental psychology. Amer-
ican Psychologist, 41, 1218–1230.
Bruner, J. S. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1990a). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1990b). Culture and human development: A new look.
Human Development, 33, 344–355.
Bruner, J. S. (1993). Do we “acquire” culture or vice versa: Reply to
M. Tomasello, A. C. Kruger, & H. H. Ratner, Cultural learning.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 163(3), 515–516.
Bullock, M., & Lütkenhaus, P. (1990). Who am I? Self-understanding
in toddlers. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 36(2), 217–238.
Burger, L. K., & Miller, P. J. (1999). Early talk about the past revis-
ited: A comparison of working-class and middle-class families.
Journal of Child Language, 26, 1–30.
Cahan, E. D., & White, S. H. (1992). Proposals for a second psychol-
ogy. American Psychologist, 47, 224–235.
Camic, C. (1986). The matter of habit. American Journal of Sociol-
ogy, 91, 1039–1087.
Carey, S., & Spelke, E. (1994). Domain-specific knowledge and con-
ceptual change. In L. A. Hirschfeld & S. Gelman (Eds.), Mapping
the mind: Domain specificity in cognition and culture
(pp. 169–200). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Carrithers, M., Collins, S., & Lukes, S. (1987). The category of the
person: Anthropology, philosophy, history. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Carroll, V. (Ed.). (1970). Adoption in Eastern Oceania. Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press.
Caudill, W., & Plath, D. W. (1966). “ Who sleeps by whom? Parent-child
involvement in urban Japanese Families.” Psychiatry, 29, 344–366.
Caudill, W., & Schooler, C. (1973). Child behavior and child rearing
in Japan and the United States: An interim report. Journal of Ner-
vous and Mental Diseases, 157, 323–338.
Caudill, W., & Weinstein, H. (1969). Maternal care and infant behav-
ior in Japan and America. Psychiatry, 32, 12–43.
Caudill, W., & Weinstein, H. (1986). Maternal care and infant behav-
ior in Japan and America. In T. S. Lebra & W. P. Lebra (Eds.),
Japanese culture and behavior: Selected readings (pp. 201–246).
Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Cazden, C. B. (1993). Vygotsky, Hymes, and Bakhtin: From word to
utterance and voice. In E. A. Forman, N. Minick, & C. A. Stone
(Eds.), Contexts for learning: Sociocultural dynamics in children’s
development (pp. 197–212). New York: Oxford University Press.
Cervantes, C. A. (2002). Explanatory emotion talk in Mexican-immi-
grant and Mexican-American families. Hispanic Journal of Behav-
ioral Sciences, 24, 139–164.
Chao, R. K. (1992). Immigrant Chinese mothers and European Amer-
ican mothers: Their aims of control and other child-rearing as-
pects related to school achievement. Dissertation Abstracts
International, 53(6-A), 1787–1788.
Chao, R. K. (1993a). Clarification of the authoritarian parenting
style and parental control: Cultural concepts of Chinese child
rearing. Paper presented at the meeting of the Society for Re-
search in Child Development, New Orleans, LA.
Chao, R. K. (1993b). East and West concepts of the self ref lecting in
mothers’ reports of their child rearing. Los Angeles: University of
California.
Chi, M. T. H., Glaser, R., & Farr, M. J. (Eds.). (1988). The nature of
expertise. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Clancy, P. (1999). The socialization of affect in Japanese mother-
child conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 31(4), 1397–1421.
Clark, C. D. (2003). In sickness and in play: Children coping with
chronic illness. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Clark, H. (1996). Language in use. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Cole, M. (1988). Cross-cultural research in the sociohistorical tradi-
tion. Human Development, 31, 137–157.
Cole, M. (1990). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. In
J. J. Berman (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 37.
Cross-cultural perspectives. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Cole, M. (1992). Context, maturity, and the cultural constitution of
development. In L. T. Winegar & J. Valsiner (Eds.), Children’s de-
velopment within social context: Vol. 2. Research and methodology
(pp. 5–31). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cole, M. (1995). The supra-individual envelope of development: Ac-
tivity and practice, situation and context. In J. J. Goodnow, P. J.
Miller, & F. Kessel (Eds.), Cultural practices as contexts for de-
velopment: New directions for child development. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cole, M. (1999). Culture in development. In M. H. Bornstein & M. E.
Lamb (Eds.), Developmental psychology: An advanced textbook
(4th ed., pp. 73–123). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Cole, M. (2001). Remembering history in sociocultural research.
Human Development, 44, 166–169.
Cole, M., Engeström, Y., & Velasquéz, O. (2000). Mind, culture, and
activity. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Cole, M., & Traupmann, K. (1981). Comparative cognitive research:
Learning from learning disabled children. In W. A. Collins (Ed.),
Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology: Vol. 14. Aspects of the
development of competence (pp. 125–155). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Coles, R. (1989). The call of stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Collingwood, R. G. (1961). On the so-called idea of causation. In H.
Morris (Ed.), Freedom and responsibility: Readings in philosophy
and law. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Cooley, D. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. New
York: Scribners.

Cooper, C. R., & Denner, J. (1998). Theories linking culture and psy-
chology: Universal and community-specific processes. Annual Re-
view of Psychology, 49, 559–584.
Cooper, C. R., Dominguez, E., & Rosas, S. (in press). Soledad’s
dream: Immigration, children’s worlds, and immigration path-
ways to college. In C. R. Cooper, C. García Coll, T. Bartko,
H. Davis, & C. Chapman (Eds.), Hills of gold: Rethinking diversity
and contexts as resources for children’s developmental pathways.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Cooper, C. R., García Coll, C., Thorne, B., & Orellana, M. F. (in
press). Beyond social categories: Studying four social processes
in immigration, ethnicity, and race in children’s lives at school. In
C. R. Cooper, C. García Coll, T. Bartko, H. Davis, & C. Chapman
(Eds.), Hills of gold: Rethinking diversity and contexts as re-
sources for children’s developmental pathways. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Coopersmith, S. A. (1967). The antecedents of self-esteem. San Fran-
cisco: Freeman.
Corsaro, W. A. (1992). Interpretive reproduction in children’s peer
culture. Social Psychology Quarterly, 55, 160–177.
Corsaro, W. A. (1997). The sociology of childhood. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Pine Forge Press.
Corsaro, W. A., & Miller, P. J. (Eds.). (1992). Interpretive approaches
to childhood socialization—New directions for child development:
Vol. 58. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Corsaro, W. A., Molinari, L., & Rosier, K. A. (2002). Zena and
Carlotta: Transition narratives and early education in the United
States and Italy. Human Development, 45, 323–348.
Cortés, D. E. (1995). Variations in familism in two generations of Puerto
Ricans. Hispanic Journal of Behavioral Sciences, 17, 249–255.
Cousins, S. D. (1989). Culture and self-perception in Japan and
the United States. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
56, 124–131.
Crocker, J., Major, B., & Steele, C. (1998). Social stigma. In
D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, & L. Gardner (Eds.), The handbook of social
psychology (Vol. 2, 4th ed., pp. 504–553). New York: McGraw-
Hill.
Crook, C. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. British
Journal of Developmental Psychology, 21(4), 618–619.
Cushman, P. (1995). Constructing the self, constructing America: A
cultural history of psychotherapy. Boston: Addison-Wesley.
Damon, W. (1984). Peer interaction: The untapped potential. Journal
of Applied Developmental Psychology, 5, 331–343.
Damon, W. (1995). Greater expectations: Overcoming the culture of
indulgence in America’s homes and schools. New York: Free Press.
Damon, W., & Hart, D. (1988). Self understanding in childhood and
adolescence. New York: Cambridge University Press.
D’Andrade, R. G. (1981). The cultural part of cognition. Cognitive
Science, 5, 179–195.
D’Andrade, R. G. (1992). Schemas and motivations. In R. G. D’An-
drade & C. Strauss (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models
(pp. 23–44). New York: Cambridge University Press.
D’Andrade, R. G. (1995). The development of cognitive anthropology.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (1990). A motivational approach to self:
Integration in personality. In R. A. Dienstbier (Ed.), Nebraska
Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 38. Perspectives on motivation
(pp. 237–288). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
de León, L. (2000). The emergent participant: Interactive patterns in
the socialization of Tzotzil (Mayan) infants. Journal of Linguistic
Anthropology, 8(2), 131–161.
References 781
Deng, F. M. (1972). The Dinka of the Southern Sudan. New York:
Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan.
Doi, T. (1981). The anatomy of dependence. Tokyo: Kodansha.
Donagan, A. (1987). Choice, the essential element in human action.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Dunn, J. (1983). Sibling relationships in early childhood. Child Devel-
opment, 54, 787–811.
Dunn, J. (1993). Young children’s close relationships: Beyond attach-
ment. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Dunn, J. (2000). Mind-reading, emotion understanding, and relation-
ships. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 24, 142–144.
Dunn, J., Brown, J., Slomkowski, C., Tesla, C., & Youngblade, L.
(1991). Young children’s understanding of other people’s feelings
and beliefs: Individual differences and their antecedents. Child
Development, 62, 1352–1366.
Duranti, A., & Goodwin, C. (1992). Rethinking context: Language as an
interactive phenomenon. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Dyson, A. H. (1993). Social worlds of children learning to write in an
urban primary school. New York: Teachers College Press.
Dyson, A. H., & Genishi, C. (Eds.). (1994). The need for story: Cul-
tural diversity in classroom and community. Urbana, IL: National
Council of Teachers of English.
Eckensberger, L. H. (1990). From cross-cultural psychology to cul-
tural psychology. Quarterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of
Human Cognition, 12, 37–52.
Eckensberger, L. H. (1995). Activity or action: Two different roads
towards an integration of culture into psychology. Culture and
Psychology, 1, 67–80.
Eder, R. A., & Mangelsdorf, S. (1997). The emotional basis of early
personality development: Implications for the emergent self-
concept. In R. Hogan, J. Johnson, & S. Briggs (Eds.), Handbook of
personality psychology. Orlando, FL: Academic Press.
Eisenberg, A. R. (1985). Learning to describe past experiences in
conversation. Discourse Processes, 8, 177–204.
Eisenberg, A. R. (1986). Teasing: Verbal play in two Mexicano
homes. In B. B. Schieffelin & E. Ochs (Eds.), Language socializa-
tion across cultures (pp. 182–198). New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Elster, J. (1987). The multiple self. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press.
Engel, S. (1995). The stories children tell: Making sense of the narra-
tives of childhood. New York: Freeman.
Epstein, S. (1973). The self-concept revisited or a theory of a theory.
American Psychologist, 28, 405–416.
Erickson, F. D. (1986). Qualitative methods in research on teaching.
In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd
ed.). New York: Macmillan.
Ericsson, K. A. (Ed.). (1996). The road to excellence. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Erikson, E. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: Norton.
Fader, A. (2001). Literacy, bilingualism and gender in a Hasidic com-
munity. Linguistics and Education, 12(3), 261–283.
Fajans, J. (1985). The person in social context: The social character
of Baining “psychology.” In G. M. White & W. J. Kirkpatrick
(Eds.), Person, self, and experience (pp. 367–400). Berkeley: Uni-
versity of California Press.
Farver, J. M. (1999). Activity setting analysis: A model for examin-
ing the role of culture in development. In A. Göncü (Ed.), Chil-
dren’s engagement in the world (pp. 99–127). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
782 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Farver, J. M., Kim, Y. K., & Lee, Y. (1995). Cultural differences in
Korean- and Anglo-American preschoolers’ social interaction and
play behaviors. Child Development, 66(4), 1088–1099.
Fernald, A., & Morikawa, H. (1993). Common themes and cultural
variations in Japanese and American mothers’ speech to infants.
Child Development, 64(3), 637–656.
Fiske, A., Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., & Nisbett, R. E. (1998). The
cultural matrix of social psychology. In D. Gilbert, S. Fiske, &
G. Lindzey (Eds.), The handbook of social psychology
(pp. 915–981). San Francisco: McGraw-Hill.
Fiske, A. P. (1991). Structures of social life: The four elementary
forms of human relations. New York: Free Press.
Fiske, A. P. (1992). The four elementary forms of sociality: Frame-
work for a unified theory of social relations. Psychological Re-
view, 99, 689–723.
Fiske, A. P., & Tetlock, P. E. (1997). Taboo trade-offs: Reactions to
transgressions that transgress spheres of exchange. Political Psy-
chology, 18, 255–297.
Fivush, R. (1993). Emotional content of parent-child conversations
about the past. In C. A. Nelson (Ed.), Minnesota Symposia on
Child Psychology: Vol. 26. Memory and af fect in development
(pp. 39–77). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Fivush, R., & Buckner, J. P. (2000). Gender, sadness, and depres-
sion: The development of emotional focus through gendered dis-
course. In A. H. Fischer (Ed.), Gender and emotion: Social
psychological perspectives (pp. 232–253). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Flanagan, O. (1992). Consciousness reconsidered. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Flavell, J. H., Green, F. L., & Flavell, E. R. (1995). Young children’s
knowledge about thinking. Monographs of the Society for Research
in Child Development, 60(1, Serial No. 243).
Foucault, M. (1980). Power-knowledge: Selected interviews and other
writings. Brighton, Great Britain: Harvester Press.
Frijda, N. H., & Mesquita, B. (1994). The social roles and functions
of emotions. In S. Kitayama & H. R. Markus (Eds.), Emotion and
culture (pp. 51–87). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Fuligni, A. (2001). Family obligation and academic motivation of
adolescents from Asian, Latin American, and European back-
grounds. In A. J. Fuligni (Ed.), Family obligation and assistance
during adolescence: Contextual variations and developmental im-
plications (pp. 61–76). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Fung, H. (1999). Becoming a moral child: The socialization of shame
among young Chinese children. Ethos, 27, 180–209.
Fung, H. (2003). When culture meets psyche: Understanding the
contextualized self through the life and dreams of an elderly
Taiwanese woman. Taiwan Journal of Anthropology, 1(2),
149–175.
Fung, H., & Chen, E. C. (2001). Across time and beyond skin: Self
and transgression in the everyday socialization of shame among
Taiwanese preschool children. Social Development, 10, 419–436.
Fung, H., Miller, P. J., & Lin, L. (2004). Listening is active: Lessons
from the Narrative Practices of Taiwanese Families. In M. W.
Pratt & B. H. Fiese (Eds.), Family stories and the life course
(pp. 303–323). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gallimore, R., Weisner, T., Guthrie, D., Bernheimer, L. P., & Nihira,
K. (1993). Family responses to young children with developmen-
tal delays: Accommodation activity in ecological and cultural
context. American Journal of Mental Retardation, 98, 185–206.
Garrett, P. B., & Baquedano-López, P. (2002). Language socializa-
tion: Reproduction and continuity, transformation and change.
Annual Review of Anthrolopology, 31, 339–361.
Garvey, C. (Ed.). (1992). Introduction: Talk in the study of socializa-
tion and development [Invitational issue]. Merrill-Palmer Quar-
terly, 38(1), iii–viii.
Garvey, C., & Kramer, T. (1989). The language of social pretend play.
Developmental Review, 9, 364–382.
Gaskins, S. (1999). Children’s daily lives in a Mayan village: A Case
Study of Culturally Constructed Roles and Activities. In A.
Göncü (Ed.), Children’s engagement in the world (pp. 25–61).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gauvain, M. (2001). Cultural tools, social interaction, and the devel-
opment of thinking. Human Development, 44, 126–143.
Geertz, C. (1973a). The impact of the concept of culture on the con-
cept of man. In C. Geertz (Ed.), The interpretation of cultures.
New York: Basic Books.
Geertz, C. (Ed.). (1973b). The interpretation of cultures. New York:
Basic Books.
Geertz, C. (1984). From the natives’ point of view. In R. A. Shweder
& R. A. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self and
emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Gelman, R. (1990). First principles organize attention to and learning
about relevant data: Numbers and the animate-inanimate distinc-
tion as examples. Cognitive Science, 14, 79–106.
Gergen, K. J. (1968). Personal consistency and the presentation of
self. In C. Gordon & K. J. Gergen (Eds.), The self in social inter-
action (pp. 299–308). New York: Wiley.
Gergen, K. J. (1991). The saturated self. New York: Basic Books.
Giddens, A. (1984). The constitution of society. Oxford, England:
Polity Press.
Gilmore, P., & Glatthorn, A. A. (Eds.). (1982). Children in and out of
school: Ethnography and education. Washington, DC: Center for
Applied Linguistics.
Goddard, C. (1997). Constrastive semantics and cultural psychol-
ogy: “Surprise” in Malay and English. Culture and Psychology,
2, 153–181.
Goddard, C. (2001). Lexico-semantic universals: A critical overview.
Linguistic Typology, 5, 1–66.
Goddard, C., & Wierzbicka, A. (1994). Semantic and lexical univer-
sals: Theory and empirical findings. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Göncü, A. (Ed.). (1999). Children’s engagement in the world. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Göncü, A., Patt, J., & Kouba, E. (2002). Understanding young chil-
dren’s play in context. In P. Smith & C. Hart (Eds.), Handbook of
social development. London: Blackwell.
Gone, J. P. (1999). We were through as keepers of it: The “missing pipe
narrative” and Gros Ventre cultural identity. Ethos, 27(4), 415–440.
González, N. (2001). I am my language: Discourses of women and
children in the borderlands. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Goodnow, J. J. (1990a). The socialization of cognition: What’s in-
volved. In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cul-
tural psychology: Essays on comparative human development
(pp. 259–286). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Goodnow, J. J. (1990b). Using sociology to extend psychological ac-
counts of cognitive development. Human Development, 33, 81–107.
Goodnow, J. J. (1995). Acceptable disagreement across generations.
In J. Smetana (Ed.), Parents’ socio-cognitive models of develop-
ment: New directions for child development (pp. 51–64). San Fran-
cisco: Jossey-Bass.

Goodnow, J. J. (1996a). Acceptable ignorance, negotiable disagree-
ment: Alternative views of learning. In D. Olson & N. Torrance
(Eds.), Handbook of psychology in education (pp. 345–368). Ox-
ford, England: Blackwell.
Goodnow, J. J. (1996b). Collaborative rules: How are people sup-
posed to work with one another. In P. B. Baltes & U. M.
Staudinger (Eds.), Interactive minds: Life-span perspectives on the
social foundation of cognition (pp. 163–197). New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Goodnow, J. J. (1996c). From household practices to parents’ ideas
about work and interpersonal relationships. In S. Harkness & C.
Super (Eds.), Parents’ cultural belief systems (pp. 313–344). New
York: Guilford Press.
Goodnow, J. J. (1997). Parenting and the “ transmission” and “inter-
nalization” of values: From social-cultural perspectives to
within-family analyses. In J. E. Grusec & L. Kuczynski (Eds.),
Handbook of parenting and the transmission of values
(pp. 333–361). New York: Wiley.
Goodnow, J. J. (2004a, April). Development as changing participa-
tion. Paper presented at biennial meeting of Child Development
Association, Washington, DC.
Goodnow, J. J. (2004b). Relational models theory: The domain of
household work. In N. Haslam (Ed.), Relational models theory:
Applications in research and practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Goodnow, J. J. (in press). Contexts, diversity, pathways: Linking and
expanding with a view to theory and practice. In C. R. Cooper, C.
García Coll, T. Bartko, H. Davis, & C. Chapman (Eds.), Hills of
gold: Rethinking diversity and contexts as resources for children’s
developmental pathways. New York: Oxford University Press.
Goodnow, J. J., Miller, P. J., & Kessel, F. (Eds.). (1995). Cultural
practices as contexts for development: Vol. 67. New directions for
child development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Goodwin, M. H. (1990). He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization
among black children. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Goody, E. (1982). Parenthood and social reproduction. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Gopnik, A. (1993). Psychopsychology. Consciousness and Cognition,
2, 264–280.
Gottlieb, A. (2004). The afterlife is where we came from: The culture
of infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gottlieb, G. (1991). The experiential canalization of behavioral de-
velopment. Developmental Psychology, 27, 4–13.
Greenfield, P. (1997). Culture as process: Empirical methodology for
cultural psychology. In J. W. Berry, Y. H. Poortinga, & J. Pandey
(Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology: Vol. 1. Theory and
method. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Greenfield, P., & Cocking, R. (1994). Cross-cultural roots of minor-
ity child development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Greenfield, P. M., Keller, H., Fuligni, A., & Maynard, A. (2003).
Cultural pathways through development. Annual Review of Psy-
chology, 54, 461–490.
Grossmann, K. E., & Grossmann, K. (1981). Parent-infant attach-
ment relationships in Bielefeld. In K. Immelman, G. Barlow, L.
Petrovich, & M. Main (Eds.), Behavioral development: The
Bielefeld interdisciplinary project. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Grossmann, K., & Grossmann, K. E. (1991). Newborn behavior, the
quality of early parenting and later toddler-parent relationships in
a group of German infants. In J. K. Nugent, B. M. Lester, & T. B.
Brazelton (Eds.), The cultural context of infancy (Vol. 2). Nor-
wood, NJ: Ablex.
References 783
Grossmann, K., Grossmann, K. E., Spangler, G., Suess, G., & Unzner,
L. (1985). Maternal sensitivity and newborns’ orientation re-
sponses as related to quality of attachment in northern Germany.
In I. Bretherton & E. Waters (Eds.), Monographs of the Society for
Research in Child Development: Growing points of attachment the-
ory and research, 50(Serial Nos. 1–2). Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Guisinger, S., & Blatt, S. J. (1994). Individuality and relatedness:
Evolution of a fundamental dialect. American Psychologist, 49,
104–111.
Gutiérrez, K. D. (2002). Studying cultural practices in urban learn-
ing communities. Human Development, 45, 312–321.
Haidt, J., Koller, S., & Dias, M. (1993). Affect, culture, and morality,
or is it wrong to eat your dog? Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 65, 613–628.
Haight, W. L., & Miller, P. J. (1993). Pretending at home: Early de-
velopment in sociocultural context. Albany: State University of
New York Press.
Haight, W. L., Wang, X., Fung, H., Williams, K., & Mintz, J. (1999).
Universal, developmental, and variable aspects of young chil-
dren’s play: A cross-cultural comparison of pretending at home.
Child Development, 70, 1477–1488.
Hallowell, A. I. (1955). Culture and experience. Philadelphia: Univer-
sity of Pennsylvania Press.
Hamaguchi, E. (1985). A contextual model of the Japanese: Toward a
methodological innovation in Japan studies. Journal of Japanese
Studies, 11, 289–321.
Han, J. J., Leichtman, M. D., & Wang, Q. (1998). Autobiographical
memory in Korean, Chinese, and American children. Developmen-
tal Psychology, 34(4), 701–713.
Hanks, W. F. (1996). Language and communicative practices. Boul-
der, CO: Westview Press.
Harkness, S., & Super, C. M. (1992). The cultural foundations of fa-
thers’ roles: Evidence from Kenya and the United States. In B. S.
Hewlett (Ed.), Father-child relations: Cultural and biosocial con-
texts. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Harkness, S., & Super, C. M. (Eds.). (1996). Parents’ cultural belief
systems. New York: Guilford Press.
Hart, D. (1988). The adolescent self-concept in social context. In D.
Lapsley & F. Power (Eds.), Self, ego, and identity: Integrative ap-
proaches (pp. 71–90). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Hart, D., & Edelstein, W. (1992). The relationship of self-
understanding in childhood to social class, community type, and
teacher-rated intellectual and social competence. Journal of
Cross-Cultural Psychology, 23(3), 353–365.
Hart, D., Fegley, S., Hung Chan, Y., Mulvey, D., & Fischer, L. (1993).
Judgment about personal identity in childhood and adolescence.
Social Development, 2(1), 66–81.
Harter, S. (1983). Developmental perspectives on the self system.
In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol.
4. Socialization, personality, and social development. New York:
Wiley.
Harter, S. (1986). Processes underlying the construction, mainte-
nance and enhancement of self-concept in children. In J. Suls &
A. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological perspective on the self (Vol. 3,
pp. 136–182). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harter, S. (1990). Causes, correlates and the functional role of global
self-worth: A life span perspective. In R. J. Sternberg & J. J. Kol-
ligian (Eds.), Competence considered (pp. 67–97). New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
784 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Harter, S. (1996). Historical roots of contemporary issues involving
self-concept. In B. A. Bracken (Ed.), Handbook of self-concept.
New York: Wiley.
Harwood, R., Leyendecker, B., Carlson, V., Asencio, M., & Miller, A.
(2002). Parenting among Latino families in the US. In M. H. Born-
stein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 4. Social conditions and
applied parenting (2nd ed., pp. 21–46). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harwood, R., & Miller, J. (1991). Perceptions of attachment behav-
ior: A comparison of Anglo and Puerto-Rican mothers. Merrill-
Palmer Quarterly, 3(4), 583–599.
Harwood, R. L., Miller, J. G., & Irizarry, N. L. (1995). Culture and
attachment: Perceptions of the child in context. New York: Guil-
ford Press.
Harwood, R. L., Schoelmerish, A., Ventura-Cook, E., Schulze, P., &
Wilson, S. (1996). Culture and class inf luences on Anglo and
Puerto-Rican mothers: Regarding long-term socialization goals
and child behavior. Child Development, 62, 2446–2462.
Hatano, G. (1995). The psychology of Japanese literacy: Expanding
“ the practice account.” In L. Martin, K. Nelson, & E. Tobach
(Eds.), Sociocultural psychology: Theory and practice of doing and
knowing (pp. 250–275). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1986). Two courses of expertise. In H.
Stevenson, H. Azuma, & K. Hakuta (Eds.), Child development and
education in Japan (pp. 262–272). San Francisco: Freeman.
Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (1992). Desituating cognition through the
construction of conceptual knowledge. In P. Light & G. Butter-
worth (Eds.), Context and cognition: Ways of learning and know-
ing (pp. 115–133). London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
Hatano, G., & Inagaki, K. (2000). Domain-specific constraints of
conceptual development. International Journal of Behavioral De-
velopment, 24, 267–275.
Hatano, G., Okada, N., & Tanabe, H. (Eds.). (2001). Af fective minds.
Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Hatano, G., Siegler, R. S., Richards, D. D., Inagaki, K., Stavy, R., &
Wax, N. (1993). The development of biological knowledge: A
multi-national study. Cognitive Development, 8, 47–62.
Hatano, G., & Wertsch, J. V. (Eds.). (2001). Cultural minds: Human
Development, 44(Serial Nos. 2–3) [Special issue].
Hatchett, S. J., Cochran, D. L., & Jackson, J. S. (1991). Family life.
In J. S. Jackson (Ed.), Life in Black America (pp. 46–83). New-
bury Park, CA: Sage.
He, A. W. (2001). The language of ambiguity: Practices in Chinese
heritage language classes. Discourse Studies, 3(1), 75–96.
Heath, S. B. (1983). Ways with words: Language, life and work in com-
munities and classrooms. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Heine, S. H., Lehman, D. R., Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1999).
Is there a universal need for positive self-regard? Psychological
Review, 106(4), 766–794.
Heine, S. J., Kitayama, S., Lehman, D. R., Takata, T., Ide, E., Leung,
C., et al. (2001). Divergent consequences of success and failure in
Japan and North America: An investigation of self-improving mo-
tivations and malleable selves. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 81(4), 599–615.
Herdt, G. (1981). Guardians of the f lutes. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Herdt, G. (1990). Sambia nosebleeding rites and male proximity to
women. In J. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural
psychology: Essays on comparative human development. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Hewlett, B. S. (1991). Intimate fathers: The nature and context of
Aka Pygmy paternal infant care. Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press.
Hewlett, B. S. (Ed.). (1992). Father-child relations: Cultural and
biosocial contexts. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Hicks, D. A. (1994). Individual and social meanings in the classroom:
Narrative discourse as a boundary phenomenon. Journal of Narra-
tive and Life History, 4, 215–240.
Higgins, E. T. (1990). Self-state representations: Patterns of inter-
connected beliefs with specific holistic meanings and impor-
tance. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, 28, 248–253.
Higgins, E. T., & Parsons, J. (1983). Social cognition and the social
life of the child: Stages as subcultures. In E. T. Higgins, D. N.
Ruble, & W. W. Hartup (Eds.), Social cognition and social devel-
opment: A sociocultural perspective (pp. 15–62). New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Ho, D. Y. (1993). Relational orientation in Asian social psychology.
In U. Kim & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Indigenous psychologies: Research
and experiences in cultural context. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Holland, D., Lachicotte, W., Jr., Skinner, D., & Cain, C. (1998). Iden-
tity and agency in cultural worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Holland, D. C., & Quinn, N. (Eds.). (1987). Cultural models in lan-
guage and thought. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Howard, A. (1985). Ethnopsychology and the prospects for a cultural
psychology. In G. M. White & J. Kirkpatrick (Eds.), Person, self
and experience: Exploring specific ethnopsychologies. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Hudley, E. V. P., Haight, W., & Miller, P. J. (2003). “Raise up a
child”: Human development in an African American family.
Chicago: Lyceum.
Hughes, D., & Chen, L. (1999). The nature of parents’ race-related
communications to children: A developmental perspective. In
L. Balter & C. S. Tamis-LeMonda (Eds.), Child psychology: A
handbook of contemporary issues (pp. 467–490). Philadelphia:
Psychology Press.
Hymes, D. (1974). Foundations in sociolinguistics: An ethnographic ap-
proach (pp. 29–66). Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
Ikegama, Y. (1991). “DO-language” and “BECOME-language”: Two
contrasting types of linguistic representation. In Y. Ikegama
(Ed.), The empire of signs: Semiotic Essays on Japanese Culture
(Vol. 8, pp. 286–327). Philadelphia: Benjamins.
Inagaki, K. (1990). The effects of raising animals on children’s bio-
logical knowledge. British Journal of Developmental Psychology,
8, 119–129.
Inagaki, K., & Hatano, G. (2002). Young children’s naive thinking
about the biological world. New York: Psychology Press.
Ingold, T. (1986). Evolution and social life. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Ingold, T. (1991). Becoming persons: Consciousness and sociality in
human evolution. Cultural Dynamics, 4(3), 355–378.
Ishii, K., & Kitayama, S. (2001). Spontaneous attention to emo-
tional speech in Japan and the United states. In G. Hatano, N.
Okada, & H. Tanabe (Eds.), Af fective minds (pp. 243–248). Am-
sterdam: Elsevier.
Jahoda, G. (1990). Our forgotten ancestors. In J. J. Berman (Ed.), Ne-
braska Symposium on Motivation, 1989: Cross-cultural perspec-
tives (pp. 1–40). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

Jahoda, G. (1992). Crossroads between culture and mind: Continu-
ities and change in theories of human nature. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
James, W. (1950). The principles of psychology. New York: Dover.
Jensen, L. A. (1996). Dif ferent habits, dif ferent hearts: Orthodoxy
and progressivism in the United States and India. Unpublished
PhD thesis, University of Chicago, Illinois.
Jensen, L. A. (2005). Through two lenses: A cultural-developmental
approach to moral psychology. Available from JensenL@cua.edu.
Jessor, R., Colby, A., & Shweder, R. A. (Eds.). (1996). Ethnography
and human development: Context and meaning in social inquiry.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Johnson, F. (1985). The Western concept of self. In A. Marsella,
G. DeVos, & F. L. K. Hsu (Eds.), Culture and self. London: Tavis-
tock.
Josephs, R. A., Markus, H., & Tarafodi, R. W. (1992). Gender and
self-esteem. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63,
391–402.
Kakar, S. (1978). The inner world: A psychoanalytic study of child-
hood and society in India. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kakar, S. (1982). Shamans, mystics and doctors. Boston: Beacon Press.
Kakar, S. (1996). The colors of violence: Cultural identities, religion
and conf lict. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kapstein, M. (1989). Santaraksita on the fallacies of personalistic vi-
talism. Journal of Indian Philosophy, 17, 43–59.
Karasawa, M. (1998). The cultural basis of self- and other-percep-
tions: Self-criticism and other-enhancement in Japan. Unpub-
lished PhD dissertation, Shirayuri College, Tokyo, Japan.
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992). Beyond modularit y. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Keil, F. C. (1984). Mechanisms in cognitive development and the
structure of knowledge. In R. J. Sternberg (Ed.), Mechanisms of
cognitive development (pp. 81–99). New York: Freeman.
Kessel, F. S., & Siegel, A. W. (Eds.). (1983). The child and other cul-
tural inventions. New York: Praeger.
Kessen, W. (1983). The child and other cultural inventions. In F. S.
Kessel & A. W. Siegel (Eds.), The child and other cultural inven-
tions. New York: Praeger.
Kessen, W. (Ed.). (1990). The rise and fall of development. Worcester,
MA: Clark University Press.
Kihlstrom, J. F., & Cantor, N. (1984). Mental representations of the
self. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 17, 1–47.
Kim, U. (1987). The parent-child relationship: The core of Korean
collectivism. Paper presented at the meeting of the International
Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, Newcastle, Australia.
Kitayama, S., & Markus, H. R. (1994). Emotion and culture: Empiri-
cal studies of mutual inf luences. Washington, DC: American Psy-
chological Association.
Kitayama, S., Markus, H., Matsumoto, H., & Norasakkunkit, V.
(1995). Individual and collective processes of self-esteem manage-
ment: Self enhancement in the United States and self-depreciation
in Japan. Kyoto, Japan: Kyoto University.
Kitayama, S., Markus, H. R., Matsumoto, H., & Norasakkunkit, V.
(1997). Individual and collective processes in the construction of
the self: Self-enhancement in the United States and self-
criticism in Japan. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
72(6), 1245–1267.
References 785
Kondo, D. (1990). Crafting selves: Power, gender, and discourses
of identity in a Japanese workplace. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Konner, M. J. (1975). Relations among infants and juveniles in com-
parative perspective. In M. Lewis & L. Rosenblum (Eds.), Friend-
ship and peer relations. New York: Wiley.
Kratz, C. (1994). Af fecting performance: Meaning, movement and ex-
perience in Okiek women’s initiation. Washington, DC: Smithson-
ian Institution Press.
Kripal, J. (1995). Kali’s child: The mystical and the erotic in the life and
teachings of Rama Krishna. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kristeva, J. (1980). Desire in language: A semiotic approach to litera-
ture and art. New York: Columbia University Press.
Kuebli, J., & Fivush, R. (1992). Gender differences in parent-child
conversations about past emotions. Sex Roles, 27, 683–698.
Kulick, D. (1992). Language shifts and cultural reproduction: Social-
ization, self, and syncretism in a Papua New Guinean village. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Kurtz, S. N. (1992). All the mothers are one: Hindu India and the
cultural reshaping of psychoanalysis. New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press.
Kusserow, A. S. (1999). De-homogenizing American individualism:
Socializing hard and soft individualism in Manhattan and
Queens. Ethos, 27(2), 210–234.
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition. (1983). Culture and
cognitive development. In P. Mussen (Series Ed.) & W. Kessen
(Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. History, theory
and methods. New York: Wiley.
Lampert, M., Rittenhouse, P., & Crumbaugh, C. (1996). Agreeing
to disagree: Developing sociable mathematical discourse. In
D. R. Olson & N. Torrance (Eds.), Handbook of education and
human development: New models of learning, teaching, and
schooling (pp. 731–764). Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.
Lancy, D. (1996). Playing on the mother ground: Cultural routines
for children’s development. New York: Guilford Press.
Lave, J. (1990). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics, and cul-
ture in everyday life. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In
L. B. Resnick, J. M. Levine, & S. D. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives
on socially shared cognition (pp. 63–82). Washington, DC: Ameri-
can Psychological Association.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate periph-
eral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Leadbeater, B. J., & Dionne, J. P. (1981). The adolescent’s use of for-
mal operational thinking in solving problems related to identity
resolutions. Adolescence, 16, 111–121.
Leahy, R., & Shirk, S. (1985). Social cognition and the development
of the self. In R. Leahy (Ed.), The development of the self. New
York: Academic Press.
Lebra, T. S. (1976). Japanese patterns of behavior. Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawaii Press.
Lebra, T. S. (1992). Culture, self, and communication. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan.
Lebra, T. S. (1993). Culture, self, and communication in Japan and
the United States. In W. B. Gudykunst (Ed.), Communication in
Japan and the United States (pp. 51–87). Albany: State University
of New York Press.
786 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Lebra, T. S. (1994). Mother and child in Japanese socialization: A
Japan-US comparison. In P. M. Greenfield & R. R. Cocking
(Eds.), Cross-cultural roots of minority child development
(pp. 259–274). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
LeVine, L. E. (1983). Mine: Self-definition in 2-year-old-boys. De-
velopmental Psychology, 19, 544–549.
LeVine, R. A. (1970). Cross-cultural study in child psychology. In
P. H. Mussen (Ed.), Carmichael’s manual of child psychology (3rd
ed.). New York: Wiley.
LeVine, R. A. (1978). Western schools in non-Western societies:
Psychosocial impact and cultural response. Teachers College
Record, 79.
LeVine, R. A. (1989). Cultural environments in child development. In
W. Damon (Ed.), Child development today and tomorrow. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
LeVine, R. A. (1990a). Enculturation: A biosocial perspective on the
self. In D. Cicchetti & M. Beeghly (Eds.), The self in transition:
Infancy to childhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
LeVine, R. A. (1990b). Infant environments in psychoanalysis: A
cross-cultural view. In J. W. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt
(Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human devel-
opment (pp. 454–474). New York: Cambridge University Press.
LeVine, R. A. (2004). Challenging expert knowledge: Findings from
an African study of child care and development. In U. P. Gielen &
J. P. Roopnaraine (Eds.), Childhood and adolescence in cross-cul-
tural perspective. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
LeVine, R. A., Dixon, S., LeVine, S., Richman, A., Leiderman, P. H.,
Keefer, C., et al. (1994). Child care and culture: Lessons from
Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.
LeVine, R. A., & LeVine, B. B. (1966). Nyansongo: A Gusii commu-
nity in Kenya. New York: Wiley.
LeVine, R. A., LeVine, S., Iwanaga, M., & Marvin, R. (1970). Child
care and social attachment in a Nigerian community: A prelimi-
nary report. Paper presented at the American Psychological Asso-
ciation meetings.
LeVine, R. A., Miller, P., & West, M. (Eds.). (1988). Parental behav-
ior in diverse societies. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
LeVine, R. A., & Norman, K. (2001). The infant’s acquisition of cul-
ture: Early attachment re-examined from an anthropological per-
spective. In C. Moore & H. Mathews (Eds.), The psychology of
cultural experience. New York: Cambridge University Press.
LeVine, S. (n.d.). Caregiving in Godavari, Nepal, 1990 [Videotape].
Levy, R. I. (1973). Tahitians: Mind and experience in the Society Is-
lands. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Levy, R. I. (1984). Emotion, knowing and culture. In R. A. Shweder
& R. A. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self and
emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Lewin, K. (1943). Defining the field at given time. Psychological Re-
view, 50, 292–310.
Lewis, C. C. (1995). Educating hearts and minds. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Lewis, M. (1993). Self-conscious emotions: Embarrassment, pride,
shame, and guilt. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland (Eds.), Handbook of
emotions (pp. 563–573). New York: Guilford Press.
Lewis, M., Sullivan, M., Stanger, C., & Weiss, M. (1989). Self-
development and self-conscious emotions. Child Development,
60, 146–156.
Li, J. (2002). A cultural model of learning: Chinese “ heart and
mind for wanting to learn.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychol-
ogy, 33, 246–267.
Li, J. (2004). “I learn and grow big”: Chinese preschoolers’ purposes
for learning. International Journal of Behavioral Development,
28, 116–128.
Lifton, R. J. (1993). The Protean self. New York: Harper.
Lillard, A. (1996). Body or mind: Children’s categorizing of pre-
tense. Child Development, 67(4), 1717–1734.
Little, T. O., Oettingen, G., Stetsenko, A., & Baltes, P. B. (1995).
Children’s school performance-related beliefs: How do Ameri-
can children compare to German and Russian children. Berlin,
Germany: Max Planck Institute for Human Development and
Education.
Lohmann, H., & Tomasello, M. (2003). The role of language in the
development of false belief understanding: A training study. Child
Development, 74, 1130–1144.
Lucy, J. A. (1992a). Grammatical categories and cognition: A case
study of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Lucy, J. A. (1992b). Language diversity and thought: A reformulation
of the linguistic relativity hypothesis. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Lutz, C. (1988). Unnatural emotions: Everyday sentiments on a Mi-
cronesian Atoll and their challenge to Western theory. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Lutz, C., & White, G. (1986). The anthropology of emotions. Annual
Review of Anthropology, 15, 405–436.
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific. New
York: Dutton.
Mandelbaum, D. G. (Ed.). (1951). Selected writings of Edward Sapir
in language, culture, and personality. Berkeley: University of Cal-
ifornia Press.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991a). Cultural variation in the self-
concept. In J. Strauss & G. R. Goethals (Eds.), The self: Interdis-
ciplinary approaches (pp. 18–48). New York: Springer-Verlag.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991b). Culture and the self: Impli-
cations for cognition, emotion, and motivation. Psychological Re-
view, 98, 224–253.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1994a). The cultural construction of
self and emotion: Implications for social behavior. In S. Kitayama
& H. R. Markus (Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of
mutual inf luences (pp. 89–130). Washington, DC: American Psy-
chological Association.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1994b). The cultural shaping of emo-
tion: A conceptual framework. In S. Kitayama & H. R. Markus
(Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual inf lu-
ences (pp. 339–351). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Markus, H., & Kitayama, S. (2003). Models of agency: Sociocultural
diversity in the construction of action. In R. A. Dienstbier (Se-
ries Ed.) & V. Murphy-Berman & J. J. Berman (Vol. Eds.), Ne-
braska Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 49. Cross-cultural
dif ferences in perspectives on the self (pp. 1–57). Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press.
Markus, H. R., Kitayama, S., & Heiman, R. J. (1996). Culture and
“ basic” psychological principles. In E. T. Higgins & A. W.
Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic princi-
ples. New York: Guilford Press.
Markus, H. R., Mullally, P. R., & Kitayama, S. (1997). Collective
self-schemas: The sociocultural grounding of the personal. In U.
Neisser & D. Jopling (Eds.), The conceptual self in context: Cul-
ture, experience, self-understanding. Cambridge, England: Cam-
bridge University Press.

Markus, H. R., & Nurius, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psy-
chologist, 41, 954–969.
Markus, H. R., & Wurf, E. (1986). The dynamic self-concept: A
social psychological perspective. Annual Review of Psychology,
38, 299–337.
Martin, L., Nelson, D., & Tobach, E. (1995). Sociocultural psychol-
ogy: Theory and practice of doing and knowing. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Martin-Barbero, J. (1993). Communication, culture and hegemony:
From media to mediations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Martini, M. (1994). Peer interactions in Polynesia: A view from the
Marquesas. In J. L. Roopmarine, J. E. Johnson, & F. H. Hooper
(Eds.), Children’s play in diverse cultures. Albany: State Univer-
sity of New York Press.
Marvin, R., VanDevender, T., Iwanaga, M., LeVine, S., & LeVine, R.
(1977). Infant-caregiver attachment among the Hausa of Nigeria.
In H. McGurk (Ed.), Ecological factors in human development.
Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Maslow, A. H. (1954). Motivation and personality. New York: Harper.
Masten, A. S. (1999). Cultural processes of child development. Min-
nesota Symposia on Child Development (29).
McAdoo, H. P. (2002). African American parenting. In M. H. Born-
stein (Ed.), Handbook of parenting: Vol. 4. Social conditions and
applied parenting (2nd ed., pp. 47–58). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
McCabe, A., & Peterson, A. (1991). Developing narrative structure.
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
McKenna, J. J., Thoman, E. B., Anders, T. F., Sadeh, A., Schechtman,
V. L., & Glotzbach, S. F. (1993). Infant-parent co-sleeping in an
evolutionary perspective: Implications for understanding infant
sleep development and the sudden infant death syndrome. Sleep,
16, 263–282.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Mead, M. (1931). A handbook of child psychology (Carl Murchison,
Ed.). Worcester, MA: Clark University Press.
Medin, D. L. (1989). Concepts and conceptual structure. American
Psychologist, 89, 1969–1981.
Meng, K. (1992). Narrating and listening in kindergarten. Journal of
Narrative and Life History, 2(3), 235–276.
Menon, U. (1995). Receiving and giving: Distributivity as the source
of women’s wellbeing. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of
Chicago, IL.
Menon, U. (2002). Neither victim nor rebel: Feminism and the moral-
ity of gender and family life in a Hindu temple town. In R. A.
Shweder, M. Minow, & H. R. Markus (Eds.), Engaging cultural
dif ferences: The multicultural challenge in liberal democracies
(pp. 288–308). New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Menon, U., & Shweder, R. (1994). Kali’s tongue: Cultural psychology
and the power of shame in Orissa, India. In S. Kitayama & H. R.
Markus (Eds.), Emotion and culture: Empirical studies of mutual
inf luence (pp. 241–284). Washington, DC: American Psychologi-
cal Association.
Mesquita, B. (2001). Culture and emotion: Different approaches to
the question. In T. J. Mayne & G. A. Bonanno (Eds.), Emotions:
Current issues and future directions (pp. 214–250). New York:
Guilford Press.
Mesquita, B., & Frijda, N. H. (1992). Cultural variations in emo-
tions: A review. Psychological Bulletin, 112, 179–204.
Michaels, S. (1991). The dismantling of narrative. In A. McCabe &
C. Peterson (Eds.), Developing narrative structure (pp. 303–351).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
References 787
Miller, J. G. (1984). Culture and the development of everyday so-
cial explanation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
46, 961–978.
Miller, J. G. (1994a). Cultural diversity in the morality of caring.
Cross-Cultural Research, 28, 3–39.
Miller, J. G. (1994b). Cultural psychology: Bridging disciplinary
boundaries in understanding the cultural grounding of self. In
P. K. Bock (Ed.), Handbook of psychological anthropology.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Miller, J. G. (1997a). Culture and self: Uncovering the cultural
grounding of psychological theory. In J. G. Snodgrass & R. L.
Thompson (Eds.), The self across psychology: Self-recognition,
self-awareness, and the self concept (pp. 217–231). New York:
New York Academy of Sciences.
Miller, J. G. (1997b). Theoretical issues in cultural psychology and
social constructionism. In J. W. Berry, Y. Poortinga, & J.
Pandey (Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural psychology: Theoret-
ical and methodological perspectives (Vol. 1). Boston: Allyn &
Bacon.
Miller, J. G. (2003). Culture and agency: Implications for psycho-
logical theories of motivation and social development. In R. A.
Dienstbier (Series Ed.) & V. Murphy-Berman & J. J. Berman
(Vol. Eds.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 49. Cross-
Cultural dif ference in perspectives on the self (pp. 59–99). Lin-
coln: University of Nebraska Press.
Miller, P. J. (1982). Amy, Wendy, and Beth: Learning language in
South Baltimore. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Miller, P. J. (1994). Narrative practices: Their role in socialization
and self construction. In U. Neisser & R. Fivush (Eds.), The re-
membering self: Construction and accuracy in the self-narrative
(pp. 158–179). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Miller, P. J., Fung, H., & Mintz, J. (1996). Self-construction through
narrative practices: A Chinese and American comparison of early
socialization. Ethos, 24, 237–279.
Miller, P. J., & Goodnow, J. J. (1995). Cultural practices: Toward an
integration of development and culture. In J. J. Goodnow, P. J.
Miller, & F. Kessel (Eds.), Cultural practices as contexts for de-
velopment: New directions for child development (Vol. 67,
pp. 5–16). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Miller, P. J., Hengst, J. A., & Wang, S.-H. (2003). Ethnographic meth-
ods: Applications from developmental cultural psychology. In P.
Camic, J. Rhodes, & L. Yardley (Eds.), Qualitative research in
psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Miller, P. J., & Hoogstra, L. (1992). Language as tool in the social-
ization and apprehension of cultural meanings. In T. Schwartz,
G. M. White, & G. A. White (Eds.), New directions in psycholog-
ical anthropology (pp. 83–101). New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Miller, P. J., Hoogstra, L., Mintz, J., Fung, H., & Williams, K.
(1993). Troubles in the garden and how they get resolved: A young
child’s transformation of his favorite story. In C. A. Nelson (Ed.),
Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology: Vol. 26. Memory and
af fect in development (pp. 87–114). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Miller, P. J., Mintz, J., Fung, H., Hoogstra, L., & Potts, R. (1992).
The narrated self: Young children’s construction of self in rela-
tion to others in conversational stories of personal experience.
Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 38, 45–67.
Miller, P. J., & Moore, B. B. (1989). Narrative conjunctions of care-
giver and child: A comparative perspective on socialization
through stories. Ethos, 17, 43–64.
788 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Miller, P. J., Potts, R., Fung, H., Hoogstra, L., & Mintz, J. (1990).
Narrative practices and the social construction of self in child-
hood. American Ethnologist, 17(2), 292–311.
Miller, P. J., Sandel, T., Liang, C.-H., & Fung, H. (2001). Narrating
transgressions in Longwood: The discourses, meanings, and para-
doxes of an American socializing practice. Ethos, 29(2), 1–27.
Miller, P. J., & Sperry, L. L. (1987). The socialization of anger and
aggression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 33, 1–31.
Miller, P. J., Wiley, A., Fung, H., & Liang, C. (1997). Personal story-
telling as a medium of socialization in Chinese and American
families. Child Development, 68, 557–568.
Minsky, M. (2000). Attachments and goals. In G. Hatano,
N. Okada, & H. Tanabe (Eds.), Af fective minds (pp. 27–40).
Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Minsky, M. (2001). The emotion machine. New York: Pantheon.
Montemayor, R., & Eisen, M. (1977). The development of self-
conceptions from childhood to adolescence. Developmental Psy-
chology, 13, 314–319.
Morelli, G. A., Rogoff, B., Oppenheimer, D., & Goldsmith, D. (1992).
Cultural variations in infants’ sleeping arrangements: Question of
independence. Developmental Psychology, 28, 604–613.
Morikawa, H., Shand, N., & Kosawa, Y. (1988). Maternal speech to
prelingual infants in Japan and the United States: Relationships
among functions, forms and referents. Journal of Child Language,
15, 237–256.
Morris, B. (1994). Anthropology of the self: The concept of the indi-
vidual in the west. Boulder, CO: Pluto Press.
Much, N. C. (1992). The analysis of discourse as methodology for a
semiotic psychology. American Behavioral Scientist, 36, 52–72.
Much, N. C. (1993). Personal psychology and cultural discourse:
Context analysis in the construction of meaning and a women’s
devotional life in an Indian village. In J. Smith, R. Harre, &
L. van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking psychology: Vol. 1. Concep-
tual foundations. London: Sage.
Much, N. C. (1995). Cultural psychology. In J. Smith, R. Harre, &
L. van Langenhove (Eds.), Rethinking psychology. London: Sage.
Mulder, N. (1992). Individual and society in Java: A cultural analysis
(2nd ed.). Yogyakarta, Indonesia: Gajah Mada University Press.
Mullen, M. K., & Yi, S. (1995). The cultural context of talk about the
past: Implications for the development of autobiographical mem-
ory. Cognitive Development, 10, 407–419.
Munroe, R. H. (in press). Social structure and sex-role choices among
children in four cultures. Cross-Cultural Research.
Murphy-Berman, V., & Berman, J. J. (Eds.). (2003). Cultural differ-
ence in perspectives on the self. In R. A. Dienstbier (Series Ed.),
Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Vol. 49. Cross. Lincoln: Uni-
versity of Nebraska Press.
Nag, M., White, B., & Peet, R. C. (1978). An anthropological ap-
proach to the study of the economic value of children. Current An-
thropology, 19, 293–306.
Neisser, U. (1988). Five kinds of self-knowledge. Philosophical Psy-
chology, 1, 35–59.
Neisser, U. (1991). Two perceptually given aspects of the self and
their development. Developmental Review, 11(3), 197–209.
Neisser, U., & Fivush, R. (1994). The remembering self: Construction
and accuracy in the self-narrative. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Neisser, U., & Jopling, D. (Eds.). (1997). The conceptual self in con-
text: Culture, experience, self-understanding. Cambridge, En-
gland: Cambridge University Press.
Nelson, K. (Ed.). (1989). Narratives from the crib. Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press.
Nelson, K. (1996). Language in cognitive development: The emergence
of the mediated mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Nicolopoulou, A. (1997). Children and narratives: Toward an interpre-
tive and sociocultural approach. In M. Bamberg (Ed.), Narrative de-
velopment: Six approaches (pp. 179–215). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Nisbett, R. (2003). The geography of thought. New York: Free Press.
Nisbett, R., & Cohen, D. (1995). The culture of honor: The psychol-
ogy of violence in the South. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Nunes, T. (1995). Cultural practices and the conception of individual
differences: Theoretical and empirical considerations. In J. J.
Goodnow, P. J. Miller, & F. Kessel (Eds.), Cultural practices as
contexts for development (pp. 91–104). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ochs, E. (1988). Culture and language development: Language acqui-
sition and language socialization in a Samoan village. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, E. (1990). Indexicality and socialization. In J. W. Stigler,
R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays
on comparative human development (pp. 287–308). New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, E. (1999). Socialization. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology,
9(1/2), 230–233.
Ochs, E., & Capps, L. (2001). Living narrative: Creating lives in
everyday storytelling. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ochs, E., & Schieffelin, B. (1984). Language acquisition and social-
ization: Three developmental stories. In R. Shweder & R. A.
LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Ochs, E., & Taylor, C. E. (1995). The father knows best dynamic in
dinnertime narratives. In K. Hall & M. Bucholtz (Eds.), Gender
articulated: Language and the socially constructed self
(pp. 97–120). New York: Routledge.
Oerter, R., Oerter, R., Agostiani, H., Kim, H., & Wibowo, S. (1996).
The concept of human nature in East Asia: Etic and emic charac-
teristics. Culture and Psychology, 2(1), 9–51.
Oettingen, G. (1995). Cross-cultural perspectives on self-efficacy.
In A. Bandura (Ed.), Self-ef ficacy in changing societies
(pp. 149–176). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Okami, P., & Weisner, T. (in press). Is parent-child bedsharing psy-
chologically harmful? Data from the UCLA Family Lifestyles
Project. In J. McKenna (Ed.), Safe co-sleeping with baby: Scien-
tific, medical and political perspectives.
Okami, P., Weisner, T. S., & Olmstead, R. (2002). Outcome corre-
lates of parent-child bedsharing: An 18-year longitudinal study.
Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 23(4),
pp. 244–253.
Oosterwegel, A., & Oppenheimer, L. (1993). The self-system: Devel-
opmental changes between and within self-concepts. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Oura, Y., & Hatano, G. (2001). The constitution of general and specific
mental models of other people. Human Development, 44, 144–159.
Oyserman, D., & Kemmelmeier, M. (1995, June). Viewing oneself in
light of others: Gendered impact of social comparisons in the
achievement domain. Paper presented at the 7th annual convention
of the American Psychological Society, New York.
Oyserman, D., & Markus, H. R. (1993). The sociocultural self. In
J. Suls (Ed.), Psychological perspectives on the self (Vol. 4,
pp. 187–220). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Packer, M. J. (1987). Social interaction as practical activity: Implica-
tions for the study of social and moral development. In W.
Kurtines & J. Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral development through social
interaction (pp. 245–280). New York: Wiley.
Parish, S. (1991). The sacred mind: Newar cultural representations of
mental life and the production of moral consciousness. Ethos,
19(3), 313–351.
Peak, L. (1987). Learning to go to school in Japan: The transition from
home to preschool life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Peak, L. (2001). Learning to become part of the group: The Japanese
child’s transition to preschool life. In H. Shimizu & R. A.
LeVine (Eds.), Japanese frames of mind: Cultural perspectives on
human development (pp. 143–169). New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Peterson, C. C., & Siegal, M. (1995). Deafness, conversation and the-
ory of mind. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 36,
459–474.
Phelan, P., Davidson, A. L., & Yu, H. C. (1998). Adolescents’ worlds:
Negotiating family, peers, and school. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Pike, K. L. (1967). Language in relation to a unified theory of the struc-
ture of human behavior. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton.
Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sci-
ences. Albany: State University of New York Press.
Pratt, M. W., & Fiese, B. H. (2004). Family stories and the life course:
Across time and generations. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Preece, A. (1987). The range of narrative forms conversationally pro-
duced by young children. Journal of Child Language, 14, 353–373.
Redfield, R. (1941). The folk culture of Yucatan. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Richman, A., LeVine, R. A., New, R. S., Howrigan, G., Welles-
Nystrom, B., & LeVine, S. (1988). Maternal behavior to infants
in five societies. In R. A. LeVine, P. Miller, & M. M. West
(Eds.), Parental behavior in diverse societies: Vol. 40. New direc-
tions for child development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Richman, A., Miller, P., & LeVine, R. A. (1992). Cultural and educa-
tional variations in maternal responsiveness. Developmental Psy-
chology, 28, 614–621.
Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development
in social context. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rogoff, B. (2003). The cultural nature of human development. New
York: Oxford University Press.
Rogoff, B., Mistry, J. J., Göncü, A., & Mosier, C. (1993). Guided par-
ticipation in cultural activity by toddlers and caregivers. Mono-
graphs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 58(7,
Series No. 236).
Rogoff, B., Radziszewska, B., & Masiello, T. (1995). Analysis of
developmental processes in sociocultural activity. In L. M. Nel-
son & E. Tobach (Eds.), Sociocultural psychology: Theory and
practice of doing and knowing. New York: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Rohner, R. P. (1984). Handbook for the study of parental acceptance
and rejection (Rev. ed.). Storrs: University of Connecticut.
Rohner, R. P., & Pettengill, S. (1985). Perceived parental acceptance-
rejection and parental control among Korean adolescents. Child
Development, 56, 524–528.
Romney, A. K., Weller, S. C., & Batchelder, W. H. (1986). Culture as
consensus: A theory of culture and informant accuracy. American
Anthropologist, 88, 313–332.
References 789
Rosaldo, M. Z. (1984). Toward an anthropology of self and feeling. In
R. A. Shweder & R. A. LeVine (Eds.), Culture theory: Essays on
mind, self, and emotion (pp. 137–157). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Rosen, L. (1995). Other intentions. Santa Fe, NM: School of Ameri-
can Research.
Rosenberg, M. (1986). Self-concept from middle child-hood through
adolescence. In J. Suls & A. Greenwald (Eds.), Psychological per-
spectives on the self (Vol. 3, pp. 107–136). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Rosenberger, N. R. (1992). Japanese sense of self. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Ross, N., Medin, D., Coley, J. D., & Atran, S. (2003). Cultural and
experiential differences in the development of folkbiological in-
duction. Cognitive Development, 18, 25–47.
Rothbaum, F., Pott, M., & Azuma, H. (2000). The development of
close relationships in Japan and the United States: Paths of
symbolic harmony and generative tension. Child Development,
71(5), 1121–1142.
Rothbaum, F., Weisz, J., & Pott, M. (2000). Attachment and culture:
Security in the United States and Japan. American Psychologist,
55(10), 1093–1104.
Rozin, P., & Nemeroff, C. (1990). The law of sympathetic magic. In
J. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology:
Essays on comparative human development. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Ruble, D. N., Alvarez, J., Bachman, M., Cameron, J., Fuligni, A.,
Garcia Coll, C., et al. (in press). The development of a sense of
“ we”: The emergence and implications of children’s collective
identity. In M. Bennett & F. Sani (Eds.), The development of the
social self. East Sussex, England: Psychology Press.
Russell, J. A. (1991). Culture and the categorization of emotions.
Psychological Bulletin, 110, 426–450.
Ryff, C., Lee, Y., & Na, K. (1995). Through the lens of culture: Psy-
chological well-being at midlife. Unpublished manuscript.
Sampson, E. E. (1985). The decentralization of identity: Toward a re-
vised concept of personal and social order. American Psycholo-
gist, 40, 1203–1211.
Sampson, E. E. (1988). The debate on individualism: Indigenous psy-
chologies of the individual and their role in personal and societal
functioning. American Psychologist, 43, 15–22.
Sandel, T. L. (2003). Linguistic capital in Taiwan: The KMT’s Man-
darin language policy and its perceived impact on language prac-
tices of bilingual Mandarin and Tai-gi speakers. Language in
Society, 32, 523–551.
Sass, L. A. (1992). The epic of disbelief: The postmodernist turn in
contemporary psychoanalysis. In S. Kvale (Ed.), Psychology and
postmodernism (pp. 166–182). London: Sage.
Sawyer, R. (1997). Pretend play as improvisation: Conversation in the
preschool classroom. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Schieffelin, B. B. (1990). The give and take of everyday life: Lan-
guage socialization of Kaluli children. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Schieffelin, B. B., & Ochs, E. (1986a). Language socialization. In
B. Siegel (Ed.), Annual review of anthropology. Palo Alto, CA:
Annual Reviews.
Schieffelin, B. B., & Ochs, E. (Eds.). (1986b). Language socialization
across cultures. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schoneman, T. J. (1981). Reports of the sources of self-knowledge.
Journal of Personality, 49, 284–294.
790 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Schoultz, J., Säljö, R., & Wyndhamn, J. (2001). Heavenly talk: Dis-
course, artifacts, and children’s understanding of elementary as-
tronomy. Human Development, 44, 103–118.
Schwartz, T., White, G., & Lutz, C. (1992). New directions in psycho-
logical anthropology. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Schwartzman, H. (1978). Tranformations: The anthropology of chil-
dren’s play. New York: Plenum Press.
Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1973). The cognitive consequences of for-
mal and informal education. Science, 182, 553–559.
Scribner, S., & Cole, M. (1981). The psychology of literacy. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Seymour, S. (1999). Women, family and child care in India: A world in
transition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shimizu, H., & LeVine, R. (2001). Japanese frames of mind: Cultural
perspectives and human development. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.
Shore, B. (1996). Culture in mind: Cognition, culture and the problem
of meaning. New York: Oxford University Press.
Shuman, A. (1986). Storytelling rights: The uses of oral and written
texts by urban adolescents. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shwalb, D., & Shwalb, B. J. (1996). Japanese childrearing: Two gener-
ations of scholarship. New York: Guilford.
Shweder, R. A. (1982). Beyond self-constructed knowledge: The study
of culture and morality. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 28, 41–69.
Shweder, R. A. (1990a). Cultural psychology: What is it. In J. W.
Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt (Eds.), Cultural psychology:
Essays on comparative human development. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A. (1990b). In defense of moral realism. Child Develop-
ment, 61, 2060–2067.
Shweder, R. A. (1991). Thinking through cultures: Expeditions in cul-
tural psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shweder, R. A. (1992). Ghost busters in anthropology. In C. Strauss
& R. G. D’Andrade (Eds.), Human motives and cultural models.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A. (1996a). “ The ‘mind’ of cultural psychology.” In
P. Baltes & U. Staudinger (Eds.), Interactive minds: Life-span per-
spectives on the social foundations of cognition. New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A. (1996b). True ethnography: The lore, the law and the
lure. In R. Jessor, A. Colby, & R. A. Shweder (Eds.), Ethnography
and human development: Context and meaning in social inquiry.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shweder, R. A. (2003a). Toward a deep cultural psychology of shame.
Social Research, 70, 1401–1422.
Shweder, R. A. (2003b). Why do men barbecue? Recipes for cultural
psychology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Shweder, R. A. (2004). Deconstructing the emotions for the sake of
comparative research. In A. S. R. Manstead, N. Frijda, & A. Fis-
cher (Eds.), Amsterdam Symposium: Feelings and emotions. Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A., Balle-Jensen, L., & Goldstein, W. (1995). Who sleeps
by whom revisited: A method for extracting the moral goods im-
plicit in praxis. In J. J. Goodnow, P. J. Miller, & F. Kessell (Eds.),
Cultural practices as contexts for development: New directions for
child development. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Shweder, R. A., & Bourne, L. (1984). Does the concept of the person
vary cross-culturally. In R. A. Shweder & R. A. LeVine (Eds.),
Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion (pp. 158–199).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A., & Haidt, J. (2000). The cultural psychology of the
emotions: Ancient and new. In M. Lewis & J. Haviland (Eds.),
Handbook of Emotions. NY: Guildford Press.
Shweder, R. A., & LeVine, R. A. (1984). Culture theory: Essays on
mind, self, and emotion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A., Mahapatra, M., & Miller, J. G. (1990). Culture and
moral development. In J. Stigler, R. A. Shweder, & G. Herdt
(Eds.), Cultural psychology: Essays on comparative human devel-
opment. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Shweder, R. A., Much, N. C., Mahapatra, M., & Park, L. (1997). The
big three of morality (autonomy, community, divinity) and the big
three explanations of suffering. In A. Brandt & P. Rozin (Eds.),
Morality and health. New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Shweder, R. A., & Sullivan, M. (1990). The semiotic subject of cul-
tural psychology. In L. Pervin (Ed.), Handbook of personality:
Theory and research (pp. 399–416). New York: Guilford Press.
Shweder, R. A., & Sullivan, M. (1993). Cultural psychology: Who
needs it? Annual Review of Psychology, 44, 497–523.
Siegler, R. S., & Crowley, K. (1994). Constraints on learning in non-
privileged domains. Cognitive Psychology, 27, 194–226.
Snibbe, A. C., & Markus, H. R. (2004). You can’t always get what you
want: Social class, agency and choice. Unpublished manuscript.
Spence, D. P. (1982). Narrative truth and historical truth: Meaning
and interpretation in psychoanalysis. New York: Norton.
Sperber, D. (2002). In defense of massive modularity. In E. Dupoux
(Ed.), Language, brain, and cognitive development (pp. 47–57).
Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Sperry, L. L., & Sperry, D. E. (1995). Young children’s presentation
of self in conversational narration. In L. L. Sperry & P. A. Smi-
ley (Eds.), Exploring young children’s concepts of self and other
through conversation: Vol. 69. New directions for child develop-
ment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Sperry, L. L., & Sperry, D. E. (1996). The early development of nar-
rative skills. Cognitive Development, 11, 443–465.
Stavy, R., & Wax, N. (1989). Children’s conceptions of plants as liv-
ing things. Human Development, 32, 88–94.
Steedman, C. K. (1986). Landscape for a good woman: A story of two
lives. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Stein, K., Markus, H., & Moeser, R. (1996). The sociocultural shap-
ing of self-esteem of American adolescent girls and boys.
Stern, D. (1985). The interpersonal world of the infant. New York:
Basic Books.
Stevenson, H. W. (1994). Moving away from stereotypes and precon-
ceptions: Students and their education in East Asia and the
United States. In P. M. G. R. R. Cocking (Ed.), Cross-cultural
roots of minority child development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Stevenson, H. W., & Stigler, J. W. (1992). The learning gap: Why our
schools are failing and what we can learn from Japanese and Chi-
nese education. New York: Summit Books.
Stigler, J. W., Shweder, R. A., & Herdt, G. (Eds.). (1990). Cultural
psychology: Essays on comparative human development
(pp. 259–286). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Stigler, J. W., Smith, S., & Mao, L. (1985). The self-perception of com-
petence by Chinese children. Child Development, 56, 1259–1270.
Strickland, B. R. (2000). Misassumptions, misadventures, and the
misuse of psychology. American Psychologist, 55, 331–338.
Stromberg, P. G. (1993). Language and self-transformation: A study
of the Christian conversion narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Sullivan, H. S. (1940). Conceptions of modern psychiatry. New
York: Wiley.

Super, C., & Harkness, S. (1986). The developmental niche: A con-
ceptualization at the interface of child and culture. International
Journal of Behavioral Development, 9, 545–569.
Super, C., & Harkness, S. (1997). The cultural structuring of child
development. In J. Berry, P. R. Dasen, & T. S. Saraswathi (Eds.),
Handbook of cross-cultural psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 3–29). Boston:
Allyn & Bacon.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press.
Takahashi, K., & Tokoro, M. (2002). Senior shutterbugs: Successful
aging through participation in social activities. International
Society for Study of Behavioural Development Newsletter(Serial
No. 41, 9–11).
Taylor, C. (1989). Sources of the self: The making of modern identi-
ties. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Taylor, C. E. (1995). “You think it was a fight?”: Co-constructing (the
struggle for) meaning, face, and family in everyday narrative activ-
ity. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28(3), 283–317.
Taylor, M., & Carlson, S. M. (2000). The inf luence of religious beliefs
on parental attitude about children’s fantasy behavior. In K. S.
Rosengren, C. N. Johnson, & P. L. Harris (Eds.), Imagining the im-
possible (pp. 247–268). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Tetlock, P. E., Kristel, O. V., Elson, S. E., Green, M. C., & Lerner,
J. S. (2000). The psychology of the unthinkable: Taboo trade-offs,
forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 78, 853–870.
Tetlock, P. E., McGraw, A. P., & Kristel, O. V. (2004). Proscribed
forms of social cognition: Taboo tradeoffs, blocked exchanges,
forbidden base rates, and heretical counterfactuals. In N. Haslam
(Ed.), Relational models theory: A contemporary overview
(pp. 247–262). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Thoits, P. A., & Virshup, L. K. (1997). Me’s and we’s: Forms and
functions of social identities. In R. D. Ashmore & L. J. Jussim
(Eds.), Rutger Series on self and social identity: Vol.1. Self and
identity—Fundamental issues (pp. 106–133). New York: Oxford
University Press.
Thomas, D. (1978). Cooperation and competition among children in
the Pacific Islands and New Zealand: The school as an agent of
social change. Journal of Research and Development in Educa-
tion, 12, 88–95.
Tobin, J. (2000). Good guys don’t wear hats. New York: Teachers Col-
lege Press.
Tobin, J. J., Wu, D. Y. H., & Davidson, D. H. (1989). Preschool in
three cultures: Japan, China, and the United States. New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press.
Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tomasello, M., Kruger, A. C., & Ratner, H. H. (1993). Cultural learn-
ing. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 16, 495–552.
Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cul-
tural contexts. Psychological Review, 93(3), 506–520.
Triandis, H. C. (1990). Cross-cultural studies of individualism and
collectivism. In J. Berman (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motiva-
tion (pp. 41–133). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Triandis, H. C., Bontempo, R., & Villareal, M. (1988). Individu-
alism and collectivism: Cross-cultural perspectives on self-
ingroup relationships. Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 54, 323–338.
Tronick, E. Z., Morelli, G., & Ivey, P. K. (1992). The Efe forager in-
fant and toddler’s pattern of social relationships: Multiple and si-
multaneous. Developmental Psychology, 28, 568–577.
References 791
Tronick, E. Z., Morelli, G., & Winn, S. (1987). Multiple caretaking
of Efe (Pygmy) infants. American Anthropologist, 89, 96–106.
Tsai, J. L., Simenova, D., & Watanabe, J. (1999). Somatic and social:
Chinese Americans talk about emotion—Personality and Social
Psychology Bulletin. In M. Tomasello (Ed.), The cultural origins
of human cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Tu, W. (1994). Embodying the universe: A note on Confucian self-
realization. In R. T. Ames, W. Dissanayake, & T. P. Kasulis
(Eds.), Self as person in Asian theory and practice (pp. 177–186).
Albany: State University of New York Press.
Valsiner, J. (1988). Child development within culturally structured en-
vironments: Social co-construction and environmental guidance in
development (Vol. 2). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Valsiner, J. (1994). Co-construction: What is (and what is not) in a
name. In P. van Geert & L. Mos (Eds.), Annals of theoretical psy-
chology (Vol. 10, pp. 343–368). New York: Plenum Press.
Van der Meulen, M. (1986). Zelfconceptieproblemen bij jonge
kinderen: Een analyse van spontane, zelf beschouwende uit-
spraken. Nederlands Tijdschrift voor de Psychologie en haar
Grensgebieden, 41(6), 261–267.
Van Deusen-Phillips, S. B., Goldin-Meadow, S., & Miller, P. J.
(2001). Enacting stories, seeing worlds: Similarities and differ-
ences in the cross-cultural narrative development of linguistically
isolated deaf children. Human Development, 44, 311–336.
Varela, F. J., Thompson, E., & Rosch, E. (1993). The embodied
mind: Cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Vinden, P. G. (1996). Junin Quechua children’s understanding of
mind. Child Development, 67, 1701–1716.
Vinden, P. G., & Astington, J. W. (2000). Culture and understanding
other minds. In S. Baron-Cohen, H. Tager-Flusberg, & D. J.
Cohen (Eds.), Understanding other minds: Perspectives from de-
velopmental cognitive neuroscience (pp. 504–519). Oxford, En-
gland: Oxford University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). The collected works of L . S. Vygotsky: Vol. 1.
Problems of general psychology. New York: Plenum Press. (Origi-
nal work published 1934)
Walkerdine, V. (1988). The mastery of reason. London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul.
Wang, Q. (2001a). Culture effects on adults’ earliest childhood recol-
lection and self-description: Implications for the relation between
memory and the self. Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, 81(2), 220–233.
Wang, Q. (2001b). “Did you have fun?”: American and Chinese
mother-child conversations about shared emotional experiences.
Cognitive Development, 16, 693–715.
Wang, Q., & Leichtman, M. D. (2000). Same beginnings, different
stories: A comparison of American and Chinese children’s narra-
tives. Child Development, 71(5), 1329–1346.
Wang, Q., Leichtman, M. D., & Davies, K. I. (2000). Sharing memo-
ries and telling stories: American and Chinese mothers and their
3-year-olds. Memory, 8(3), 159–178.
Watson-Gegeo, K. A. (1993). Thick explanation in the ethnographic
study of child socialization: A longitudinal study of the problem
of schooling for Kwara’ae (Solomon Island) children. In W. A.
Corsaro & P. J. Miller (Eds.), Interpretive approaches to childhood
socialization (pp. 51–66). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Watson-Gegeo, K. A., & Gegeo, D. W. (1990). Shaping the mind and
straightening out conf licts: The discourse of Kwara’ae family
counseling. In K. A. Watson-Gegeo & G. M. White (Eds.), Disen-
tangling: Conf lict discourse in Pacific societies (pp. 161–213).
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
792 The Cultural Psychology of Development: One Mind, Many Mentalities
Watson-Gegeo, K., & Gegeo, D. W. (1999). Remodeling culture in
Kwara’ae: The role of discourse in children’s cognitive develop-
ment. Discourse Studies, 1(2), 227–245.
Weigert, A. J., Teitge, J. S., & Teitge, D. W. (1990). Society and iden-
tity: Towards a sociological psychology. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Weisner, T. S. (1982). Sibling interdependence and sibling caretak-
ing: A cross-cultural view. In M. Lamb & B. Sutton-Smith (Eds.),
Sibling relationships: Their nature and significance across the
lifespan. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Weisner, T. S. (1984). A cross-cultural perspective: Ecological niches
of middle childhood. In A. Collins (Ed.), The elementary school
years: Understanding development during middle childhood
(pp. 335–369). Washington, DC: National Academy.
Weisner, T. S. (1987). Socialization for parenthood in sibling care-
taking societies. In J. Lancaster, A. Rossi, & J. Altmann (Eds.),
Parenting across the lifespan. New York: Aldine.
Weisner, T. S. (1989a). Comparing sibling relationships across cul-
tures. In P. Zukow (Ed.), Sibling interaction across cultures. New
York: Springer-Verlag.
Weisner, T. S. (1989b). Cultural and universal aspects of social sup-
port for children: Evidence from the Alaluyia of Kenya. In D.
Belle (Ed.), Children’s social networks and social supports. New
York: Wiley.
Weisner, T. S. (1996a). The 5–7 transition as an ecocultural project.
In A. Sameroff & M. Haith (Eds.), Reason and responsibility: The
passage through childhood. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weisner, T. S. (1996b). Why ethnography should be the most impor-
tant method in the study of human development. In R. Jesser, A.
Colby, & R. A. Shweder (Eds.), Ethnography and human develop-
ment. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Weisner, T. S. (2001). Anthropological aspects of childhood. In Inter-
national encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences (Vol.
3, pp. 1697–1701). Oxford, England: Elsevier.
Weisner, T. S. (2002). Ecocultural understanding of children’s devel-
opmental pathways. Human Development, 45, 275–281.
Weisner, T. S., Bausano, M., & Kornfein, M. (1983). Putting family
ideals into practice. Ethos, 11, 278–304.
Weisner, T. S., & Gallimore, R. (1977). My brother’s keeper: Child
and sibling caretaking. Current Anthropology, 18, 169–180.
Weisner, T. S., & Lowe, E. D. (in press). Globalization, childhood,
and psychological anthropology. In C. Casey & R. Edgerton
(Eds.), A companion to psychological anthropology: Modernity
and psychocultural change. Oxford, England: Blackwell.
Wellman, H. M., Cross, D., & Watson, J. (2001). Meta-analysis of
theory-of-mind development: The truth about false belief. Child
Development, 72, 655–684.
Wellman, H. M., & Gelman, S. A. (1998). Knowledge acquisition in
foundational domains. In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & D. Kuhn
& R. S. Siegler (Vol. Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 2.
Cognition, perception and language (5th ed., pp. 523–573). New
York: Wiley.
Wenger, M. (1989). Work, play and social relationships among chil-
dren in a Giriama community. In D. Belle (Ed.), Children’s social
networks and social supports. New York: Wiley.
Werker, J. (1989). Becoming a native listener. American Scien-
tist, 77, 54 –59.
Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1991). Voices of the mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Wertsch, J. V. (1992). Keys to cultural psychology. Culture, Medicine
and Psychiatry, 16(3), 273–280.
White, G. M., & Kirkpatrick, J. (1985). Person, self and experience:
Exploring Pacific ethnopsychologies. Berkeley: University of Cal-
ifornia Press.
White, M. I., & LeVine, R. A. (1986). What is an li ko (good child)?
In H. Stevenson, H. Azuma, & K. Hakuta (Eds.), Child develop-
ment and education in Japan (pp. 55–62). New York: Freeman.
Whiting, B. B., & Edwards, C. P. (1988). Children of dif ferent worlds.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Whiting, B. B., & Whiting, J. W. M. (1975). Children of six cultures.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Whiting, J. W. M. (1941). Becoming a Kwoma. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press.
Whiting, J. W. M. (1964). Effects of climate on certain cultural prac-
tices. In W. H. Goodenough (Ed.), Explorations in cultural an-
thropology. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Whiting, J. W. M. (1981). Environmental constraints on infant care
practices. In R. H. Munroe, R. L. Munroe, & B. B. Whiting
(Eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural human development. New
York: Garland.
Whiting, J. W. M., & Child, I. (1953). Child training and personality.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. (1986). Human emotions: Universal or culture-spe-
cific? American Anthropologist, 88(3), 584–594.
Wierzbicka, A. (1990). Semantics of the Emotions [Special issue].
Australian Journal of Linguistics, 10(2).
Wierzbicka, A. (1991). Cross-cultural pragmatics: The semantics of
human interaction. Berlin, Germany: W. de Gruyter.
Wierzbicka, A. (1992). Semantics, culture and cognition: Universal
human concepts in culture-specific configurations. New York: Ox-
ford University Press.
Wierzbicka, A. (1993). A conceptual basis for cultural psychology.
Ethos, 21(2), 205–231.
Wierzbicka, A. (1999). Emotions across languages and cultures: Di-
versity and universals. Paris: Cambridge University Press.
Wiley, A. R., Rose, A. J., Burger, L. K., & Miller, P. J. (1998). The
construction of autonomy through narrative practices: A compar-
ative study. Child Development, 69, 833–847.
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get work-
ing class jobs. New York: Columbia University Press.
Wolf, S. A., & Heath, S. B. (1992). The braid of literature: Chil-
dren’s worlds of reading. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Wortham, S. (2001). Narratives in action: A strategy for research and
analysis. New York: Teachers College Press.
Wu, D. Y. H. (1994). Self and collectivity: Socialization in Chinese
preschools. In R. T. Ames, W. Dissanayake, & T. P. Kasulis
(Eds.), Self as person in Asian theory and practice. Albany: State
University of New York Press.
Wu, D. Y. H. (1996). Chinese childhood socialization. In M. H. Bond
(Ed.), The handbook of Chinese psychology (pp. 143–154). Hong
Kong, China: Oxford University Press.
Yang, K.-S. (1997). Indiginizing westernized Chinese psychology. In
M. H. Bond (Ed.), Working at the interface of culture: 18 lives in
social science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Yip, T., & Fuligni, A. J. (in press). Daily variation in ethnic identity,
ethnic behaviors, and psychological well being among American
adolescents of Chinese descent. Child Development.
Youniss, J., & Yates, M. (1997). Community service and social re-
sponsibility in youth. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
CHAPTER 14
The Bioecological Model of
Human Development
URIE BRONFENBRENNER and PAMELA A. MORRIS
OVERVIEW 795
DEFINING PROPERTIES OF THE
BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL 796
Proposition I 797
Proposition II 798
FROM THEORY TO RESEARCH DESIGN:
OPERATIONALIZING THE
BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL 799
Developmental Science in the Discovery Mode 801
Different Paths to Different Outcomes: Dysfunction
versus Competence 803
The Role of Experiments in the Bioecological Model 808
HOW DO PERSON CHARACTERISTICS INFLUENCE
LATER DEVELOPMENT? 810
Force Characteristics as Shapers of Development 810
Resource Characteristics of the Person as Shapers
of Development 812
Demand Characteristics of the Person as
Developmental Inf luences 812
THE ROLE OF FOCUS OF ATTENTION IN
PROXIMAL PROCESSES 813
The bioecological model, together with its correspon-
ding research designs, is an evolving theoretical system
for the scientific study of human development over time
(Bronfenbrenner, 2005). In the bioecological model, de-
velopment is defined as the phenomenon of continuity
and change in the biopsychological characteristics of
human beings, both as individuals and as groups. The
phenomenon extends over the life course, across succes-
We are especially grateful for the thoughtful criticisms of
earlier drafts of the manuscript generously provided by the
following colleagues: Jay Belsky, Rick Canfield, Nancy Dar-
ling, Glen H. Elder Jr., Steven F. Hamilton, Melvin L. Kohn,
Kurt Lüscher, Phyllis Moen, Donna Dempster-McLain, Lau-
rence Steinberg, and Sheldon H. White. We owe particular
thanks to Professor Susan Crockenberg and her students at
the University of Vermont who, in the course of a graduate
793
PROXIMAL PROCESSES IN SOLO ACTIVITIES
WITH OBJECTS AND SYMBOLS 814
THE MICROSYSTEM MAGNIFIED: ACTIVITIES,
RELATIONSHIPS, AND ROLES 814
Effects of the Physical Environment on
Psychological Development 814
The Mother-Infant Dyad as a Context of Development 815
BEYOND THE MICROSYSTEM 817
The Expanding Ecological Universe 818
Nature-Nurture Reconceptualized:
A Bioecological Interpretation 819
TIME IN THE BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL:
MICRO-, MESO-, AND
MACROCHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS 820
FROM RESEARCH TO REALITY 822
THE BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL: A
DEVELOPMENTAL ASSESSMENT 824
REFERENCES 825
sive generations, and through historical time, both past
and future. The term future raises a question: How is it
possible to scientifically investigate phenomena that
have not yet taken place? This question is hardly new;
indeed, it pervades every field of scientific endeavor.
However, we are the only species that, over historical
time, has developed the capacity to engage successfully
in scientific inquiry, and thereby, in many respects, has
seminar, carefully reviewed a draft of this chapter, and made
many constructive suggestions. We have done our best to
meet the high standards that they commendably set. We wish
to express gratitude to Richard M. Lerner and William
Damon, the editors of the 1998 Volume and of that series as a
whole, for their wise advice, encouragement, and patience.
Finally, a special thanks goes to our most severe and most
constructive critic, Liese Bronfenbrenner.
794 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
been able to change the nature of the world in which we
live. As a result, within certain limits, we humans have
altered the nature and course of our own development as
a species (Bronfenbrenner & Evans 2000; Bronfenbren-
ner & Morris 1998).
To place bioecological theory of human development
into a larger context, it is important to recognize that
many of the general perspectives advanced and elabo-
rated in this theory are also parts of other related lines
of theoretical and empirical inquiry into human devel-
opment. Examples include life-span psychology (Baltes,
Lindenberger, & Staudinger, Chapter 11, this Handbook,
this volume), cultural psychology (Cole, 1995; Shweder
et al., Chapter 13, this Handbook, this volume), Magnus-
son’s developmental theory of contextual-interactive
holism (Magnusson & Stattin, Chapter 8, this Hand-
book, this volume), and, especially, the work of Robert
Cairns (Chapter 3, this Handbook, this volume), who
through communications and publications extending
over 3 decades, has played a major role in the evolution
of the four defining properties of the bioecological
model: (1) Process, (2) Person, (3) Context, and (4)
Time. Cairns is best known as the founder and principal
protagonist of developmental science, and there are sev-
eral excellent examples of his books and articles that
have been most relevant to the evolution of the bioeco-
logical model (Bergman, Cairns, Nilsson, & Nysted,
2000; Cairns, 1970; Cairns & Cairns, 1994). The spe-
cific profile of the bioecological model of human devel-
opment is its interdisciplinary and integrative focus on
the age periods of childhood and adolescence and its ex-
plicit interest in applications to policies and programs
pertinent to enhancing youth and family development.
In this chapter, we undertake to present the ecologi-
cal model of human development that has been intro-
duced over the course of the prior two editions of this
Handbook (Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983; Bronfen-
brenner & Morris, 1998). The main focus of the 1983
chapter was on the empirical and theoretical roots of a
model already in use, which centered on the role of the
environment in shaping development. In contrast, this
chapter is oriented toward the future. The present model
introduces major theoretical innovations from the 1983
chapter in both form and content. The present formula-
tion makes no claim as a paradigm shift (if there be such
a phenomenon); rather, it continues a marked shift in the
center of gravity of the model, in which features of ear-
lier versions are first called into question but then re-
combined, along with new elements, into a more com-
plex and more dynamic structure.
The transition in the form and content of the model
actually took place over an extended period of time, an
expression that will become all too familiar to the reader
(Bronfenbrenner, 2005). The transition from a focus on
the environment to a focus on processes was first intro-
duced in the context of Bronfenbrenner’s unpublished
lectures, colloquium presentations, and contributions
to symposia. Not until 1986, did reference to an emer-
gent new model first appear in print (Bronfenbrenner,
1986b). The following extended excerpt conveys both its
spirit and intended substance. Because both of these at-
tributes are relevant to the gradual evolution of the
model to its present form, we quote from the 1986 state-
ment at some length:
It is now more than a decade ago that, being somewhat
younger, I presumed to challenge the then-prevailing con-
ventions of our field by describing the developmental re-
search of the day as “ the study of the strange behavior of
children in strange situations for the briefest possible pe-
riod of time” (Bronfenbrenner, 1974). Instead, I argued (as
if it were simply a matter of choice), we should be studying
development in its ecological context; that is, in the actual
environments in which human beings lived their lives. I
then proceeded to outline, in a series of publications, a con-
ceptual framework for analyzing development in context,
and to offer concrete examples of how various elements of
the schema might be applied both to past studies and to
studies yet-to-come. I also emphasized the scientific and
practical benefits of a closer linkage, in both directions, be-
tween developmental research and public policy (Bronfen-
brenner, 1974, 1975, 1977a, 1977b, 1979a, 1979b, 1981).
Now, a dozen years later, one might think that I have good
reason to rest content. Studies of children and adults in
real-life settings, with real-life implications, are now com-
monplace in the research literature on human development,
both in the United States and, as this volume testifies, in
Europe as well. This scientific development is taking place,
I believe, not so much because of my writings, but rather
because the notions I have been promulgating are ideas
whose time has come. . . .
Clearly, if one regards such scientific developments as
desirable, there are grounds for satisfaction. Yet, along
with feelings of gratification, I must confess to some dis-
content. My disquiet derives from two complementary
concerns. The first pertains to one of the main roads that
contemporary research has taken; the second, to some
more promising pathways that are being neglected.

Alas, I may have to accept some responsibility for what
I regard as the wayward course. It is an instance of what
might be called “ the failure of success.” For some years, I
harangued my colleagues for avoiding the study of devel-
opment in real-life settings. No longer able to complain on
that score, I have found a new bête noir. In place of too
much research on development “out of context,” we now
have a surfeit of studies on “context without development.”
One cannot presume to make so brass an allegation
without being prepared to document one’s case. I am pre-
pared. (Bronfenbrenner 1986a, pp. 286–288)
What followed was an early version of the newly evolv-
ing theoretical framework, but the purpose of the pres-
ent chapter is better served by presenting the model in
its current, albeit still-evolving, form now called the
bioecological model. The term evolving highlights that
the model, along with its corresponding research de-
signs, has undergone a process of development during its
life course (Bronfenbrenner, 2005). The bioecological
model addresses two closely related but fundamentally
different developmental processes, each taking place
over time. The first process defines the phenomenon
under investigation—continuity and change in the
biopsychological characteristics of human beings. The
second focuses on the development of the scientific
tools—theoretical models and corresponding research
designs required for assessing continuity and change.
These two tasks cannot be carried out independently,
for they are the joint product of emerging and converg-
ing ideas, based on both theoretical and empirical
grounds—a process called developmental science in the
discovery mode (Bronfenbrenner & Evans 2000,
pp. 999–1000). In the more familiar verification mode,
the aim is to replicate previous findings in other settings
to make sure that the findings still apply. By contrast, in
the discovery mode, the aim is to fulfill two broader but
interrelated objectives:
1. Devising new alternative hypotheses and correspon-
ding research designs that not only question existing
results but also yield new, more differentiated, more
precise, replicable research findings and, thereby,
produce more valid scientific knowledge.
2. Providing scientific bases for the design of effective
social policies and programs that counteract newly
emerging developmentally disruptive influences.
This has been an explicit objective of the bioecologi-
cal model from its earliest beginnings. To orient the
Overview 795
reader to the present formulation of the biological
model, a preview follows.
OVERVIEW
We begin with an exposition of the defining properties
of the model, which involves four principal components
and the dynamic, interactive relationships among them.
The first of these, which constitutes the core of the
model, is Process. More specifically, this construct en-
compasses particular forms of interaction between or-
ganism and environment, called proximal processes, that
operate over time and are posited as the primary mech-
anisms producing human development. However, the
power of such processes to influence development is
presumed, and shown, to vary substantially as a func-
tion of the characteristics of the developing Person, of
the immediate and more remote environmental Contexts,
and the Time periods, in which the proximal processes
take place.
The sections that follow examine in greater detail each
of the three remaining defining properties of the model,
beginning with the biopsychological characteristics of
the Person. This domain was given sequential priority to
fill a recognized gap in earlier prototypes of the ecologi-
cal model. Thus, at midstage in the development of the
present model, Bronfenbrenner criticized its theoretical
predecessors and acknowledged his share of responsibil-
ity for failing to deliver on an empirical promise:
Existing developmental studies subscribing to an ecologi-
cal model have provided far more knowledge about the na-
ture of developmentally relevant environments, near
and far, than about the characteristics of developing indi-
viduals, then and now. . . . The criticism I just made also
applies to my own writings. . . . Nowhere in the 1979
monograph, nor elsewhere until today, does one find a
parallel set of structures for conceptualizing the charac-
teristics of the developing person. (Bronfenbrenner,
1989a, p. 188)
Three types of Person characteristics are distin-
guished as most influential in shaping the course of
future development through their capacity to affect
the direction and power of proximal processes through
the life course. First, dispositions can set proximal
processes in motion in a particular developmental
domain and continue to sustain their operation. Next,
796 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
bioecological resources of ability, experience, knowl-
edge, and skill are required for the effective function-
ing of proximal processes at a given stage of
development. Finally, demand characteristics invite or
discourage reactions from the social environment
that can foster or disrupt the operation of proximal
processes. The differentiation of these three forms
leads to their combination in patterns of Person struc-
ture that can further account for differences in the di-
rection and power of resultant proximal processes and
their developmental effects.
These new formulations of qualities of the person
that shape his or her future development have had the
unanticipated effect of further differentiating, expand-
ing, and integrating the original 1979 conceptualiza-
tion of the environment in terms of nested systems
ranging from micro to macro (Bronfenbrenner, 1979b).
For example, the three types of Person characteristics
previously outlined are also incorporated into the defi-
nition of the microsystem as characteristics of parents,
relatives, close friends, teachers, mentors, coworkers,
spouses, or others who participate in the life of the de-
veloping person on a fairly regular basis over extended
periods of time.
The bioecological model also introduces an even
more consequential domain into the structure of the mi-
crosystem that emphasizes the distinctive contribution
to development of proximal processes involving inter-
action not with people but with objects and symbols.
Even more broadly, concepts and criteria are introduced
that differentiate between those features of the environ-
ment that foster versus interfere with the development of
proximal processes. Particularly significant in the latter
sphere is the growing hecticness, instability, and chaos
in the principal settings in which human competence
and character are shaped—in the family, child-care
arrangements, schools, peer groups, and neighborhoods.
The latter theme speaks to the fourth and final defin-
ing property of the bioecological model and the one that
moves it farthest beyond its predecessor—the dimension
of Time. The 1979 Volume scarcely mentions the term,
whereas in the current formulation, it has a prominent
place at three successive levels: (1) micro-, (2) meso-,
and (3) macro-. Microtime refers to continuity versus
discontinuity in ongoing episodes of proximal process.
Mesotime is the periodicity of theses episodes across
broader time intervals, such as days and weeks. Finally,
Macrotime focuses on the changing expectations and
events in the larger society, both within and across gen-
erations, as they affect and are affected by, processes
and outcomes of human development over the life
course. The treatment of this last topic draws on Elder
and Shanahan, Chapter 12, this Handbook, this volume.
Our primary emphasis, however, is on the role of devel-
opmental processes and outcomes in producing large-
scale changes over time in the state and structure of the
broader society over time, and the implications of those
changes for the society’s future.
Before turning to the task at hand, it is important to
make explicit three overarching orientations that define
the content and the structure of the chapter as a whole.
First, we use the term development to refer to stability
and change in the biopsychological characteristics of
human beings over the life course and across genera-
tions. There are no restrictive assumptions of change
for the better or of continuity in the characteristics of
the same person over time. Rather, these are issues to
be investigated.
Second, from the perspective of the bioecological
model, the forces producing stability and change in the
characteristics of human beings across successive gen-
erations are no less important than stability and change
in the characteristics of the same person over his or
her lifetime.
The third orientation is perhaps the most essential,
and the most difficult to achieve. It was Kurt Lewin
(cited in Marrow, 1977) who said that there is nothing so
practical as a good theory. But to be “good,” a theory
must also be “practical.” In science, a good theory is one
that can be translated into corresponding research de-
signs that match the defining properties of the theory. In
the absence of such research designs—or worse yet, in
the application of research designs that fail to match or
even violate the defining properties of the theory—sci-
ence cannot move forward. Hence, we have sought, as we
proceed through successive stages of theoretical formula-
tion, to specify, and, wherever possible, to illustrate the
properties of a research design that corresponds with, or
at least approximates, the proposed theoretical structure.
DEFINING PROPERTIES OF THE
BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL
An early critical element in the definition of the bioeco-
logical model is experience, which indicates that the
scientifically relevant features of an environment for
human development not only include its objective prop-

erties but also the way in which the properties are sub-
jectively experienced by the person living in that envi-
ronment. This equal emphasis on an experiential as well
as an objective view springs neither from an antipathy to
behaviorist concept nor from a predilection for existen-
tial philosophic foundations but is dictated simply by the
fact that very few of the external influences signifi-
cantly affecting human behavior and development can
be described solely in objective physical conditions and
events (Bronfenbrenner & Evans 2000; Bronfenbrenner
& Morris 1998).
Critical to the foregoing formulation is the word
solely. In the bioecological model, both objective and
subjective elements are posited as driving the course of
human development; neither alone is presumed suffi-
cient. Moreover, these elements do not always operate in
the same direction. It is therefore important to under-
stand the nature of each of these two dynamic forces,
beginning on the phenomenological or experiential side.
Both of the terms are relevant because, while related to
each other, they are typically applied to somewhat dif-
ferent spheres. Experiential is more often used in rela-
tion to cognitive development and pertains mainly to
changes in how the environment is perceived at succes-
sive stages of the life course, beginning in early infancy
and proceeding through childhood, adolescence, adult-
hood, and, ultimately, old age.
By contrast, experience pertains more to the realm of
feelings—anticipations, forebodings, hopes, doubts, or
personal beliefs. Feelings, emerging in early childhood
and continuing through life, are characterized by both
stability and change: They can relate to self or to others,
especially to family, friends, and other close associates.
They can also apply to the activities in which we engage;
for example, those that we most or least like to do. But the
most distinctive feature of such experiential equalities is
that they are emotionally and motivationally loaded, en-
compassing both love and hate, joy and sorrow, curiosity
and boredom, desire and revulsion, often with both polar-
ities existing at the same time but usually in differing de-
grees. A significant body of research evidence indicates
that such positive and negative subjective forces, evolving
in the past, can also contribute in powerful ways to shap-
ing the course of development in the future (Bronfen-
brenner & Evans 2000; Bronfenbrenner & Morris 1998).
But these forces are not the only powerful ones at
work, other forces are more objective in nature. This
presence does not mean, however, that the forces are
necessarily either more or less influential, mainly be-
Defining Properties of the Bioecological Model 797
cause the two sets of forces are interdependent and af-
fect each other. Like their subjective counterparts, these
more objective factors also rely on their assessment of
corresponding theoretical models and associated re-
search designs, which evolved over time. These more
objective relationships are documented propositions
presented later (see too Bronfenbrenner & Evans 2000;
Bronfenbrenner & Morris 1998). The first proposition
specifies the theoretical model, and provides concrete
examples; the second foreshadows a corresponding re-
search design for their assessment.
However, before proceeding with formal definitions,
it may be useful to point out that traditionally such phe-
nomena as parent-child interaction—or, more generally,
the behavior of others toward the developing person—
have been treated under the more inclusive category of
the environment. In the bioecological model, a critical
distinction is made between the concepts of environ-
ment and process, with the latter not only occupying a
central position, but also having a meaning that is quite
specific. The construct appears in Proposition I stipulat-
ing the defining properties of the model. To place its
meaning in context, we cite Proposition II as well.
Proposition I
Especially in its early phases, but also throughout the life
course, human development takes place through processes
of progressively more complex reciprocal interaction be-
tween an active, evolving biopsychological human organism
and the persons, objects, and symbols in its immediate ex-
ternal environment. To be effective, the interaction must
occur on a fairly regular basis over extended periods of
time. Such enduring forms of interaction in the immediate
environment are referred to as proximal processes. Exam-
ples of enduring patterns of proximal process are found in
feeding or comforting a baby, playing with a young child,
child-child activities, group or solitary play, reading, learn-
ing new skills, athletic activities, problem solving, caring
for others in distress, making plans, performing complex
tasks, and acquiring new knowledge and know-how.
For the younger generation, participation in such in-
teractive processes over time generates the ability, moti-
vation, knowledge, and skill to engage in such activities
both with others and on your own. For example, through
progressively more complex interaction with their par-
ents, children increasingly become agents of their own
development, to be sure only in part.
798 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
Proximal processes are posited as the primary en-
gines of development (see Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lick-
liter, Chapter 5, this Handbook, this volume; Tobach,
1981; Tobach & Schneirla, 1968). A second defining
property, the fourfold source of these dynamic forces is
identified in Proposition II.
Proposition II
The form, power, content, and direction of the proximal
processes effecting development vary systematically as a
joint function of the characteristics of the developing per-
son, the environment—both immediate and more remote—
in which the processes are taking place, the nature of the
developmental outcomes under consideration, and the so-
cial continuities and changes occurring over time through
the life course and the historical period during which the
person has lived.
Propositions I and II are theoretically interdepend-
ent and subject to empirical test. An operational
research design that permits their simultaneous inves-
tigation is referred to as the Process-Person-Context-
Time (PPCT) model.
Characteristics of the person actually appear twice
in the bioecological model—first as one of the four ele-
ments influencing the form, power, content, and direction
of the proximal process, and then again as developmental
outcomes—qualities of the developing person that
emerge at a later point in time as the result of the joint,
interactive, mutually reinforcing effects of the four prin-
cipal antecedent components of the model. In sum, in the
bioecological model, the characteristics of the person
function both as an indirect producer and as a product of
development (see Lerner, 1982, 2002; Lerner & Busch-
Rossnagel, 1981).
Finally, because in the bioecological model the con-
cept of proximal process has a specific meaning, it is
important that its distinctive properties be made ex-
plicit. For present purposes, the following features of
the construct are especially noteworthy:
1. For development to occur, the person must engage in
an activity.
2. To be effective, the activity must take place “on a
fairly regular basis, over an extended period of
time.” For example, this means that with young chil-
dren, a weekend of doing things with Mom or Dad
does not do the job, nor do activities that are often
interrupted.
3. Why not? One reason is that, to be developmentally
effective, activities must continue long enough to
become “increasingly more complex.” Mere repeti-
tion does not work.
4. Developmentally effective proximal processes are
not unidirectional; there must be influence in
both directions. For interpersonal interaction, this
means that initiatives do not come from one side
only; there must be some degree of reciprocity in
the exchange.
5. Proximal processes are not limited to interactions
with people; they also can involve interaction with
objects and symbols. In the latter circumstance, for
reciprocal interaction to occur, the objects and sym-
bols in the immediate environment must be of a
kind that invites attention, exploration, manipulation,
elaboration, and imagination.
6. The powerful moderating factors specified in Propo-
sition II produce substantial changes in the content,
timing, and effectiveness of proximal processes. In
particular:
a. As children grow older, their developmental
capacities increase both in level and range;
therefore, to continue to be effective, the corre-
sponding proximal processes must also become
more extensive and complex to provide for the
future realization of evolving potentials. At the
same time, in view of the ongoing developmental
advance, the intervals between periods of “pro-
gressively more complex” activity can be in-
creasingly longer, although they must still occur
on a “ fairly regular basis.” Otherwise, the pace
of development slows, or its course may even
reverse direction.
b. The principal persons with whom young children
interact “on a fairly regular basis over extended
periods of time” are parents, but especially as
children get older, other persons—such as care-
givers, relatives, siblings, and peers—also func-
tion in this role. These are soon followed by
teachers or mentors in other activities, and then
by close friends of the same or opposite sex,
spouses or their equivalents, and coworkers, supe-
riors and subordinates at work. As the examples
indicate, the involvement of persons functioning
 From Theory to Research Design: Operationalizing the Bioecological Model
in this role is not limited to the formative years.
Borrowing a term from G. H. Mead (1934), we
refer to such persons as significant others.
The foregoing constitute the principal elements of the
emergent theoretical model. If so, the question arises in
what sense is the model bioecological? Where and how
does biology come into the picture? We present three an-
swers to that question in an order of decreasing cer-
tainty about their validity. The first is an unqualified
disclaimer. Little in the pages that follow speaks to the
operation of biological systems within the organism.
By contrast, considerable scientific attention is ac-
corded to characteristics of the person generally re-
garded as biologically based that influence proximal
processes and their developmental outcomes. Finally,
the present model rests on the assumption that biologi-
cal factors and evolutionary processes not only set limits
on human development but also impose imperatives re-
garding the environmental conditions and experiences
required for the realization of human potentials. The po-
sition is taken that, to the extent that the necessary con-
ditions and experiences are not provided, such potentials
will remain unactualized (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci,
1993, 1994a, 1994b).
It is our belief that, when applied, the bioecological
paradigm is scientifically productive. At the present
time, however, its most distinguishing characteristic is
not its proven scientific power, but its rarity. To be sure,
the rarity is hardly surprising, given the fact that suc-
cessive revisions of the emerging model began to be
published only in the past several years (Bronfenbren-
ner, 1989a, 1990, 1993, 1994, 1995; Bronfenbrenner &
Morris, 1998; Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994a). Paradox-
ically, some concrete examples nevertheless existed
much earlier. They were the product of what Bronfen-
brenner and Crouter referred to in the 1983 edition of
this Handbook as “latent paradigms”; that is, theoretical
models that were not explicitly stated, but were implicit
in the research designs used in analyzing the data
(Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983, pp. 373–376). In-
deed, a partial precursor of the bioecological model ap-
peared in the 1983 Handbook chapter under the rubric of
a “person-process-context model.” In that chapter, how-
ever, what is meant by process is never specified, and
the overwhelming majority of the examples cited do not
include a proximal process component as defined in
Proposition I. The same holds true for developmentally
799
relevant characteristics of the Person. The 1983 chapter
also made no reference to Time as a defining property of
the theoretical model. In these and other respects to fol-
low, today’s bioecological model goes far beyond its
predecessors both with respect to basic constructs and
their bidirectional, synergistic interrelationships.
FROM THEORY TO RESEARCH DESIGN:
OPERATIONALIZING THE
BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL
We have come to the point where it is both possible and
necessary to examine the requirements imposed by the
bioecological model for corresponding research designs.
We begin with a concrete example of the latter.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Cecil Mary Drillien (1957,
1964), a physician and professor of child life and health
at the University of Edinburgh, carried out a 7-year lon-
gitudinal investigation of psychological development in
two groups: 360 children of low birthweight and a con-
trol group selected “ by taking the next mature birth
from the hospital admission list ” (1957, p. 29). In her
follow-up assessments, the investigator found that chil-
dren of low birthweight were more likely to exhibit
problems in physical growth, susceptibility to illness,
impaired intellectual development, and poorer class-
room performance, with all of these tendencies being
more pronounced in boys (1964). In a comparison of
children’s school performance with what would have
been expected on the basis of their scores on an intelli-
gence test, Drillien found that those of low birthweight
were especially likely to be working below their mental
capacity. In relation to this finding, the author com-
ments as follows: “In most cases, failure to attain a stan-
dard commensurate with ability was associated with
problems of behavior, which were found to increase with
decreasing birthweight [and] to be more common in
males” (1964, p. 209).
Figure 14.1 depicts the results. The figure does not ap-
pear in Drillien’s monograph, but was constructed from
data presented in tables in that volume. It shows the im-
pact of the quality of mother-infant interaction at age 2
on the number of observed problem behaviors at age 4 as
a joint function of social class and three levels of low
birthweight—those underweight by a pound or more, not
more than one pound, and those of normal birthweight.
Measures of maternal responsiveness were based on
800 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
12
Average Score on Behavior Problems
Poor Process
10
Good Process
8
6
4 occur; namely, in accord with Proposition I, proximal
2 ing the developmental outcome (in this case, the fre-
0 Furthermore, as stipulated in Proposition II, the power
Nrm Low Vlow Nrm Low Vlow
High SES Middle SES
Nrm = Normal Birthweight
Low = Between Normal and 5.5 lbs.
Vlow = 5.5 lbs. or Less
Figure 14.1 Effect of mother’s responsiveness on problem
behavior of child at age 4 by birthweight and social class.
observations in the home and interviews with the mother.
The investigator’s measure of social class was a compos-
ite index that took into account not only parental income
and education but also the socioeconomic level of the
neighborhood in which the family lived. The quality of
interaction was assessed by extent to which the mother
was responsive to changes in the state and behavior of the
infant. The measure of the developmental outcome was
the frequency of reported behavior disturbances such as
hyperactivity, overdependence, timidity, and negativism.
Our primary interest is not in the research findings,
but in the extent to which the structure of the research de-
sign corresponds with the defining properties of the bioe-
cological theoretical model. The first point to be noted in
this regard is that Proposition I defines Proximal
Processes as bidirectional. Drillien’s measure of process,
however, was based only on the mother’s responsiveness
to changes in the state and behavior of the infant, and no
data are reported that would permit calculating a comple-
mentary measure of the infant’s responsiveness to
changes in the state and behavior of the mother. This
means that the operational measure available in Drillien’s
research taps only one side of the theoretical definition of
proximal process. For that reason, it appears likely that,
to the extent the infant’s contribution to reciprocal inter-
action carries any weight, the obtained results may un-
derestimate the true magnitude of the observed effects.
Nevertheless, as revealed in Figure 14.1, maternal re-
sponsiveness across time, a one-sided measure of proxi-
mal process, still emerges as the most powerful predictor
of developmental outcome. In all instances, responsive
maternal treatment reduces substantially the degree of
behavioral disturbance exhibited by the child.
Herein lies the main justification for distinguishing
between proximal process on the one hand, and, on
the other, the environments in which the processes
processes turn out to be the most potent force influenc-
quency of problem behaviors at 4 years of age).
Nrm Low Vlow
Low SES of the Process varies systematically as a function of the
environmental Context (i.e., social class) and of the
characteristics of the Person (i.e., weight at birth). The
process appears to have made its greatest impact on
young children growing up in the most disadvantaged
environment (i.e., the lowest socioeconomic level), but
in that environment, it is those who at birth were of nor-
mal weight who benefited most. Moreover, it was in this
same disadvantaged Context that, under high levels of
maternal responsiveness, birthweight showed its most
consistent effect, with the number of behavior problems
steadily rising as birthweight fell. Finally, across the
board, maternal responsiveness had the general result of
decreasing or buffering against environmental differ-
ences in developmental outcome. Thus, at high levels of
mother-child interaction, social class differences in
problem behavior became much smaller.
From the perspective of developmental science, what
is most noteworthy about these findings is not their spe-
cific content but that their simultaneous discovery was
made possible by a research design based on a theoretical
model that allowed for the emergence of patterns of this
form. Not only are the four key components of Process,
Person, Context, and Time all represented but the design
also provides for the detection of the kinds of synergis-
tic1 interdependencies among these components that are
posited in the bioecological model as a dynamic theoret-
ical system. Two specific examples of such interdepen-
dencies are revealed in the analysis of Drillien’s data:
1. Proposition II stipulates that the developmental ef-
fects of proximal processes vary as a joint function of
1
Synergism refers to “cooperative action of discrete agencies
such that the total effect is greater than the sum of the two or
more effects—taken independently” (Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary).
 From Theory to Research Design: Operationalizing the Bioecological Model
Person and Context; that is, the indirect effects of
Person and Context on the relation of Process to out-
come are not to be conceived as simply additive.
Consistent with this expectation is the finding that
proximal processes had their greatest impact in the
most disadvantaged environment but on the healthiest
infant. The combination of Person and Context ex-
hibit a mutually reinforcing, multiplicative, indirect
effect on the power of proximal processes as the “en-
gines of development.”
2. In Drillien’s research, the frequency of problem be-
haviors was assessed at two points in time—first
when the infants were 2-years-old, and then again at
4-years-old. If one makes the not unreasonable as-
sumption that mothers continued to interact with
their children over the intervening period, then the
results shown in Figure 14.2 provide evidence for the
effect of proximal processes that have taken place
over an extended period of time. Youngsters experi-
encing low levels of interaction with their mothers
exhibited an accelerating increase in the number of
problem behaviors from 2 to 4 years of age, whereas
those exposed to substantially higher levels of this
proximal process showed only a modest rise.
Developmental Science in the Discovery Mode
What about the possibility that the preceding results are
chance findings? Some of them are statistically signifi-
cant, yet others could not be tested because the variances
needed for calculating error estimates were not reported.
But that is not the principal issue at stake. With concrete
10
Average Score on Behavior Problems
Poor Process—Unresponsive Mothers
8
Good Process—Responsive Mothers
6 tiated form. For example, the directions of the expected
4 different types of outcomes are not specified. The rea-
2 formulation could not be deduced either from the theory
0 already available data (at least, to our knowledge).
High SES Mid SES Low SES High SES Mid SES Low SES
Age 2 Age 4
Figure 14.2 Effect of mother’s responsiveness on problem
behavior of child at ages 2 and 4 by social class.
801
examples of the relation between theoretical and opera-
tional models now before us, we can address what turns
out to be a complex and consequential question: What is
the function of research design in the bioecological
model? The first point to be made in this regard is that the
main function is not the usual one of testing for statistical
significance. Rather, the research design must provide for
carrying out an equally essential and necessarily prior
stage of the scientific process: that of developing hypothe-
ses of suf ficient explanatory power and precision to war-
rant being subjected to empirical test. We are dealing with
science in the discovery mode rather than in the mode of
verification. In this earlier phase, theory plays an even
more critical role. From its very beginnings, the bioeco-
logical model, through its successive reformulations, rep-
resents a sustained effort to meet this scientific need.
What are the appropriate characteristics of research
designs for developmental science in the discovery
mode? Finding an answer to this question is complicated
by the fact that, compared with the physical and natural
sciences, developmental science is admittedly still in an
earlier stage of development. Furthermore, because its
scope falls between the natural and the social sciences,
the discovery process must to some extent be adapted to
the requirements of both. Perhaps in part for these rea-
sons, we were unable to find any discussion of the issue
in the developmental literature. Under these circum-
stances, we concluded that the best we could do was to
try to make explicit the characteristics of the research
designs that had been employed over the past several
years to arrive at successively more differentiated for-
mulations of the bioecological model.
These design characteristics depend on the con-
structs, and the possible relations between them, that
are posited in the theoretical model at its present stage
of development. Both the constructs, and the possible in-
terrelationships, have been indicated in Propositions I
and II, but as yet they appear in a relatively undifferen-
effects of Person and Context on proximal processes for
son for such lack of specificity is that a more precise
in its present, still evolving state, or induced from any
Given these limitations, we concluded that an appropri-
ate design strategy at this point in the discovery process
could be one that involves a series of progressively more
differentiated formulations and corresponding data
802 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
analyses, with the results at each successive step setting
the stage for the next round. The research designs em-
ployed must be primarily generative rather than confir-
matory versus disconfirming.
In this generative process, implications derived from
the theoretical model play a more prominent role than
those drawn from research findings, but the latter are
also critical. Their importance is best conveyed by spec-
ifying a key feature of the corresponding research de-
sign: It must provide a structured framework for
displaying the emergent research findings in a way that
reveals more precisely the pattern of the interdependen-
cies that are obtained in the data available. Of primary
scientific interest are not those aspects of the observed
pattern already anticipated in the existing theoretical
model, but those features that point to more differenti-
ated and precise theoretical formulations. These can
then be evaluated in the light of new evidence, and, if
deemed scientifically promising, can be incorporated in
the research design for a next step. The proposed strat-
egy for developmental investigations in the discovery
mode involves an iterative process of successive con-
frontations between theory and data leading toward the
ultimate goal of being able to formulate hypotheses that
both merit and are susceptible to scientific assessment
in the verification mode.
In presenting this definition of the discovery mode,
we acknowledge that, in actual scientific practice, it is
hardly likely to be a discovery. The process we have de-
scribed, or something like it, is what scientists have al-
ways done. Our primary reason for seeking to make that
process explicit was the belief that doing so could fur-
ther the discovery process. But we also hope that the ex-
plication and examples of the discovery mode presented
in this chapter will have broader utility in developmen-
tal research.
To return to the task at hand, the proposed criteria
have more specific implications for the critical role in
research design played by statistical analysis. First, in
the discovery phase, Type I errors can entail an even
greater risk than errors of Type II. To state the issue
more broadly, dismissing as invalid a finding that points
the way to a fuller and more precise explanation for the
phenomenon under investigation may result in a greater
loss than that produced by accepting a finding that is
highly significant because of as yet undifferentiated and
thereby confounded factors producing the phenomenon
in question (e.g., the failure to distinguish Process from
Context). The greater risk in the discovery process of
dismissing findings as Type I errors is further com-
pounded by the phenomenon of magnification of early
environmental differences over time. Thus, as illus-
trated by the escalating effects of proximal processes
shown in Figure 14.2, changes in outcome associated
with a proximal process at Time 1 can be quite small and
nonsignificant statistically. Yet, as shown, they can be
powerful predictors of a marked increase in develop-
mental outcome several years later (in the likely event
that the process continued to be maintained over the in-
tervening period).
At this point, a methodological note is in order. Sta-
tistical models widely used for the purpose of hypothe-
sis testing are often ill-suited as operational models for
developmental investigations in the discovery mode.
This is particularly true for models that control statis-
tically solely for linear relationships among the factors
in the research design to obtain an estimate of the inde-
pendent contribution of each factor in the statistical
model to the outcome under investigation. The validity
of such analyses rests on what in mathematical statis-
tics is referred to as “ the assumption of homogeneity of
regression.” To illustrate the assumption in its simplest
general case: given a dependent variable y and two in-
dependent variables x1 and x2, then the relation be-
tween x1 and y must be the same at all levels of x2. This
assumption is often not met in developmental data. For
example, when applied to the analysis shown in Figure
14.2, it would require that the relation between proxi-
mal process and frequency of problem behaviors be the
same at every social class level, which is not the case.
Nor is this requirement likely to hold with respect to
any combination of the four defining properties of the
bioecological model. As Bronfenbrenner stated in his
1979 monograph, “In ecological research, the principal
main ef fects are likely to be interactions” (p. 38, italics
in original).
Any research design based on a bioecological model
must allow for the possibility of such interactions. How-
ever, it is also essential, especially in the discovery
phase, that the particular interactions to be examined be
theoretically based, and that—if possible—their antici-
pated direction and form be specified in advance so that
discrepancies between theoretical expectation and ob-
served reality can be readily recognized and thus pro-
vide the basis for a next step in the typically slow,
iterative process of seeking more differentiated formu-
lations that merit further exploration both on theoretical
and empirical grounds. In each case, the new formula-
 From Theory to Research Design: Operationalizing the Bioecological Model
tion should be consistent with the existing theoretical
specifications of the bioecological model, but it also
must take into account any old or new research findings
bearing on the issue.
The foregoing criteria for research in the discovery
mode do not imply neglect of the traditional issues of re-
liability and validity. These are honored in a somewhat
different, theoretically guided way. Essentially, the pro-
cess is one of cross-validation at two levels. First, in a
given study, the results at each successive stage of analy-
sis are validated in the next, more differentiated formula-
tion. Second, the generalizations emerging from a given
investigation are cross-validated against findings from
other studies of theoretically related phenomena but with
a specific focus on the defining components of the bioe-
cological model.
Before we proceed with concrete examples, it is im-
portant to emphasize that the criteria we have proposed
and applied for conducting developmental science in the
discovery mode represent a first attempt to construct a
working model. Moreover, the working model is subject
to the curious qualification that it is itself the product of
the same sequential design that it proposes. The criteria
were developed by examining the changes introduced at
each successive stage in the evolution of the bioecological
model to identify the theoretical and operational proper-
ties leading to improvement in the model’s predictive
power. The example that follows illustrates these concur-
rent processes.
Different Paths to Different Outcomes:
Dysfunction versus Competence
In this instance, our exploratory effort took as its point of
departure the stipulation in Proposition II that the effects
of proximal processes vary systematically depending on
the developmental outcome. Once again, rather than tak-
ing time to retrace our steps, we begin with where we
ended up; namely, with the following initial formulation:
The greater developmental impact of proximal processes
on children growing up in disadvantaged or disorganized
environments is to be expected to occur mainly for out-
comes reflecting developmental dysfunction. By contrast,
for outcomes indicating developmental competence, proxi-
mal processes are posited as likely to have greater impact
in more advantaged and stable environments.
The term dysfunction refers to the recurrent manifes-
tation of difficulties on the part of the developing per-
son in maintaining control and integration of behavior
803
across situations, whereas competence is defined as the
demonstrated acquisition and further development of
knowledge and skills—whether intellectual, physical,
socioemotional, or a combination of them (e.g., learning
how to care for a young infant involves all three).
The preceding emergent formulation is based on the
following considerations. Most parents have the capac-
ity and the motivation to respond to manifestations
of physical or psychological distress on the part of
their children. In deprived or disorganized environ-
ments, such manifestations of dysfunction have been
shown to be both more frequent and more severe (e.g.,
in Drillien’s research), thus drawing on more of par-
ents’ available time and energy. Accordingly, to the
extent that, in disadvantaged settings, parents are able
to engage in proximal processes, these are likely to
have greater impact in reducing dysfunction rather
than in enhancing their children’s knowledge about
and skill in dealing with the external environment.
With respect to problems of dysfunction, in deprived
environments there is usually a match between young
children’s needs and their parents’ capacity to meet
those needs. This does not mean, however, that chil-
dren in such environments will end up functioning as
well as their age-mates growing up in more favorable
circumstance, but rather that, over similar periods of
time, they will show greater improvement in control
over their own problem behaviors as a function of
parental responsiveness.
The situation in advantaged and stable environments
is rather different. Manifestations of dysfunction are
likely to occur less often and to be less intense. Under
these circumstances, parents are more apt to be at-
tracted by and respond to the more frequent and more
gratifying signs of their children’s growing competence,
with the result that proximal processes may to be fo-
cused mainly in this latter sphere. In addition, parents
living in a middle-class world are themselves more apt
to possess and exhibit the knowledge and skills they
wish their children to acquire. They also have greater
access to resources and opportunities outside the family
that can provide needed experiences for their children.
Taken together, the foregoing considerations led to the
formulation of the previously stated “proto-hypothesis.”
Because Drillien’s study of the influence of mother-in-
fant interaction dealt with only one developmental out-
come, one has to look elsewhere for evidence that effects
of such processes vary depending on the nature of the out-
come under consideration. A rich data archive generously
804 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
6.9
Mother and
Mother and
Grade Point Average (GPA)
Father
Stepfather
5.9 Single–Parent Mother
Mean
4.9 Mean
Mean
3.9
2.9
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 M 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 M 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 M
1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11 1 3 5 7 9 11
Levels of Parental Monitoring Ranging from 0–12
Mothers with some education beyond high school
Mothers with no education beyond high school
GPA Scale:
2 = Mostly D’s or less 6 = Mostly B’s
3 = 1/2 C’s, 1/2 D’s 7 = 1/2 A’s, 1/2 B’s
4 = Mostly C’s 8 = Mostly A’s
5 = 1/2 B’s, 1/2 C’s
Figure 14.3 Effect of parental monitoring on grades in
high school by family structure and mother’s level of educa-
tion. Analyses and graph based on data archives generously
provided by Professors Stephen A. Small (University of Wis-
consin) and Tom Luster (Michigan State University).
made available by Small and Luster (1990) from their
statewide studies of youth at risk in Wisconsin met this
need.2 Figure 14.3 depicts the results from an analysis of
the differential effects of parental monitoring on the aca-
demic achievement of high school students living in one of
the three most common family structures found in the
total sample of over 2,500 cases.3 The students were be-
tween 14 and 16 years of age. It was also possible to strat-
ify the sample by two levels of mother’s education, with
completion of high school as the dividing line. Parental
monitoring refers to the effort by parents to keep in-
2
The analyses of data from the Wisconsin archive reported in
this chapter were carried out in collaboration with Stephen A.
Small (University of Wisconsin) and Tom Luster (Michigan
State University) who designed and conducted the survey
from which the data are drawn. We are deeply indebted to
them for the theoretical thinking that underlies the construc-
tion of the survey. It is an excellent example of developmental
science in the discovery mode. We are also grateful to Regina
Cannon (then a graduate student at Cornell University) who
carried out the statistical analyses with care and dispatch.
3 plausible interactions in the light of both the evolving theoret-
The large number of cases in this study should not be taken
to imply that the bioecological model can be applied only in
samples with a large N. As illustrated here, precision in the
formulation of the theoretical model and in its translation
formed about and set limits on their children’s activities
outside the home. In the present study, it was assessed by
a series of items in a questionnaire administered to ado-
lescents in their school classes. All items referred to par-
ents in the plural, with no distinction as to whether the
mother or the father was doing the monitoring. Levels of
parental monitoring, ranging from 0 to 12, are shown on
the horizontal axis, and grade point average (GPA) is
shown on the vertical. The markers to the right of each
curve record the mean GPA for each of the six groups.
Once again, the results reveal that the effects of prox-
imal processes are more powerful than those of the
environmental Contexts in which they occur. In this in-
stance, however, the impact of the Process was greatest
in what emerges as the most advantaged ecological
niche—families with two biological parents in which the
mother had some education beyond high school. More-
over, the developmental effect of the proximal process on
school grades—a measure of competence—was stronger
for families living in more advantaged socioeconomic
circumstances. This finding is directly opposite to that
revealed by the analysis of Drillien’s data, where the out-
come was one of psychological dysfunction (i.e., the fre-
quency of problem behaviors). At the same time, the
principal finding from both studies documents the power-
ful effect of proximal processes on human development,
a result consistent with the first defining property of the
bioecological model stipulated in Proposition I.
The reader may well ask why the data in each scatter-
gram were fitted to a curve with a declining slope rather
than simply with a straight line. In accord with the crite-
ria for research in the discovery mode, the introduction of
the quadratic term was based on theoretical considera-
tions. Higher levels of academic performance require
mastery of more complex tasks, and hence are more diffi-
cult to achieve. As a result, at each successive step, the
same degree of active effort would be expected to yield a
somewhat smaller result. More specifically, for pupils
who are not doing so well in school, parental monitoring
into a closely corresponding research design can produce reli-
able findings even when there are relatively few cases in
some, or even all, the cells of the model. This comes about be-
cause, in effect, the bioecological model requires, in its dis-
covery phase, advance specification primarily not only of
main effects but also in the form and direction of their most
ical model and the then available research evidence. This is
especially true for well-designed experiments. For examples,
see pp. 808–809.
 From Theory to Research Design: Operationalizing the Bioecological Model
can have a substantial effect by ensuring more stability of
Time and place so that some learning can occur. But for
superior school achievement, students would require in
addition high levels of motivation, focused attention,
prior knowledge, and—especially—actually working
with the material to be learned. These are all qualities
that stability of Time and place by itself cannot provide.
As can be seen in Figure 14.3, the relation between
parental monitoring and school grades shows a curvilin-
ear trend. Moreover, in accord with criteria for research
in the discovery mode (see pp. 801–803), both in its di-
rection and form the trend corresponds with theoretical
expectations in being more pronounced when the mother
has some education beyond high school, especially in a
two-parent family structure. A test for heterogeneity of
regression confirms visual inspection. The differences in
slopes between the two educational levels are highly sig-
nificant (p ≤ .01), with the quadratic component emerg-
ing as reliable only in the higher educational group.4 Also
statistically significant are differences in school achieve-
ment by family structure in each level of mother’s educa-
tion, with students growing up in two-parent families
getting the highest grades, and those from single-parent
families the lowest, a rank order corresponding to the
power of the proximal process in each group as measured
by the slopes of the associated regression coefficients.
Finally, a result not shown on the graph provides addi-
tional evidence pointing to another tentative generaliza-
tion. The first indication appeared in the analysis of
Drillien’s data, which, among other findings, revealed
that maternal responsiveness had the general effect of de-
creasing or buffering against environmental differences in
developmental outcome. Thus, at high levels of mother-
child interaction, social class differences in problem be-
havior became smaller. A similar pattern emerges for the
effects of parental monitoring on school grades. Across
the six groups shown in Figure 14.3, stronger parental
monitoring was associated not only with a higher mean
on school performance but also with a lower standard de-
viation. These differences, too, were statistically reliable.
Hence the following working hypothesis:
For outcomes of competence, proximal processes not only
lead to higher levels of developmental functioning but also
4
The degree of curvilinearity is measured by the correspon-
ding regression coefficients and not by difference in the
length of each curve from top to bottom. The latter is deter-
mined by empty cells in the scatter plot below or above which
entries for both monitoring level and GPA were available.
805
serve to reduce and act as a buffer against effects of dis-
advantaged and disruptive environments.
To turn from substance to method, the foregoing
findings also demonstrate that tests of significance have
a place in research in the discovery mode, but, as with
hypothesis verification, only after a specific theoretical
expectation has been formulated in advance.
In a discovery context, however, the aim is not to
claim empirical validity for a particular theoretical for-
mulation but to indicate its plausibility for inclusion in
the research design at subsequent stages of exploratory
work. To be sure, doing so may result in a failure of
replication. But not doing so risks missing potentially
important, theoretically guided research opportunities
not yet recognized. Garmezy and Rutter (1983), in their
landmark studies of stress and coping in children’s
development, did not differentiate between those protec-
tive or disruptive forces emanating from the environ-
ment, and those inherent in the biopsychological
characteristics of the person. As evidenced from the
analysis of Drillien’s data shown in Figure 14.1, these
vectors do not always operate in the same direction.
Nevertheless, Garmezy and Rutter’s formulations and
findings played a significant role in the early stages of
the process through which the bioecological model
reached its present, still-evolving form.
The still-evolving form imposes the obligation to take
advantage of existing opportunities for continued explo-
ration. With respect to the present inquiry, the next step in
that process was once again to pose the question about the
extent to which the research design meets the defining
properties of the bioecological model. At first glance, we
appear to be confronted with the same problem that we en-
countered with Drillien’s study. Proposition I defines
proximal processes as bidirectional. As previously noted,
Small and Luster (1990) defined parental monitoring as
the effort by parents to keep informed about and set limits
on their children’s activities outside the home. As stated,
such behavior implies influence from one side only—that
of the parents. An examination of the actual items used in
their questionnaire, however, revealed that they were of
two kinds. Some were cast in the language of parental ex-
pectation and prescription (e.g., “If I am going to be home
late, I am expected to call my parent(s) to let them know”;
“When I go out, my parent(s) ask me where I’m going”).
By contrast, other items implied that the desired expecta-
tions or prescriptions were being met (e.g., “My parent(s)
know where I am after school”; “I tell my parent(s) who
806 The Bioecological Model of Human Development

I’m going to be with before I go out”). Although the first boys, a result that is paralleled by corresponding differ-
type of item is unidirectional, the second entails some de- ences in average GPA for the two sexes.5 In each of the
gree of reciprocity to the extent that the adolescent is three family structures, girls received higher grades than
providing the information desired by the parents. Accord- boys, with the difference being most pronounced in two-
ingly, we hypothesized that items of the second type parent households and lowest in single-mother families.
would show stronger relationships to developmental out- As seen in Figure 14.4, however, a distinctive feature
comes than those that described only the parents’ expecta- of the pattern for girls is a marked flattening
tions of how they wished their children to behave. of the curve, especially for daughters of single-parent
Separate analyses of scales based on each type of mothers. This result suggests that, in each of the
item provided substantial support for our working hy- three family structures, mothers may be pushing their
pothesis. Although responses to both types of questions already successful daughters to the point where con-
showed reliable effects on school performance, the rela- formity to maternal control no longer brings educational
tionships for the reciprocity scale were significantly returns, particularly when the mother is the only parent.
stronger and were much more likely to show curvilinear An analysis of data on students whose mothers had
effects. Accordingly, the latter was the scale used in an- no more than a high school education showed a similar
alyzing the results presented in Figure 14.3. general pattern, but the effects were less pronounced.
From the perspective of the biological model, the re- The influence of monitoring was appreciably weaker,
search design producing the results shown in that figure is and its greater benefit to girls was also reduced. Never-
missing an important Person component. It is a general theless, girls with less-educated mothers both in single-
finding in educational research that at the high school parent and in stepfamilies still had higher GPA scores
level female students score higher on measures of aca- than boys. This means that some other factor not yet
demic performance than do males. The question therefore identified must account for this difference.
arises: To what extent is this gender difference attributa- Although a number of possibilities come to mind re-
ble to variations in proximal process? Figure 14.4 pro- garding this unknown, regrettably the Wisconsin archive
vides a tentative answer to this question for students does not contain any data on the principal suspects. What
whose mothers had more than a high school education. In is available is information about another trail of discovery
each family structure, parental monitoring exerted a more that we have already begun to explore. Our successively
powerful effect on the school achievement of girls than of more differentiated working models, both conceptual and
operational, for assessing the effects of parental monitor-
7
ing on school achievement have provided increasing sup-
Average Grade in High School Subjects

Boys Girls port for the tentative hypothesis that, for outcomes
Mean Girls
6
Boys Girls reflecting developmental competence, proximal processes
Mean Mean Mean
Boys are likely to have greatest impact in the most advantaged
5 environments. But what about the other half of the original
Mean
Mean formulation: the complementary postulate that the greater
4 developmental impact of proximal processes growing up
in poor environments is to be expected to occur mainly for
3 outcomes reflecting developmental dysfunction?
Data from Small and Luster’s archive also provide
2
0 4 8 12 0 4 8 12 2 6 10 2 6 10 0 4 8 12 0 4 8 12
the opportunity for cross-validating this provisional
2 6 10 2 6 10 0 4 8 12 0 4 8 12 2 6 10 2 6 10
claim. In addition to measures of academic achievement,
Level of Parental Monitoring
2-Parent Mother and Single-Parent
the Wisconsin study also included information on
Family Stepfather Mother teenagers’ sexual activity. The decision to analyze this
High school students are between 14 and 16 years old. outcome in the context of a bioecological model was
prompted by Small and Luster’s (1990) finding that such
Figure 14.4 Parental monitoring and high school grades by
gender: mothers with more than a high school education.
5
Analyses and graph based on data archives generously pro- Within each pair, both means and regression coefficients
vided by Professors Stephen A. Small (University of Wiscon- were statistically significant, the latter confirming reliable
sin) and Tom Luster (Michigan State University). differences in slope.
 From Theory to Research Design: Operationalizing the Bioecological Model 807

behavior varied systematically by family structure. Sex- 80

ual activity was measured by a single question: “Have

Percent Sexually Active

you ever had sexual relations with another person?” 60
Mean
This documentation of variations in sexual activity
Mean
by family structure takes on special significance in the 40
light of broader social changes taking place in the lives
of children, youth, and families in contemporary U.S.
20
society. Today, the United States has the highest rate of
teenage pregnancy of any developed nation, almost
0
twice as high as that of its nearest competitors (Bron- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
fenbrenner, McClelland, Wethington, Moen, & Ceci, Mother Completed Mother Had Some Education
High School Only Beyond High School
1996, p. 117). Adolescent sexual activity is also one of
the prominent elements in the so-called teenage syn- Daughter with Own Mother and Father
drome, an escalating pattern of co-occurring behaviors Daughter with a Single-Parent Mother
including smoking, drinking, early and frequent sexual Daughter with Mother and Stepfather

experience, adolescent pregnancy, a cynical attitude to-

ward education and work, and, in the more extreme Figure 14.5 Effect of monitoring on girls’ sexual activity
( high school students between 14 and 16 years of age).
cases, drugs, suicide, vandalism, violence, and criminal
acts (for references and successive summaries of the ev-
idence, see Bronfenbrenner, 1970, 1975, 1986a, 1989c,
that, for outcomes reflecting lack of control, proximal
1990, 1992; Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996; Bronfenbren-
processes have greater impact in poorer environments.
ner & Neville, 1994).
Tests for heterogeneity of regression confirm that this
In anticipating the effects of parental monitoring on
finding holds for each of the three family forms.
teenagers’ sexual activity, we were again confronted
Yet, as shown in Figure 14.6, the corresponding analy-
with the issue of the possible direction of influence. In
sis of the data for boys reveals the very opposite result.
relation to sexual activity as an outcome, however, some
Parental monitoring has a more powerful effect on boys
leverage for the resolution of the issue was provided be-
whose mothers have had more education rather than less.
cause each direction could be expected to produce oppo-
Once again, the finding holds in each family structure
site effects. On the one hand, if parental monitoring
and is confirmed by tests for heterogeneity of regression.
functions to defer sexual activity, then the more moni-
toring the less sexual activity. On the other hand, if the
parents begin to monitor only after the fact, the associa-
tion would be reversed, with monitoring occurring in re- 80
action to the adolescent’s behavior; hence, sexually
Percent Sexually Active

Group %
active adolescents would be monitored more. 60
Group %
The results of the analysis are shown in Figures 14.5
and 14.6.6 The most salient finding for both sexes is that 40
parental monitoring does substantially reduce adoles-
cents’ sexual activity. In many other respects, however, 20
the patterns for female and male adolescents are quite
different. The results for girls in Figure 14.5 show that 0
the effect of parental monitoring is stronger for daugh- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Mother Completed Mother Had Some Education
ters of mothers with no education beyond high school— High School Only Beyond High School
a finding consistent with the working hypothesis
Sons in Biological Families
Sons of Single-Parent Mother
6
We are also indebted to Kristen Jacobson, now a doctoral Sons in Stepfamilies
student at Pennsylvania State University, for her ingenuity
and accuracy in translating into a common format data Figure 14.6 Effect of parental monitoring on boys’ sexual
archives recorded on different computing systems. activity ( high school students between 14 and 16 years of age).
808 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
This is not the only departure from the expecta-
tions generated by the most recent working model. For
example, there was not always correspondence between
the developmental power of proximal processes in a
given family structure and the percentage of sexually
active adolescents in that structure: In stepfamilies in
which the mother has only a high school education, ma-
ternal monitoring of daughters is as high as it is in two-
parent families, but the percentage of sexually active
girls is even greater than that for single-parent mothers
at the same educational level. The finding is consistent
with research indicating that living in a family with a
stepfather entails a special developmental risk for girls
(Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992).
And so, we find ourselves engaged in a next stage of the
discovery process in which we are seeking to develop a
more differentiated formulation that, through a corre-
sponding research design, will be most effective in reduc-
ing the observed empirical departures from expectations
based on the existing working model. The first step is to
ask an obvious question: What is most likely to account
for such discrepancies? Restating the question from the
perspective of the bioecological model, which of the four
components is a likely suspect? It has to be somebody who
is already on the scene. Parents are already there. Who
else is around who could exert some influence on the sex-
ual activity of high school students? The question answers
itself—the peer group. And if it is indeed true that proxi-
mal processes are at least as powerful determinants of de-
velopment as either the characteristics of the person or of
the environment, what might that process be?
A tentative first nomination is progressively more in-
tense interaction with peers who are already sexually ac-
tive. Among other considerations, this suggestion is guided
by the possibility that peer pressure to engage in sexual ac-
tivity and the prestige that such activity brings are likely to
be higher for boys from less educated families with the re-
sult that parental monitoring is not as effective. With re-
spect to the other components in the model, given the
findings just reported, gender would still be a Person char-
acteristic of major importance. The choice of an appropri-
ate environmental Context depends on the precise research
question being asked. Family structure would also still be
appropriate. But from the perspective of the bioecological
model, an option to consider would be the parents’ beliefs
about the activities they wanted their adolescent son or
daughter to engage in or refrain from, as well as the close-
ness of the parent-child relationship.
We offer these suggestions not for their relevance to
this particular issue but to illustrate two additional emer-
gent corollaries of the bioecological model:
1. The specific components of Process, Person, Con-
text, and Time to be included in a given investigation
should be those that, from a theoretical perspective,
are maximally relevant to the research question under
investigation and complementary to each other in re-
lation to the given developmental outcome.
2. From a theoretical perspective, the power of a PPCT
design is most effectively enhanced by including more
than one proximal process in the model.
The next section leads to yet another corollary.
The Role of Experiments in the
Bioecological Model
The examples considered thus far are essentially
experiments of nature: They show how development is
influenced by variations in the components of the bioe-
cological model occurring in already existing societies.
They tell us nothing about whether, to what extent, or
how these elements and their combinations can be
changed. This limitation applies particularly to the most
consequential component of the bioecological model—
proximal processes. We know of no research bearing
specifically on this question, but some indirect evidence
does exist. In research findings already presented, im-
proving the quality of the environment has been shown to
increase the developmental power of proximal processes.
The indirect evidence comes from experiments in which
researchers have systematically introduced conditions
into the environment in which people lived that were hy-
pothesized to enhance their psychological functioning
beyond existing levels.
Here are two examples at contrasting ages.
Environmental Dynamics in Old Age
The first example is Langer and Rodin’s oft-cited exper-
imental intervention conducted with residents of a New
Haven nursing home for the aged (Langer & Rodin, 1976;
Rodin & Langer, 1977). The contextual manipulation
employed in this study is well summarized in the au-
thors’ words:
 From Theory to Research Design: Operationalizing the Bioecological Model
The hospital administrator gave a talk to residents in the
experimental group emphasizing their responsibility for
themselves, whereas the communication to a second, com-
parison group stressed the staff ’s responsibility for them
as patients. To bolster the communication, residents in the
experimental group were offered plants to care for,
whereas residents in the comparison group were given
plants that were watered by the staff. (Rodin & Langer,
1977, p. 897)
Residents were assigned at random to either the exper-
imental or the control group. Data on psychological and
health characteristics were collected at three time points:
(1) just prior to the introduction of the experiment; (2) 3
weeks later, when the experiment was formally ended;
and (3) in a follow-up study conducted 18 months later.
The substantial effects of intervention found at the
end of the experiment (Langer & Rodin, 1976) were still
in evidence in the follow-up assessment. To be sure, be-
cause the residents were almost a year-and-a-half older,
the added age had taken some toll, but, nevertheless,
those in the “induced responsibility” group not only sig-
nificantly surpassed their controls, but were appreciably
better off, both psychologically and physically, than
they had been months earlier before the intervention had
begun. In ratings by observers blind to the experimental
conditions, they were judged to be more alert, sociable,
and vigorous. The most striking results were seen in the
comparison of death rates between the two treatment
groups. Taking the 18 months prior to the original inter-
vention as an arbitrary comparison period, in the subse-
quent 18 months following the intervention, 15% in the
“responsibility-induced” group died, compared with
30% in the control group.
Environmental Dynamics in Infancy
A remarkable, independent cross-validation of Langer and
Rodin’s principal hypothesis appears in the findings of
another intervention experiment—this one almost un-
known—that was carried out at about the same time with a
sample of 100 9-month-old infants and their mothers in
the Dutch city of Nijmegen (Riksen-Walraven, 1978). Al-
though this author, Marianne Riksen-Walraven, appears
not to have been aware of Langer and Rodin’s work con-
ducted during the same period, one of the two interven-
tion strategies she employed with her sample of infants
was similar to that used in the New Haven study of elderly
patients. Mothers, randomly assigned to what Riksen-
Walraven called the “responsiveness” group, were given a
809
“workbook for parents” stressing the idea that “the infant
learns most from the effects of its own behavior” (p. 113):
Caregivers were advised not to direct the child’s activities
too much, but to give the child opportunity to find out
things for himself, to praise him for his efforts, and to re-
spond to his initiations of interaction. (p. 113)
By contrast, mothers of infants in the “stimulation”
group received a workbook that emphasized the impor-
tance of providing the infant with a great variety of per-
ceptual experiences of all kinds, “ to point to and name
objects and persons,” and “ to speak a lot to their in-
fants” (p. 112).
In the follow-up assessment conducted 3 months later,
infants of mothers who had been encouraged to be re-
sponsive to their babies’ initiatives exhibited higher lev-
els of exploratory behavior and were more likely to prefer
a novel object to one that was already familiar. The babies
also learned more quickly in a learning contingency task.
Neither of the preceding investigations included
any systematic assessment of the activities in which the
participants in the experiment subsequently engaged, of
the balance between unidirectional and bidirectional be-
havior in the two groups, or of any other specific feature
that could provide a measure of the extent to which prox-
imal processes were operating in each of the two con-
trasting experimental conditions.
In both of the preceding experimental studies,
elegant as they are, the keystone of the bioecological
model—a measure of proximal process—was not in-
cluded in the research design. In addition, the demonstra-
tion (in Figure 14.3) of the joint, indirect effects of
family structure and parents’ education on the relation of
proximal processes to school grades does only half the
job, for it provides no information on whether differences
in students’ personal characteristics (such as gender)
exert a similar indirect effect. Nevertheless, viewed from
the theoretical perspective of a bioecological model, all
these findings are impressively consistent with expecta-
tions derived from the model; the findings illustrate the
model’s practicability, and—perhaps most promising for
the future of developmental science—generate questions
that, when answered, provide ways for enhancing the
model’s scientific power. It is these questions and an-
swers that are addressed in the following sections.
Up to this point, our exposition has given primary at-
tention to the core concept of proximal process and its
810 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
key position in the bioecological model as a whole. We
now proceed to a more detailed examination of each of
the other three defining properties of the model—Per-
son, Context, and Time.
HOW DO PERSON CHARACTERISTICS
INFLUENCE LATER DEVELOPMENT?
As already indicated, at midstage in the development of
the bioecological model, an effort was begun to arrive at
some answers to this question, and it has continued up to
the present day. As before, rather than describe the suc-
cessive stages in this emergent reconception, we present
it in its most recent, still-evolving form.
Most developmental research treats the cognitive and
socioemotional characteristics of the person as dependent
variables; that is, as measures of developmental outcomes.
Far less often are such characteristics examined as pre-
cursors and producers of later development From the per-
spective of the bioecological model, their effectiveness in
the latter role derives from their capacity to influence the
emergence and operation of proximal processes.
Accordingly, in an effort to identify such process-rel-
evant Person characteristics, we applied the sequential
design strategy described in the preceding section. Be-
ginning with implications derived from the theoretical
model, which are then related to existing research find-
ings, successive applications of this strategy have re-
sulted in the conceptualization of three kinds of
process-relevant Person characteristics, which, for con-
venience of brevity, we have labeled as Person forces, re-
sources, and demands.7
Force Characteristics as Shapers
of Development
In the bioecological model, the characteristics of the
Person most likely to influence future development
would be active behavioral dispositions that can set
proximal processes in motion and sustain their opera-
tion, or—conversely—actively interfere with, retard, or
even prevent their occurrence. It is therefore useful to
7
As is documented later in this chapter (p. 819), the recently
renewed, and far stronger, claims by behavior geneticists for
the predominant role of genetic factors in determining both
individual and group differences in all forms of human char-
acteristics are directly challenged by alternative explanations
and research findings derived from the bioecological model.
distinguish between these two propensities. We refer to
the former as developmentally generative characteristics;
to the latter as developmentally disruptive.
Examples of developmentally disruptive dispositions
come more readily to mind. At one pole, they include
such characteristics as impulsiveness, explosiveness, dis-
tractibility, inability to defer gratification, or, in a more
extreme form, ready resort to aggression and violence; in
short, difficulties in maintaining control over emotions
and behavior. At the opposite pole are such Person attri-
butes as apathy, inattentiveness, unresponsiveness, lack
of interest in the surroundings, feelings of insecurity,
shyness, or a general tendency to avoid or withdraw from
activity.8 Persons exhibiting either of the preceding
propensities would find it difficult to engage in proximal
processes requiring progressively more complex patterns
of reciprocal interaction over extended periods of time.
By contrast, developmentally generative characteris-
tics involve such active orientations as curiosity, tendency
to initiate and engage in activity alone or with others, re-
sponsiveness to initiatives by others, and readiness to
defer immediate gratification to pursue long-term goals.
We have found few investigations that shed light on the
developmental effects of either type of dynamic character-
istics on proximal processes and their outcomes. A major
reason for this shortcoming is the absence of theoretical
constructs for conceptualizing their changing nature over
the course of development from early infancy, through
adolescence, into and beyond early adulthood. The follow-
ing framework is offered as an initial basis for meeting this
requirement beginning in the Person domain in greater
need of conceptual definition—that of developmentally
generative characteristics. The corresponding structure
for developmentally disruptive Person qualities can then
be derived as an inverted mirror image of the former.9
Developmentally Generative Dispositions in
Life-Course Perspective
The first and earliest manifestation of generative dispo-
sitions takes the form of what we call selective respon-
siveness. It involves differentiated response to, attraction
by, and exploration of aspects of the physical and social
environment.
8
Depending on the available alternatives, withdrawal may be
the only course left for dealing with an unbearable situation.
9
The material that follows represents a further development
by the present authors of ideas first introduced in Bronfen-
brenner (1989).
 How Do Person Characteristics Inf luence Later Development?
The next generative characteristic to evolve goes be-
yond selective responsiveness to include the tendency to
engage and persist in progressively more complex activ-
ities; for example, to elaborate, restructure, and even to
create new features in our environment—not only physi-
cal and social but also symbolic. We refer to propensi-
ties of this kind as structuring proclivities.
The transition from one to the other of these dynamic
forms of orientation during early childhood is illustrated
in successive publications from a longitudinal study of in-
fants being carried out by Leila Beckwith, Sarale Cohen,
Claire Kopp, and Arthur Parmelee at UCLA (Beckwith &
Cohen, 1984; Beckwith, Rodning, & Cohen, 1992; Cohen
& Beckwith, 1979; Cohen, Beckwith, & Parmelee, 1978;
Cohen & Parmelee, 1983; Cohen, Parmelee, Beckwith, &
Sigman, 1986). Their imaginative and careful work re-
veals a progressive sequence of such environmentally ori-
ented dispositions from birth through 7 years of age.
Thus, immediately after birth, infants are especially re-
sponsive to vestibular stimulation ( being picked up and
held in a vertical position close to the body), which has
the effect of soothing babies so that they begin to engage
in mutual gazing; by 3 months, visual exploration extends
beyond proximal objects, and the mother’s voice is most
likely to elicit responses especially in the form of recipro-
cal vocalizations.
From about 6 months on, the infant begins actively to
manipulate objects spontaneously in a purposeful way
and to rearrange the physical environment. By now, both
vocalization and gesture are being used to attract the
parents’ attention and to influence their behavior. In ad-
dition, there is a growing readiness, across modalities,
to initiate and sustain reciprocal interaction with a
widening circle of persons in the child’s immediate en-
vironment. This is the emergence of what we call struc-
turing proclivities.
A number of other investigations have yielded com-
parable findings, and have extended them to still other
activity domains; for example: individual differences in
children’s creativity in play and fantasy behavior (Con-
nolly & Doyle, 1984; MacDonald & Parke, 1984) or
Jean and Jack Block’s longitudinal studies of “ego re-
siliency” and “ego control” (J. H. Block & Block, 1980;
J. Block, Block, & Keyes, 1988).
The nature of the third and final class of develop-
mentally generative Person characteristics reflects the
increasing capacity and active propensity of children
as they grow older to conceptualize their experience. It
deals with what we call directive belief systems about
811
oneself as an active agent both in relation to the self
and environment, or, for short, directive beliefs. The
oldest concept of this kind is Rotter’s construct and
measure of “locus of control” (Rotter, 1966). Subse-
quently, a more sophisticated formulation of the con-
cept was introduced by Bandura (1977, 1982) under the
rubric of self-efficacy. The principal distinction be-
tween these earlier constructs and their counterparts in
the bioecological model is that the latter are conceptu-
alized primarily not as characteristics of the person
sufficient unto themselves but as directional disposi-
tions interacting synergistically with particular fea-
tures of the environment to generate successive levels
of developmental advance.
The closest approximation to an operationalized
bioecological model in which directive beliefs function
as Person characteristics appears in a series of findings
arising from a doctoral dissertation by Tulkin (1973,
1977; Tulkin & Cohler, 1973; Tulkin & Kagan, 1972).
The investigator studied social class differences both in
the behaviors and the beliefs of mothers of 10-month-
old girls. The research was conducted in the home, em-
ploying both interviews and observations. Middle-class
mothers were distinguished from their working-class
counterparts not only by higher levels of reciprocal in-
teraction with their infants, but also in their views about
what a 10-month-old could do, and about their own abil-
ities to influence their baby’s development; the more ad-
vantaged mothers attributed greater potentials both to
their infants and themselves. In addition, the correla-
tions between maternal behavior and attitudes were sub-
stantially greater in middle-class than in lower-class
families. Several years later, Tulkin and a colleague
(Tulkin & Covitz, 1975) reassessed the same youngsters
after they had entered school. The children’s perfor-
mance on tests of mental ability and language skill
showed significant relationships to the prior measures of
reciprocal mother-infant interaction.
Perceptive readers may have detected a sleight of
hand in our analysis of Tulkin’s research when exam-
ined from the perspective of the bioecological model. In
that framework, we have been discussing characteristics
of the developing Person that influence proximal
processes and their outcomes. In Tulkin’s work, the de-
veloping Person is the infant. But the directive beliefs
we have been discussing are those of the mother. The
reason for the substitution is the following. Although, in
the line of work stimulated by Rotter and Bandura there
are many investigations of the relation between personal
812 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
beliefs and development, to our knowledge there have
been no studies of the effect of personal beliefs on the
proximal processes in which the developing person her-
self or himself becomes engaged. To provide an example,
we resorted to a substitution of roles.
The substitution also provides an opportunity to intro-
duce a corollary formulation, the evidence for which ap-
pears later in this and subsequent sections of this chapter:
In proximal processes involving interpersonal inter-
action, the personal characteristics that influence the
power of the process and its effects are the same for all
parties involved.
To return to the task at hand, we present a second
form of Person characteristic posited as affecting future
psychological growth—what we have called develop-
mental resources.
Resource Characteristics of the Person as
Shapers of Development
These are Person characteristics that in themselves in-
volve no selective disposition to action, but constitute
biopsychological liabilities and assets that influence the
capacity of the organism to engage effectively in proxi-
mal processes. In the first category are conditions that
limit or disrupt the functional integrity of the organism.
Some obvious examples include genetic defects, low
birthweight, physical handicaps, severe and persistent
illness, or damage to brain function through accident or
degenerative processes. By contrast, developmental as-
sets take the form of ability, knowledge, skill, and ex-
perience that, as they evolve over most of the life
course, extend the domains in which proximal processes
can do their constructive work—thereby becoming an-
other source of the progressively more complex patterns
of interaction constituting a defining property of proxi-
mal processes.
The similarity between the definitions for the two
types of developmental resources, and for the earlier
distinction between developmental outcomes reflecting
dysfunction versus competence, derives from the fact
already noted that characteristics of the Person appear
on both sides of the bioecological equation. Develop-
mental outcomes at Time 1 indirectly influence develop-
mental outcomes at Time 2 through their effect on
proximal processes during the intervening period. The
difference, therefore, lies not in the concepts themselves
but in their place in the bioecological model.
A concrete example of a deficiency in developmen-
tal resources has already been documented in the
analysis of Drillien’s results depicted in Figure 14.1.
Proximal processes exerted their most powerful effect
on children growing up in the most disadvantaged envi-
ronment, but in that environment youngsters who at
birth were of normal weight benefited most. Weight at
birth does not imply a directed propensity to engage in
or refrain from a particular kind of behavior. What it
does represent is variation in the biological resources
available to engage in any activity requiring directed
activity or response over extended periods of time.
Thus, in the present instance, one plausible explanation
for the observed asymmetric pattern is that, among
families living in stressful environments, infants who
are physically healthy from birth are more able to en-
gage in reciprocal interaction than those who are bio-
logically impaired.
This interpretation is called into question, however,
by the corresponding results, shown in the same graph,
for infants raised under the most favorable socioeco-
nomic circumstances. Infants of normal birthweight
profited least from interaction with their mothers. How
might this paradox be resolved?
Even though the corresponding interaction term is
statistically significant, under normal circumstances
the preceding result would—and properly should—be
called into question as a post hoc finding. But, in the
present instance, that is not quite the case. To be sure,
there was no a priori hypothesis predicting the precise
pattern of the obtained results. The pattern is consis-
tent, however, with several possibilities envisioned for a
third Person attribute posited as influencing proximal
processes and their developmental effects. And for sci-
ence in the discovery mode, post hoc findings that are
theoretically relevant are not to be lightly dismissed.
Demand Characteristics of the Person
as Developmental Inf luences
The distinguishing feature of this last set of Person char-
acteristics affecting development is their capacity to in-
vite or discourage reactions from the social environment
that can disrupt or foster processes of psychological
growth: for example, a fussy versus a happy baby, attrac-
tive versus unattractive physical appearance, or hyperac-
tivity versus passivity. Half a century ago, Gordon
Allport (1937), borrowing a term originally introduced
by Mark A. May (1932), spoke of such characteristics as
 The Role of Focus of Attention in Proximal Processes 813

constituting “personality” defined in terms of its “social

plausible answer for children of normal birthweight living
stimulus value.” Rephrasing this concept in terms of its
in the most favored circumstances is that their mothers
analog in contemporary theories of perception, we refer
would be responding primarily not to manifestations of
to such Person qualities as demand characteristics.
problem behavior, but of growing competence.
A striking example of the developmental effect of
such a feature emerges as a major finding in one of the
follow-up studies of children of the Great Depression
carried out by Elder and his colleagues (Elder, Van THE ROLE OF FOCUS OF ATTENTION IN
Nguyen, & Caspi, 1985). The investigators found that PROXIMAL PROCESSES
economic hardship adversely influenced the psychoso-
cial well-being of girls ( but not boys) through its ten- The preceding considerations, generated by a confronta-
dency to increase the rejecting behavior of fathers. The tion of data with theory, call for more differentiated for-
effects of rejection, however, varied inversely as a func- mulations in the existing bioecological model. Here is
tion of the daughter’s physical attractiveness. In the au- the first of two tentative responses to the call:
thors’ words, “Attractive daughters were not likely to be
maltreated by their fathers, no matter how severe the When a proximal process involves interaction with another
economic pressure. [The results] underscore the impor- person, the power of the bioecological model is substan-
tance of viewing economic decline in relation to both the tially enhanced by including in the research design a mea-
child’s characteristics and parenting behavior ” (p. 361). sure of the other person’s focus of attention on the
Here is a classic instance of the power of a PPCT model particular aspects of the behavior of the subject that are
in revealing the complex interactions between organism presumed, on theoretical and empirical grounds, to be most
closely related to the developmental outcome.
and environment that drive the process of development.
The concept of demand characteristics also intro-
For Drillien’s study, the measure of proximal process
duces a new perspective for interpreting the contrasting
is the mother’s responsiveness, but we do not know to
developmental effects of birthweight by social class
what particular behaviors of her baby she was respond-
shown in Figure 14.1. As noted earlier, at the lowest
ing. As already suggested, the aspect most relevant for
socioeconomic level it was the children of normal birth-
reducing future problem behaviors might be expressions
weight who benefited most from maternal responsive-
of distress. If so, a more precise conceptual and opera-
ness. But does that mean they were also the ones who got
tional definition of the proximal process in this study
the most attention from their mothers? Paradoxically,
would be the proportion of manifestations of distress
the picture turns out to be just the reverse. Only 14% of
that were responded to by successful efforts to reduce
these lower-class mothers were judged to be responsive
that distress.
to changes in their infants’ state or behavior, whereas
However, even though in the Drillien study the moth-
the percentage for mothers of low-birthweight babies
ers’ focus of attention was not known, the extent of her
was more than twice as high (averaging 37%). In short,
responsiveness was still a strong predictor of the out-
lower-class mothers were responding mainly to those in-
come. Even when the theoretical and operational re-
fants who most needed their attention, albeit with a
quirements of the bioecological model are not met in
lower return on their investment.
full, the results can still contribute to understanding the
But what characteristics of these babies were captur-
forces that shape human development.
ing the mothers’ attention? It appears likely that in this
A second, complementary tentative formulation de-
instance, the mothers were responding mainly to their in-
rives from the definition of proximal processes as bidi-
fants’ expressions of distress—behavior less apt to occur
rectional. Stated succinctly, it posits that the preceding
among those of normal birthweight. If we look at the cor-
formulation also holds in reverse:
responding data for families at the highest socioeconomic
level, we discover a rather different picture. Mothers are When a proximal process involves interaction with another
more responsive to the healthiest infants than to those of person, the power of the bioecological model is substan-
lowest birthweight, but as shown in Figure 14.1, they get tially enhanced by including in the research design a mea-
the least return for their pains. Once again a key question sure of the developing person’s focus of attention on the
becomes “What is capturing the mother’s attention?” A particular aspects of the behavior of the other person that
814 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
are presumed, on theoretical and empirical grounds, to be
most closely related to the developmental outcome.10
PROXIMAL PROCESSES IN SOLO
ACTIVITIES WITH OBJECTS AND SYMBOLS
The foregoing considerations and complexities give
added importance to those proximal processes that do
not involve interpersonal interaction but instead focus on
progressively more complex reciprocal interaction with
objects and symbols. These are activities that can be car-
ried on in the absence of other persons, and therefore the
magnitude and effectiveness of the proximal process are
not influenced by another participant’s behaviors. One
would therefore expect that the person’s own disposition
and resources would play a far stronger role in affecting
the direction and power of the proximal process than in
the case of interpersonal interaction. Furthermore, such
solo activities significantly change the processes in-
volved, their outcomes, and the features of the environ-
ment that become most relevant. The contrast in all three
domains involves a focus on human relationships, on the
one hand, and tasks, on the other. To understand the de-
velopmental importance of this contrast requires a fuller
exposition of the features of the environment that influ-
ence proximal processes and their effects.
But before turning to this topic, we must give due
recognition to three other Person characteristics that
push us in the same direction. They are so pervasive in
affecting future development that their possible influ-
ence routinely needs to be considered in relation to the
particular phenomenon under investigation. These are
the familiar demographic factors of age, gender, and eth-
nicity. Another reason for this recommendation is that
all three of these factors, although based on differing
physical characteristics of the Person, also place that
person in a particular environmental niche that defines
his or her position and role in society. Recognition of
that ambiguity moves us to a change in focus from the
developmentally relevant characteristics of the Person to
their counterparts in the structure and substance of
10
In terms of research design, both of the stated formulations
are best assessed through direct observation, but, given the
clarity and contrasting nature of the predicted relationship,
valid measures can be obtained for older children and adults
through well-designed interviews, and even for young chil-
dren from information provided by parents and other family
members.
environmental Contexts as they affect developmental
processes and outcomes.
THE MICROSYSTEM MAGNIFIED:
ACTIVITIES, RELATIONSHIPS, AND ROLES
In addressing this topic, we return to the earliest formu-
lation of the ecological model. Today, as then, “ the
ecological environment is conceived as a set of nested
structures, each inside the other like a set of Russian
dolls” (Bronfenbrenner, 1979b, p. 3). The contemporary
definition of the innermost of these structures is similar,
but contains additional elements that link it to the “cen-
ter of gravity” of the bioecological paradigm:
A microsystem is a pattern of activities, social roles, and
interpersonal relations experienced by the developing per-
son in a given face-to-face setting with particular physi-
cal, social, and symbolic features that invite, permit, or
inhibit, engagement in sustained, progressively more com-
plex interaction with, and activity in, the immediate envi-
ronment. (Bronfenbrenner, 1994, p. 1645)11
We begin with consideration of the first feature of the
environment introduced in the foregoing definition.
Effects of the Physical Environment on
Psychological Development
The pioneering work in this sphere has been done by
Theodore Wachs. In 1979, he published a seminal paper
in which he showed a consistent pattern of relationships
between certain features in the physical environment of
infants during the first 2 years of life and their cognitive
development over this same period. To permit examining
effects over time, data were grouped into successive 3-
month blocks. The results are reported in the form of
correlations between characteristics of the environment
at an earlier time and the developmental status of the in-
fants at a later time.
From the complex results of the study, we focus on
those physical features in the environment that were
most frequently and strongly associated with cognitive
functioning. These included a physically responsive en-
11
The 1979 definition reads as follows: “A microsystem is a
pattern of activities, roles, and interpersonal relationships
experienced by the developing person in a given setting with
particular physical and material characteristics.”
 The Microsystem Magnified: Activities, Relationships, and Roles
vironment, presence of sheltered areas, “ The degree to
which the physical set-up of the home permits explo-
ration,” low level of noise and confusion, and “ the de-
gree of temporal regularity” (Wachs, 1979, p. 30).
Regrettably, few researchers have followed the ex-
citing scientific path that Wachs has been the first to
chart. Taken as a whole, his original and subsequent
work (Wachs, 1987a, 1987b, 1989, 1990, 1991; Wachs
& Chan, 1986) suggests two areas especially worthy of
further systematic investigation, in both conceptualiza-
tion and measurement. The first remains strictly in the
realm of the physical environment. The second raises
the issue of proximal processes as they relate to that
environment.
In the first domain, Wachs’s findings point to two
general aspects of the physical environment that can af-
fect the course of cognitive development—one for bet-
ter, the other for worse. On the constructive side are
objects and areas that invite manipulation and explo-
ration, whereas instability, lack of clear structure, and
unpredictability of events undermine the developmental
process. From an ecological perspective, the existence
of these countervailing forces in the physical environ-
ment leads to a new working hypothesis:
Not only do developmentally generative features of the
surroundings have greater impact in more stable settings,
but they also function as a buffer against the disruptive in-
fluences of disorganizing environments.
The second issue introduces an additional compo-
nent into the research design. As stipulated in Proposi-
tion I, proximal processes involve progressively more
complex interactions not only with persons but also
with objects and symbols. The question therefore again
arises as to what extent solitary activities involving ob-
jects and symbols—such as playing with toys, working
at hobbies, reading, or fantasy play—can also foster
psychological development? And to what degree does
involvement in both objects and symbols produce syner-
gistic developmental effects in each domain? The an-
swers to these questions are as yet unknown but are
readily discoverable through the use of appropriate de-
signs that differentiate between measures of process
and of environmental structure.
However, the most promising terra incognita for re-
search on the role of the physical environment in human
development may well lie beyond the realm of childhood
in the world of adults. A preview of this promise appears
815
in the successive publications of the sociologist Melvin
Kohn and his colleagues (for an integrative summary,
see Kohn & Slomczynski, 1990) demonstrating the pow-
erful effect of work environments on intellectual devel-
opment in adulthood. Of particular importance in this
regard turns out to be the complexity of the task that a
given job entails.
At the conclusion of the preceding section, we called
attention to a contrast that cuts across all four domains
of Process, Person, Context, and Developmental Out-
come. The contrast in all four domains involves a pri-
mary focus on relationships versus tasks. The findings
of both Wachs and Kohn fall mainly in the latter cate-
gory, but Drillien’s data on mother-infant interaction
and infants’ problem behavior in lower-class families
fall mainly in the former (i.e., an increase in maternal
responsiveness functions as a buffer against problems in
this sphere of emotional and behavioral control).
But that is not the only effect of rising levels of prox-
imal process.
The Mother-Infant Dyad as a Context
of Development
A substantial body of research indicates that such
processes also foster the development of a strong emo-
tional attachment between mother and child, which
increases the quality of future interaction between the
two parties (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978;
Bowlby, 1969, 1973). In addition, the more recent work
in this sphere strongly suggests that, as a result of con-
tinuing reciprocity in the context of a close relationship,
the infant begins to develop a definition of self that mir-
rors the form and content conveyed through the evolving
patterns of interchange between mother and child
(Sroufe, 1990). Thus, proximal processes become the
measurable mechanisms for bringing about what in an
earlier era of developmental theory and research was
called internalization.12 Moreover, this sequential pro-
cess does double duty. Though operating primarily on
the relationship side, it also furthers task performance.
According to attachment theory, the emotionally
loaded patterns of interchange processes between the
infant and the primary caregiver become internalized
in the form of “internal working models” (Bowlby,
12
A resurgence of theoretical and research interest in this
sphere has been stimulated by the elegant studies of Kochan-
ska and her colleagues.
816 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
1969, 1973). Such working models are representations
of the infant in relation to others and become the basis
for the development of the self (Sroufe, 1990). Through
interactions between the infant and the primary care-
giver, the infant develops expectations of the care-
giver’s behavior and complementary beliefs about him-
or herself. For example, an infant who has experienced
a history of contingent responsiveness from a primary
caregiver will develop a model of that caregiver as
available, and expect such behavior. That child will
also develop a complementary sense of self that he or
she is worthy of responsive care. On the other hand, an
infant who has experienced unresponsive care will de-
velop a very different model of the relationship, ex-
pecting the caregiver to be unavailable. Such an infant
is expected to develop a sense of self as unworthy of re-
sponsive care.
More generally, these internalized working models
are seen as providing a framework for future interac-
tions, resulting in a repetition of the early attachment
relationship (Bowlby, 1973; Sroufe, 1990). The child
seeks, responds, and interprets events based on the
model that he or she has developed during infancy, and
that model is adapted based on new experiences with the
environment. A child who has developed a secure at-
tachment relationship is likely to expect positive inter-
actions with teachers, and thus elicit responsive care
reminiscent of his or her caregiver’s behavior. An inse-
cure child, expecting rejection, will approach relation-
ships with increased hostility, ultimately resulting in
further experiences with rejection.
Support for these theoretical expectations comes
from a number of studies. For example, the quality of
the child’s early attachment relationship with the
mother has been found to affect the child’s later func-
tioning in social interactions with teachers and peers.
Thus, early proximal processes produce proximal
processes throughout development. Children judged as
securely attached in infancy have been shown to ap-
proach unfamiliar peers and adults more positively
and with greater acceptance (Booth, Rose-Krasnor,
McKinnon, & Rubin, 1994; Main & Weston, 1981;
Pastor, 1981). Furthermore, they have more positive
relationships with peers and teachers in preschool
(Sroufe, Fox, & Pancake, 1983; Turner, 1991). Be-
cause secure children have developed a positive inter-
nal working model in the context of a secure
attachment relationship with a primary caregiver,
these children expect and elicit positive interactions
with other social partners.
This body of attachment theory and research has im-
portant implications for the bioecological model. Its rel-
evance is most succinctly conveyed in operational
terms, by assessing quality of attachment in different
positions in the research design; for example, as an out-
come at Time 2 of proximal processes at Time 1, or, al-
ternatively, in the form of strong versus weak contextual
dyads at Time 1 moderating the power of a proximal pro-
cess to influence developmental outcomes at Time 2. The
latter design fits a long-standing proposition derived
from the bioecological model, which reads as follows:
In order to develop—intellectually, emotionally, socially,
and morally—a child requires, for all of them, the same
thing: participation in progressively more complex recip-
rocal activity, on a regular basis over extended periods of
time with one or more other persons with whom the child
develops a strong, mutual, irrational attachment,13 and
who are committed to that child’s development, preferably
for life. (Bronfenbrenner, 1989c, p. 5)
A second proposition goes a step further:
The establishment and maintenance of patterns of progres-
sively more complex interaction and emotional attachment
between caregiver and child depend in substantial degree
on the availability and active involvement of another adult
who assists, encourages, spells off, gives status to, and ex-
presses admiration and affection for the person caring for
and engaging in joint activity with the child. (Bronfen-
brenner, 1989c, p. 11)
Taken together, the foregoing propositions present an
important qualifier to the general finding that children
growing up in single-parent families are at greater de-
velopmental risk than those in two-parent structures.
What counts most is the quality of the relationships and
activities that take place in the family, and situations
can occur in which, from this perspective, quality over-
rides quantity (Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992).
Both propositions take on added importance because
their relevance may extend beyond parental ties to close
relationships with other caregivers, relatives, peers,
teachers, mentors, coworkers, and supervisors. The
propositions may also apply beyond childhood and ado-
13
What is meant by the term “irrational attachment ”? One
answer: This is the first child you try to save in a fire.

lescence to relationships in adulthood and old age. So
far as we have been able to discover, these possibilities
still await systematic investigation in correspondingly
appropriate research designs.
BEYOND THE MICROSYSTEM
It is a basic premise of ecological systems theory that
development is a function of forces emanating from
multiple settings and from the relations among these
settings. How can such multiple forces and their interre-
lations be conceptualized, and what kinds of research
designs can be employed to measure their combined ef-
fects? The first stage in such an expanded model of the
environment involves what in ecological systems theory
is called a mesosystem, defined as comprising the rela-
tionships existing between two or more settings; in
short, it is a system of two or more microsystems.
Mesosystems and their operationalization in a research
design are best conveyed through a concrete example.
Steinberg, Darling, and Fletcher (1995) reported on
what they described as “an ecological journey,” which
was the consequence of a deliberate decision made at
the outset of their research. The initial focus of inves-
tigation was on the impact of authoritative parenting
on adolescents’ academic achievement. They had at
their disposal a range of data collected from a large
multiethnic, multiclass sample encompassing several
family structures. Under these circumstances, they
concluded:
[I]t made no sense at all to control for ethnicity, social
class, or household composition in an attempt to isolate
“pure” process. No process occurs outside of a context.
And if we want to understand context, we need to take it
into account, not pretend to control it away. (Steinberg
et al., 1995, p. 424)
No sooner had the investigators embarked on this
unconventional course than they encountered some un-
expected findings. The first of these occurred not in
the realm of environmental context but of developmen-
tal outcome. When they analyzed adolescents’ school
performance, they found that, in contrast to youth
from European family backgrounds, Hispanic,
African, or Asian American youth did not benefit from
authoritative parenting. A first clue to this puzzle
emerged when the investigators identified the values
Beyond the Microsystem 817
held by the different “peer crowds” (e.g., “jocks,
brains, nerds, preppies, or druggies”) in the nine high
schools included in their sample. Their subsequent
analysis revealed that “European-American young-
sters from authoritative homes are more likely to be-
long to peer crowds that encourage academic
achievement ” (Steinberg et al., 1995, p. 445).
On the basis of these and related findings, Steinberg
et al. (1995) formulated the following, new working
hypothesis:
There is a strong but indirect path between parenting prac-
tices and adolescent peer group affiliations . . . by foster-
ing certain traits in their children, parents direct a child
toward a particular peer group. Thus to the extent that par-
ents can influence characteristics by which adolescents
are associated by peers with a crowd, parents can “con-
trol” the type of peer group influences to which their child
is exposed. . . . In essence, parents have a direct and pri-
mary impact on adolescent behavior patterns—prosocial
as well as antisocial. Peer groups serve primarily to rein-
force established behavior patterns or dispositions.
(pp. 446–447)
But when the investigators put their new hypothesis
to the test, they were confronted by yet another unex-
pected result:
When we attempted to apply this model to youngsters
from minority backgrounds, we were in for a shock. We
found that among Black and Asian students, there was no
relation between parenting practices and peer crowd mem-
bership. (p 447)
Once again, the researchers’ “multiple context model”
paved the way to solving the puzzle:
Why was there not significant relation between parenting
and peer group selection among minority youth? The an-
swer, we discovered, is that models of peer group selection
that assume an open system, in which adolescents can se-
lect into any number of groups as easily as ordering food
off a restaurant menu, fail to take into account the tremen-
dous level of ethnic segregation that characterizes the so-
cial structure of most ethnically mixed high schools in the
United States. (pp. 447–448)
The authors’ findings with respect to specific minor-
ity groups are of considerable interest:
818 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
Although [African American] parents score highest on our
measure of parental involvement in schooling, [Black ado-
lescents] find it much more difficult to join a peer group
that encourages the same goal. (p. 449)
By contrast:
More often then not, Asian American students have no
choice but to belong to a peer group that encourages and
rewards academic excellence. . . . Asian Americans report
the highest level of peer support for academic achieve-
ment. Interestingly, and in contrast to popular belief,
[their] parents are the least involved in their youngsters’
schooling. (p. 448)
The Expanding Ecological Universe
As if disappointed at not being confronted with yet an-
other unexpected finding, Steinberg and his colleagues
moved on to extend the ecological model to its next higher
systems level—that of the exosystem. The formal defini-
tion of this environmental structure reads as follows:
The exosystem comprises the linkages and processes tak-
ing place between two or more settings, at least one of
which does not contain the developing person, but in
which events occur that indirectly influence processes
within the immediate setting in which the developing per-
son lives. (Bronfenbrenner, 1993, p. 24)
The particular exosystem that Steinberg et al. (1995)
undertook to investigate was “ the network of families
that develops through the child’s peer relationships,”
more specifically, “ the parenting practices of their
peers’ parents” (p. 450). The investigators’ analyses led
to a series of interrelated findings as shown in these
two examples:
Adolescents whose friends’ parents are authoritative earn
higher grades in school, spend more time on home-
work . . . have more positive perceptions of their academic
competence, and report lower levels of delinquency and
substance use.
Adolescents whose parents are already more authorita-
tive appear to benefit more from membership in a peer
network with other authoritatively reared youngsters than
do adolescents in similar networks, but from less authori-
tative homes. It appears that adolescents need certain
“ home advantages” in order to be able to take advantage of
the social capital in their social networks. (Steinberg
et al., 1995, pp. 452–453)
Presumably, even an ecological model can only be
taken so far, but Steinberg and his colleagues appear to
be trying to push it to its limits—their next analysis
moves from the parental network of the adolescent’s
peers to the neighborhood’s level of social integration.
The measure of integration was based on a series of
questions about parents’ contact with their children’s
friends, participation in community and social activi-
ties, and ties to other families in the neighborhood. An
analysis of the data revealed a modest effect of neigh-
borhood integration on ado-lescent development. How-
ever, this finding was qualified in an important way that
refocused attention on the key role played by family
processes. In the author’s words:
When we reran these analyses separately in neighbor-
hoods characterized by a high proportion of effective ver-
sus noneffective parents, we find that . . . social
integration only benefits adolescents whose families live
in neighborhoods characterized by good parenting. Social
integration into a neighborhood characterized by a high
proportion of bad parents has a harmful effect on adoles-
cents’ school performance and behavior. (Steinberg et al.,
1995, p. 457)
A subsequent analysis revealed a second, equally
critical but not surprising qualifier: “Living in a neigh-
borhood characterized by a high degree of social inte-
gration is only beneficial to an individual
adolescent if the child’s family is also socially inte-
grated” (p. 457).
Steinberg et al.’s final analysis adds psychological
substance to social structure. By aggregating informa-
tion on parenting practices and attitudes in a neighbor-
hood, he and his associates were able to calculate a
measure of the degree of consensus among parents in a
given neighborhood. Once again, the principal finding
emerging from the analysis was conditioned by a
psychological reality:
High neighborhood consensus augments the association
between parenting and adolescent outcomes only when
the consensus is around good parenting. . . . In other
words, it is what parents agree about, not merely whether
they agree, that makes the difference. (Steinberg et al.,
1995, p. 458)
In this particular study, the investigators did not ex-
amine the extent to which the biopsychological charac-
teristics of adolescents, or of their parents, influenced

developmental processes and outcomes. Today, a grow-
ing body of researchers (e.g., Plomin, Reiss, Hethering-
ton, & Howe, 1994) claims strong evidence for the view
that individual and group differences in a wide range of
developmental outcomes are mainly driven by differ-
ences in genetic endowment (“Ability Testing,” 1992;
Plomin, 1993; Plomin & Bergeman, 1991; Plomin &
McClearn, 1993; Scarr, 1992). This claim is called into
question, however, by alternative explanations and evi-
dence based on the bioecological model (see also
Lerner, 1995, 2002, 2004a).
Nature-Nurture Reconceptualized:
A Bioecological Interpretation
The theoretical argument is set forth in a series of hy-
potheses, each accompanied by a corresponding re-
search design (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994b).
Hypothesis 1: Proximal processes raise levels of ef-
fective developmental functioning, and thereby in-
crease the proportion of individual differences
attributable to actualized genetic potential for such
outcomes. This means that heritability ( h2) will be
higher when proximal processes are strong and lower
when such processes are weak.
Hypothesis 2: Proximal processes actualize genetic
potentials both for enhancing functional competence
and for reducing degrees of dysfunction. Opera-
tionally, this means that as the level of proximal pro-
cess is increased, indexes of competence will rise,
those of dysfunction will fall, and the value of h2 will
become greater in both instances.
1. The power of proximal processes to actualize ge-
netic potentials for developmental competence (as
assessed by an increase in h2) will be greater in
advantaged and stable environments than in those
that are disadvantaged and disorganized.
2. The power of proximal processes to buffer genetic
potentials for developmental dysfunction will be
greater in disadvantaged and disorganized environ-
ments than in those that are advantaged and stable.
Hypothesis 3. If persons are exposed over extended
periods of time to settings that provide developmental
resources and encourage engagement in proximal
processes to a degree not experienced in the other
settings in their lives, then the power of proximal
processes to actualize genetic potentials for develop-
Beyond the Microsystem 819
mental competence will be greater for those living in
more disadvantaged and disorganized environments.
To test the preceding hypotheses, Bronfenbrenner and
Ceci (1994b) reviewed literature on genetic inheritance:
We have been able to find no studies of genetic inheritance
in contrasting environments that also contained data on
proximal processes and hence would permit a direct test
of the previous hypotheses. Hence, most of the available
evidence is indirect.
An indirect test can be carried out only when estimates
of heritability are reported for the same developmental
outcome in different environments. It is fortunate that
there are several studies that meet this criterion. To begin
with, both Scarr-Salapatek (1971) and Fischbein (1980)
found support for the prediction that values of h2 for IQ
would be greater in higher than in lower social class
groups. Subsequently, a group of Norwegian investigators
(Sundet, Tambs, Magnus, & Berg, 1988) undertook to
clarify a series of earlier findings regarding secular trends
over recent decades in heritability for measures of cogni-
tive functioning. Using IQ scores as outcome data, the in-
vestigators found some support for results of a previous
study of educational attainment (Heath et al., 1985) that
had shown an increase in h2 for twins born after 1940. The
trend for their mental test data, however, was considerably
weaker. The authors offered the following interpretation
of the observed similarity and contrast:
This is probably due at least partly to the fact that the
Norwegian government in the postwar period has of-
fered loans to young people seeking education, thus en-
abling youngsters with poor parents to attend higher
education. Such factors, together with a more positive
attitude toward education among poor people, would
tend to decrease the effect of familial environments and
maximize genetic potential. (Sundet et al., 1988, p. 58)14
14
Sundet (personal communication, March 17, 1993) re-
ported that, in response to a preliminary version of the article
by Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994), he and his colleagues un-
dertook a preliminary analysis that yielded the following re-
sults: “For twins with mothers having the least education, the
correlation between identical twins is .80, whereas the corre-
lation for fraternal twins is .47. For the twins having mothers
with more education, these correlations are .82 and .39, re-
spectively. As you will see, this yields a heritability estimate
of .66 for the first group, whereas it is .86 for the second
group. If I understand your [Hypothesis 2] correctly, this is in
accordance with your predictions. However, the difference
between the two DZ [dizygotic] correlations does not seem to
reach statistical significance, although it is quite near.”
820 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
There are also a number of investigations that permit
an indirect test of the hypothesized reverse pattern when
the outcome is one of developmental dysfunction. For ex-
ample, Jenkins and Smith (1990) found that the positive
effect of a good mother-child relationship on children’s
problem behavior was stronger in a troubled marriage than
in a harmonious one. More generally, in a recent review,
Rutter and Rutter (1992) concluded that the impact of pro-
tective factors in buffering developmental disorders is
greater in “circumstances of risk.” (p. 56)
This concludes Process, Person, and Context as
shapers of development, it is time to turn to Time.
TIME IN THE BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL:
MICRO-, MESO-, AND
MACROCHRONOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
Time, a defining property of the bioecological paradigm,
appears more than once in the model’s multidimensional
structure. Indeed, its first appearance, in the second
sentence of Proposition I, may have well gone unnoticed.
Following the definition of proximal processes as in-
volving progressively more complex reciprocal inter-
action, the Proposition stipulates that to be effective,
the interaction must occur on a fairly regular basis.
Why this proviso? A first indication appears in the
findings from Wachs’s research (1979) on the features
of the environment most frequently and strongly associ-
ated with individual differences in cognitive compe-
tence. Prominent among them were a physically
responsive environment, presence of sheltered areas, in-
stability and unpredictability of events, the “degree to
which the physical set-up of the home permits explo-
ration,” low level of noise and confusion, and “ the de-
gree of temporal regularity” (p. 30). As noted earlier, it
follows from such findings that proximal processes can-
not function effectively in environments that are unsta-
ble and unpredictable across space and time.
It also follows that the cumulative effects at this
mesosystem level are likely to jeopardize the course of
human development. One reason for expecting such an
escalating effect is that, at this next higher level of en-
vironmental structure, similarly disruptive characteris-
tics of interconnected microsystems tend to reinforce
each other.
The most informative research evidence bearing on
this issue comes from a longitudinal study conducted by
the Finnish psychologist, Lea Pulkkinen (1983). Begin-
ning when participating children were 8 years of age, she
investigated the effect of environmental stability and
change on the development of children through adoles-
cence and young adulthood, The “steadiness” versus “ un-
steadiness” of family living conditions was measured by
the frequency of such events as the following: the number
of family moves, changes in day care or school arrange-
ments, extent of family absence, incidence of divorce and
remarriage, and altered conditions of maternal employ-
ment. Greater instability in the family environment was
associated with greater submissiveness, aggressiveness,
anxiety, and social problems among children in later
childhood and adolescence, leading to higher risks of vio-
lence and criminal behavior in early adulthood (Pulkki-
nen, 1983; Pulkkinen & Saastamoinen, 1986). Moreover,
the factor of stability of family living conditions ap-
peared to be a stronger determinant of subsequent devel-
opment than was the family’s socioeconomic status.
Analogous findings for the contemporary U.S. scene
were obtained by Moorehouse (1986) in a study of how
stability versus change over time in the mother’s work
status during the child’s preschool years affected pat-
terns of mother-child communication, and how these
patterns in turn influenced the child’s achievement and
social behavior in the 1st year of school. A key analysis
involved a comparison between mothers who had main-
tained the same employment status over the period of
the study, and those who had changed in either direc-
tion: that is, to working more hours, fewer hours, or none
at all. The results revealed that significant effects of
work status were pronounced only in the group that had
changed their working status. Although the disruptive
impact was greatest among those mothers who had
moved into full-time employment, it was still present
even for those who had reduced their working hours or
had left the labor force. Moorehouse concluded that “in-
stability, on the whole, is associated with less favorable
school outcomes than stability” (p. 103).
In the framework of the discovery mode, we are once
again at a point where a series of findings from different
studies suggests yet another tentative formulation. The
corollary follows:
The degree of stability, consistency, and predictability
over time in any element of the systems constituting the
ecology of human development is critical for the effective
operation of the system in question. Extremes either of
disorganization or rigidity in structure or function repre-
sent danger signs for potential psychological growth, with
some intermediate degree of system flexibility constitut-
ing the optimal condition for human development. In re-
 Time in the Bioecological Model: Micro-, Meso-, and Macrochronological Systems 821

search design, this proposition points to the importance of ding research designs, and examples of relevant research
assessing the degree of stability versus instability, with findings.
respect to characteristics of Process, Person, and Context, The first principle is that of historical time and place,
at each level of the ecological system. defined by Elder as follows: The life course of individu-
als is embedded in and shaped by the historical times and
This formulation also applies at the macrolevel to the
events they experience over their life time.
dimension of Time, both during the individual’s life
History is exploited as an experiment of nature.
course, and through the historical period in which the
The corresponding research design compares groups
person has lived (see Proposition II ). It was this observa-
similar in other respects who have been exposed, ver-
tion that gave rise to the first systematic formulation of
sus not exposed, to a particular historical event; for
what was to become the ecological model of human devel-
example, Elder’s studies of the Great Depression
opment. The formulation appeared almost 4 decades ago
(Elder, 1974; also see Elder, 1998; Elder & Shanahan,
in an article entitled “Socialization and Social Class
Chapter 12, this Handbook, this volume); military
through Time and Space” (Bronfenbrenner, 1958). In that
service and actual combat in World War II and Korea
article, Bronfenbrenner reanalyzed what appeared to be
(Elder, 1986; Elder, Shanahan, & Clipp, 1994);
contradictory findings on social class differences in pat-
the Iowa farm crisis (Conger & Elder, 1994; Elder,
terns and outcomes of child rearing. The analysis reveals
King, & Conger, 1996); urban inequality (Elder,
that when the obtained results were reorganized by the
Eccles, Ardelt, & Lord, 1995); and, Elder’s most re-
years in which the data were collected, the contradictory
cent work, research on youth sent to the countryside
findings disappeared. Instead, there was a systematic
during China’s cultural revolution (Elder, Wu, &
gradual change over the period just after World War II
Jihui, 1993).
until the late 1950s, with middle-class parents moving
The second principle, called timing in lives, states that
away from originally more authoritarian patterns toward
the developmental impact of a succession of life transi-
greater permissiveness and lower-class families going in
tions or events is contingent on when they occur in a per-
the opposite direction. Changes in patterns of child rear-
son’s life.
ing over historical time and their effects on development
Here an appropriate research design is one that com-
have been recurring themes in Bronfenbrenner’s work be-
pares early versus late arrivals at a particular transition
ginning in the late 1950s (1958) and continuing up to the
with respect to their subsequent life course. For exam-
present (Bronfenbrenner, 1970, 1975, 1990, 1994; Bron-
ple, Elder et al. (1994) reanalyzed follow-up data on
fenbrenner & Crouter 1982; Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996);
subjects from Terman’s 1925 classic Genetic Studies of
but in terms of theoretical and empirical contributions
Genius (all subjects with very high IQs) and were able
this work pales in comparison with that of Elder, begin-
to show marked differences in subsequent adult develop-
ning with his classic study, Children of the Great Depres-
ment depending on early versus late entrance into mili-
sion (Elder, 1974; see also Elder & Shanahan, Chapter
tary service during wartime. Some of the costs of late
12, this Handbook, this volume).
entry include:
As Bronfenbrenner has noted, Elder’s work on life-
course development played a significant role in the formu-
lation of the original ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, • A higher risk of divorce and separation
1979a, see especially pp. 266–285 and 273–285), and has • A work life of disappointment and loss of lifetime income
exerted even greater influence on the model’s subsequent • An accelerated decline of physical health, most no-
evolution in this same domain (Bronfenbrenner, 1986a, tably after the age of 50
1986b, 1989, 1993, 1995).
Because Elder’s contributions deservedly receive ex-
On the opposite side:
tended coverage in Chapter 12, this Handbook, this vol-
ume, we confine ourselves to the four defining principles
of life-course theory as presented in a recent formulation • For many men, and especially those who entered at
(Elder, 1998),15 along with implications for correspon- an early age, military service was a recasting expe-
rience. It provided a bridge to greater opportunity
15
For an earlier, but more comprehensive account, see Elder’s and an impetus for developmental growth up to the
Chapter 16, this Handbook, this volume. middle years.
822 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
One is reminded of Brutus’s fateful choice in re-
sponse to Cassius’s urgings:
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
—Shakespeare, Julius Caesar (IV. iii. 218–221)
The third principle, linked lives, asserts that lives
are lived interdependently and social and historical in-
f luences are expressed through this network of shared
relationships.
The basic research design corresponding to this
principle involves examining the differential impact
of historical events and role transitions on different
members of the same family experiencing these
same events and transitions. In a study of mother-
daughter dyads in the broader historical context of
the societal changes in gender roles that have taken
place since World War II, Moen and Erickson (1995)
offered the following concluding comment, on the
basis of their statistical analysis of data across two
generations:
Conventional mothers embracing traditional gender roles
may find themselves with daughters who are in the van-
guard of the women’s movement. Some mothers may even
push their daughters to achieve what was impossible for
themselves. The fact that mothers and daughters experi-
ence historical events and social changes from different
vantage points means that their lives are differentially
touched by them and that their perspectives may well di-
verge. (p. 180)
Environmental changes across historical time can
produce significant developmental changes in either
direction. On the one hand, they can disrupt the timing
and duration of normative transitions during the life
course, thus interrupting the sequence of learning ex-
periences that are essential for meeting societal ex-
pectations as one gets older. On the other hand, they
can offer to the person new, at once more stable
and more challenging opportunities that enhance psy-
chological growth or even reverse a previously down-
ward course (e.g., Elder’s 1974 studies of effects
of military enlistment on young men from poverty
backgrounds).
FROM RESEARCH TO REALITY
The fourth and last of Elder’s principles of life course
development he calls human agency. It states that “indi-
viduals construct their own life course through choices
and actions they take within the opportunities and con-
straints of history and social circumstances.” A striking
example is his finding that the young men most likely to
volunteer early for service in World War II were often
those who came from the most deprived circumstances,
but then benefited the most from the opportunities of
training and experience that the military provided. Nev-
ertheless, he cautions that “Not even great talent and in-
dustry can ensure life success over adversity without
opportunities” (Elder, 1997).
Finally, to Elder’s four principles, we add a fifth,
which in effect reverses the direction of his very first
principle regarding the importance of historical changes
in shaping the course of human development. Simply
stated, the fifth principle asserts that changes over time
in the four defining properties of the bioecological
model are not only products but also producers of histor-
ical change. To spell out the argument and evidence on
which the principle is based: Periodically, since the late
1950s, Bronfenbrenner, together with colleagues, has
been publishing articles documenting changes over time
in three domains: child-rearing practices, the relation of
these practices to child outcomes, and in family demo-
graphics reported annually in the U.S. Census and other
government publications.
One report of these analyses appears in a volume en-
titled: The State of Americans: This Generation and the
Next (Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996). The book consists of
almost 300 pages and 150 graphs, but, for present pur-
poses, the principal findings can be summarized in 10
points shown in Table 14.1. Considered as a whole, the
findings constitute the basis for our proposed addition
to Elder’s four principles.
To illustrate, although proximal processes function
as the engines of development, the energy that drives
them comes from deeper sources that take us back to
the experiential world of Proposition I (Bronfenbrenner
et al., 1996; Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000; Bronfen-
brenner & Morris, 1998). Both subjective and objective
forces exert an especially strong influence on develop-
ment during the formative years (from early infancy to
young adulthood). A substantial body of research over
the past century indicates that, 2 or 3 decades ago,

TABLE 14.1 Summary of Selected Findings
1. Annual surveys over the past two decades reveal growing
cynicism and disillusionment among American youth, ref lected
in a loss of faith in others, in their government, in the basic
institutions of their society, and in themselves.
2. In the United States far greater percentages of youth and
women are victims of homicide, with rates more than 10 times
as high as those for any other developed country.
3. The young are not only likely to be the victims of murder, they
are also more likely to commit it. Youth and young adults (ages
18–25) now account for the majority of those arrested for
homicide.
4. The percentage of Americans in prison is four times higher
than in other developed countries, and the number is rising
rapidly.
5. Despite recent gains made by youth from Black families.
American high school students are still far behind those from
other developed countries in academic achievement. This
includes the top 10% of students in each nation. The trend
already threatens our productivity and capacity to compete
economically in the future.
6. The United States stands in first place in the percentage of
children growing up in single-parent families, which now
includes over a quarter of all America’s children under 6 years
of age.
7. Families with children under 6, particularly single-parent
mothers, are those who most seek—and desperately need—
a job. But they also have the highest unemployment rates. The
proportion of Black mothers working full time is much higher
than for white mothers (in 1994, 76% vs. 29%).
8. The percentage of U.S. children living in poverty today is
twice as high as that for any other developed nation.
9. Among developed nations, the incomes of rich versus poor
families are farthest apart in the United States. We are rapidly
becoming a two-class society.
10. Two-thirds of children in poverty live in families with working
adult. Less than one-third of poor families with a young child
rely solely on welfare.
We are indebted to our colleagues who, as coauthors of chapters of
the volume The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next,
provided the findings summarized in Table 14.1. Besides ourselves,
they include the following: Steven J. Ceci, Helen Hembrooke, Peter
McClelland, Phyllis Moen, Elaine Wethington, and Tara L. White.
Source: From The State of Americans: This Generation and the Next,
by U. Bronfenbrenner, P. McClelland, E. Wethington, P. Moen, and
S. J. Ceci, 1996, New York: Free Press.
these forces lay mainly in the family, with parents act-
ing as the principal caregivers and sources of emo-
tional support for their children, and with other adult
family members living in the home being next in line.
To a lesser extent, other relatives, family friends, and
neighbors also functioned in this role.
However, there has been a marked change in this pat-
tern over the past 4 decades. Parents, and other adult
family members as well, have been spending increasing
amounts of time commuting to and working at full-time
From Research to Reality 823
jobs (in which overtime is increasingly required or ex-
pected). The nature of this trend and its relevance
for human development are conveyed in the idea that
to develop—intellectually, emotionally, socially, and
morally—a child requires, for all of these, the same
thing: participation in progressively more complex ac-
tivities, on a regular basis over an extended period of
time in the child’s life, with one or more persons with
whom the child develops a strong, mutual emotional
attachment, and who are committed to the child’s well-
being and development, preferably for life (Bronfen-
brenner & Evans, 2000; Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
1998; also see Lerner, 2004b). The establishment of a
strong mutual emotional attachment leads to internal-
ization of the parent’s activities and expressed feelings
of affection. Such mutual ties motivate the child’s inter-
est and engagement in related activities in the immediate
physical, social, and—in due course—symbolic environ-
ment that invite exploration, manipulation, elaboration,
and imagination.
The establishment and maintenance of patterns of
progressively more complex interaction and emotional
attachment between parent and child depend, to a sub-
stantial degree, on the availability and involvement of
another adult, a third party, who assists, encourages,
spells off, gives status to, and expresses admiration and
affection for the person caring for and engaging in joint
activity with the child. It also helps, but is not absolutely
essential, that the third party be of the opposite sex from
that of the other person caring for the child, because this
is likely to expose and involve the child in a greater vari-
ety of developmentally instigative activities and experi-
ences (Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996). Where this is an
attachment to two or more parent figures, each can serve
as a third party to the other.
The research evidence for this idea comes mainly by
default. It was produced by demographic data document-
ing a rapid rise in the proportion of single-parent house-
holds. The trend began in the 1980s, and then continued
at an even faster rate through most of the 1990s. The
overwhelming majority of such homes were those in
which the father was absent and the mother bore pri-
mary responsibility for the upbringing of the children.
A large number of investigations of developmental
processes and outcomes in families of this kind have
since been conducted across a range of cultural and so-
cial class groups. The findings lead to two complemen-
tary conclusions:
824 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
1. Even in families living in favorable socioeconomic
circumstances, children of single-parent mothers, or
of fathers, for whom no other person is acting reli-
ably in a third party role are at greater risk for expe-
riencing one or more of the following developmental
problems: hyperactivity or withdrawal, lack of atten-
tiveness, difficulty in deferring gratification, poor
academic achievement, school misbehavior, and fre-
quent absenteeism.
2. At a more serious level, there is the so-called teenage
syndrome of behaviors that tend to be associated to-
gether: dropping out of school; involvement in so-
cially alienated or destructive peer groups; smoking,
drinking, frequent sexual experience: adolescent
pregnancy; a cynical attitude toward work; and in the
more extreme cases—drugs, suicide, vandalism, vio-
lence, and criminal acts. Most of these effects are
more pronounced for boys than for girls (Bronfen-
brenner et al., 1996).
Not all single-parent families, however, exhibited
these disturbed relationships and their disruptive ef-
fects on children’s development. Systematic studies of
the exceptions have identified what may be described as
a general immunizing factor. For example, children of
single parents were less likely to experience develop-
mental problems especially in families in which the
mother (or father) received strong support from other
adults living in the home. Also helpful were nearby rela-
tives, friends, neighbors, members of religious groups,
and, when available, staff members of family support
and child care programs. What mattered most was not
only the attention given to the child—important as this
was—but also the assistance provided to the single par-
ent or by others serving in the supportive roles previ-
ously noted. It would seem that, in the family dance, it
takes three to tango.
But dancing is not the whole story. By the 1980s, the-
ory and research in the ecology of human development
had documented an accelerating trend toward greater
permissiveness in styles of child rearing in U.S. fami-
lies. At the same time, successive scientific investiga-
tions had revealed progressively greater developmental
advantage for strategies that placed increased emphasis
on parental discipline and demand. The interpretation
that emerged from analyses of the available data sug-
gested that widespread application of these research
findings would serve as an effective response to the de-
velopmentally disruptive changes taking place in con-
temporary society.
At a more general level, the research findings reveal
growing chaos in the lives of families, in child care set-
tings, schools, peer groups, youth programs, neighbor-
hoods, workplaces, and other everyday environments in
which human beings live their lives. Such chaos inter-
rupts and undermines the formation and stability of re-
lationships and activities that are essential for
psychological growth. Moreover, many of the conditions
leading to that chaos are the often unforeseen products
of policy decisions made both in the private and in the
public sector. Today, in both of these arenas, we are con-
sidering profound economic and social changes, some of
which threaten to raise the degree of chaos to even
higher and less psychologically (and biologically) tolera-
ble levels. The most likely and earliest observed conse-
quences of such a rise are still higher levels of youth
crime and violence, teenage pregnancy and single par-
enthood,16 as well as reduced school achievement, and,
ultimately, a decline in the quality of our nation’s
human capital (Bronfenbrenner et al., 1996).
Thus, we have arrived at a point where the concerns
of basic developmental science are converging with the
most critical problems we face as a nation. That conver-
gence confronts us, both as scientists and as citizens,
with new challenges and opportunities.
THE BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL: A
DEVELOPMENTAL ASSESSMENT
In this chapter, we have undertaken two challenging
tasks, each an example of science in the discovery mode
with developmental science as its subject matter. The
first was to describe a next stage in the evolution of an
ecological theory of human development, first introduced
more than 20 years ago. The second task was unintended,
but nevertheless begun, for this chapter also documents
early steps in the design of a third-generation model.
As one of those early steps, we found it necessary to
spell out the requirements for conducting developmental
research in the discovery mode. To our knowledge, this
is a first effort to do so systematically, and may there-
16
Once again we emphasize that the relationships and activi-
ties in which parent and child are involved can override the
influence of purely demographic factors such as mother’s age
and family structure (p. 1015).

fore receive—and deserve—more criticism than any
other section in the chapter. But at least readers will
know what criteria we were trying to meet and will have
a basis for assessing the validity of the proposed strat-
egy as reflected in the more differentiated theoretical
and operational models emerging from the successive
confrontations between theory and data.
Among the more promising products of this effort is
the demonstration of the power of proximal processes as
the engines of development, and their systematic varia-
tion as a function of the characteristics of both Person
and Context. We have also presented evidence that, in
accord with specifications of the bioecological model,
different pathways through space and time lead to dif-
ferent outcomes. In this regard, distinctions between
two types of outcome appear especially relevant: (1) be-
tween outcomes of competence versus dysfunction and
(2) between activities focusing primarily on interper-
sonal relationships versus objects and symbols. A third
potentially productive contrast speaks to the question of
who develops and who doesn’t by identifying disposi-
tional characteristics of the Person that are developmen-
tally generative versus developmentally disruptive. Two
additional Person characteristics deemed consequential
for development are also distinguished and illustrated.
The first are resources in terms of ability and acquired
knowledge and skill. The second are demand character-
istics that attract or encourage progressively more com-
plex interaction. An analogous taxonomy is proposed for
the quality of environments, accompanied by illustra-
tions of their corresponding differential effects on prox-
imal processes and outcomes. In each instance, the
evolving tentative hypotheses derived from successively
more differentiated formulations based on the bioeco-
logical model are accompanied by their operational
analogs in terms of corresponding research designs and
the findings generated by them.
The discovery process points also to the scientific
need and benefit of including, in research designs for the
same subjects, two different developmental outcomes
that complement each other. For theoretical reasons de-
riving from the bioecological model, likely to be even
more productive would be the inclusion in the same re-
search design of two different, but theoretically comple-
mentary proximal processes.
Finally, in our view, the most scientifically promising
formulation emerging from the discovery process docu-
mented in this chapter is easily stated, but it is also one
that presents the greatest theoretical challenge:
References 825
The four defining components of the bioecological model
should be theoretically related to each other and to the de-
velopmental outcomes under investigation. This means
that the choice of variables to represent each of the defin-
ing properties should be based on explicit assumptions
about their presumed interrelations.
This may seem a disappointing conclusion for so long
an exposition. Perhaps, even more in developmental sci-
ence than in other fields, the pathways to discovery are
not easy to find. The trails are not marked, there are
many dead ends, the journey is far longer than expected,
and at the end, little may be there. What counts is what
one learns along the way and passes on to future explor-
ers of the uncharted terrain. Here are some final ideas
for those of you whose work will fill the future land-
scape of developmental science. At this still early mo-
ment in the twenty-first century, we are left with a
troubling question: From the perspective of the bioeco-
logical model, what is the prospect for the future devel-
opment of our species? The answer to that question lies
with the willingness of the United States and other eco-
nomically developed countries to heed the emerging les-
sons of developmental science. At the moment, it is
difficult to know what the answer will be. The future
could go either way. Given this alternative, it becomes
the responsibility of developmental science to communi-
cate such knowledge as we possess, and to do so in
words that can still find an echo. Here is a first draft:
In the United States it is now possible for a youth, female
as well as male, to graduate from high school, or univer-
sity, without ever caring for a baby; without ever looking
after someone who was ill, old, or lonely; or without com-
forting or assisting another human being who really
needed help. The developmental consequences of such a
deprivation of human experience have not as yet been sci-
entifically researched. But the possible social implications
are obvious, for—sooner or later, and usually sooner—all
of us suffer illness, loneliness, and the need for help, com-
fort, and companionship. No society can long sustain it-
self unless its members have learned the sensitivities,
motivations, and skills involved in assisting and caring for
other human beings.
REFERENCES
Ability testing [Special section]. (1992). Psychological Science,
3, 266 –278.
Ainsworth, M. D., Blehar, M. C., Waters, I., & Wall, S. (1978). Pat-
terns of attachment: A Psychological Study of the Strange Situa-
tion. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
826 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
Allport, G. W. (1937). Personality: A psychosocial interpretation.
New York: Holt.
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of be-
havior change. Psychological Review, 84, 191–215.
Bandura, A. (1982). Self-efficacy mechanism in human agency.
American Psychologist, 37, 122–147.
Beckwith, L., & Cohen, S. E. (1984). Home environment and
cognitive competence in preterm children during the first 5
years. In Allen W. Gottfried (Ed.), Home environment and
early cognitive development (pp. 235–271). New York: Aca-
demic Press.
Beckwith, L., Rodning, C., & Cohen, S. (1992). Preterm children
at early adolescence and continuity and discontinuity in mater-
nal responsiveness from infancy. Child Development, 63,
1198–1208.
Bergman, L. R., Cairns, R. B., Nilsson, L.-G., & Nysted, L. (Eds.).
(2000). Developmental science and the holistic approach. Mah-
wah. NJ: Erlbaum.
Block, J., Block, J. H., & Keyes, S. (1988). Longitudinally foretelling
drug usage in adolescence: Early childhood personality and envi-
ronmental precursors. Child Development, 59, 336–355.
Block, J. H., & Block, J. (1980). The role of ego-control and ego-re-
siliency in the organization of behavior. In W. A. Collins (Ed.),
Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology (Vol. 13, pp. 39–101).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Booth, C. L., Rose-Krasnor, L., McKinnon, J., & Rubin, K. H. (1994).
Predicting social adjustment in middle childhood: The role of pre-
school attachment security and maternal style. Social Develop-
ment, 3(3), 189–204.
Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. New
York: Basic Books.
Bowlby, J. (1973). Attachment and loss: Vol. 2. Separation. New York:
Basic Books.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1958). Socialization and social class through
time and space. In E. E. Maccoby, T. M. Newcomb, & E. L. Hart-
ley (Eds.), Readings in social psychology (pp. 400–425). New
York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1970). Children and parents (Report of Forum
15, pp. 241–255). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing
Office.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Developmental research, public policy,
and the ecology of childhood. Child Development, 45, 1–5.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1975). Reality and research in the ecology of
human development. Proceedings of the American Philosophical
Society, 119, 439–469.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977a). Lewian space and ecological substance.
Journal of Social Issues, 33, 199–212.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977b). Toward an experimental ecology of
human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–531.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979a). Contexts of child rearing. American
Psychologist, 34, 844–858.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979b). The ecology of human development: Ex-
periments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1981). Die Oekologie der menschlichen Ent-
wicklung. Stuttgart, Germany: Klett-Cotta.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986a, July 23). A generation in jeopardy: Amer-
ica’s hidden family policy. Testimony presented to the committee
on Rules and Administration, Washington, DC.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1986b). Recent advances in research on the ecol-
ogy of human development. In R. K. Silbereisen, K. Eyferth, & G.
Rudinger (Eds.), Development as action in context: Problem be-
havior and normal youth development (pp. 286–309). New York:
Springer-Verlag.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989a). Ecological systems theory. In R. Vasta
(Ed.), Annals of child development: Six theories of child develop-
ment-Revised formulations and current issues (pp. 187–249). Lon-
don: JAI Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989b). The ecology of the family as a context
for human development: Research perspectives. Developmental
Psychology, 22, 723–742.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989c). Who cares for children? Paris: United
Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1990). Oekologische sozialisationsforschung.
In L. Kurse, C.-F. Graumann, & E.-D. Lantermann (Eds.),
Oekologische psychologie: Ein handbuch in schlusselbegrif fen
(pp. 76–79). Munich, Germany: Psychologie Verlags Union.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1992). Child care in the Anglo-Saxon mode. In
M. E. Lamb, K. J. Sternberg, C. P. Hwang, & A. G. Broberg (Eds.),
Child care in context (pp. 281–291). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1993). The ecology of cognitive development:
Research models and fugitive findings. In R. H. Wozniak & K.
Fischer (Eds.), Scientific environments (pp. 3–44). Hillsdale, NJ:
Erlbaum.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological models of human develop-
ment. In T. Husen & T. N. Postlethwaite (Eds.), International en-
cyclopedia of education (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 1643–1647). Oxford,
England: Pergamon Press/ Elsevier Science.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space
and time: A future perspective. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder Jr., & K.
Lüscher (Eds.), Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the
ecology of human development (pp. 619–648). Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (2005). Making human beings human. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1993). Heredity, environment and
the question “How?”: A new theoretical perspective for the
1990s. In R. Plomin & G. E. McClearn (Eds.), Nature, nurture,
and psychology (pp. 313–324). Washington, DC: American Psy-
chological Association.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994a). Nature-nurture reconcep-
tualized: A bioecological model. Psychological Review, 101,
568–586.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994b). “The Bell Curve”: Are
today’s “New Interpreters” espousing yesterday’s science? Unpub-
lished manuscript, Cornell University, Department of Human De-
velopment and Family Studies, Ithaca, NY.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Crouter, A. C. (1982). Work and family
through time and space. In S. Kamerman & C. D. Hayes (Eds.),
Children in a changing world (pp. 39–83). Washington, DC: Na-
tional Academy Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Crouter, A. C. (1983). The evolution of en-
vironmental models in developmental research. In W. Kessen
(Series Ed.) & P. H. Mussen (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psy-
chology: Vol. 1. History, theory, and methods (4th ed.,
pp. 357–414). New York: Wiley.
Bronfenbrenner U., & Evans, G. W. (2000). Developmental science
in the 21st century: Emerging questions, theoretical models, re-

search designs, and empirical findings. Social Development,
9(1), 15–25.
Bronfenbrenner, U., McClelland, P., Wethington, E., Moen, P., &
Ceci, S. J. (1996). The state of Americans: This generation and
the next. New York: Free Press.
Bronfenbrenner U., & Morris, P. A. (1998). The ecology of develop-
mental processes. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psy-
chology (5th ed., Vol. 1, pp. 993–1028). New York: Wiley.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Neville, P. R. (1994). America’s children and
families: An international perspective. In S. L. Kagan &
B. Weissbourd (Eds.), Putting families first (pp. 3–27). San Fran-
cisco: Jossey-Bass.
Cairns, R. B. (1970). Towards a unified science of development. Con-
temporary Psychology, 15, 214–215.
Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. D. (1994). Lifelines and risks: Pathways
to youth in our time. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Cohen, S. E., & Beckwith, L. (1979). Preterm infant interaction with
the caregiver in the first year of life and competence at age two.
Child Development, 50, 767–776.
Cohen, S. E., Beckwith, L., & Parmelee, A. H. (1978). Receptive lan-
guage development in preterm children as related to caregiver-
child interaction. Pediatrics, 61, 16–20.
Cohen, S. E., & Parmelee, A. H. (1983). Prediction of 5-year Stanford-
Binet scores in preterm infants. Child Development, 54, 1242–1253.
Cohen, S. E., Parmelee, A. H., Beckwith, L., & Sigman, M. (1986).
Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, 7, 102–110.
Cole, M. (1995). Culture and cognitive development: From cross-cul-
tural research to creating systems of cultural mediation. Culture
and Psychology, 1, 25–54.
Conger, R. D., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (1994). Families in troubled times:
Adapting to change in rural America. Chicago: Aldine de Gruyter.
Connolly, J. A., & Doyle, A. (1984). Relation of social fantasy play to
social competence in preschoolers. Developmental Psychology,
20, 797–806.
Drillien, C. M. (1957). The social and economic factors affecting the
incidence of premature birth. Journal of Obstetrical Gynecology,
British Empire, 64, 161–184.
Drillien, C. M. (1964). Growth and development of the prematurely
born infant. Edinburgh, Scotland: Livingstone.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1974). Children of the great depression. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1986). Military times and turning points in men’s
lives. Developmental Psychology, 22, 233–245.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1998). Life course and development. In W. Damon
(Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child
psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th
ed., pp. 1–24). New York: Wiley.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Eccles, J. S., Ardelt, M., & Lord, S. (1995). Inner city
parents under economic pressure: Perspectives on the strategies of
parenting. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 57, 771–784.
Elder, G. H., Jr., King, V., & Conger, R. D. (1996). Intergenera-
tional continuity and changes in rural lives: Historical and
developmental insights. International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 10, 439–466.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Shanahan, M. J., & Clipp, E. C. (1994). When war
comes to men’s lives: Life course patterns in family, work, and
health. Psychology and Aging, 9, 5–16.
References 827
Elder, G. H., Jr., Van Nguyen, T. V., & Caspi, A. (1985). Linking fam-
ily hardship to children’s lives. Child Development, 56, 361–375.
Elder, G. H., Jr., Wu, W., & Jihui, Y. (1993). State-initiated change
and the life course in Shanghai, China (Unpublished project re-
port). Chapel Hill, NC: Carolina Population Center.
Fischbein, S. (1980). IQ and social class. Intelligence, 4, 51–63.
Garmezy, N., & Rutter M. (1983). Stress, coping, and development in
children. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Heath, A. C., Berg, K., Eaves, L. J., Solaas, M. H., Corey, L. A., Sun-
det, J., et al. (1985). Educational policy and the heritability of ed-
ucational attainment. Nature, 314, 734–736.
Hetherington, E. M., & Clingempeel, W. G. (1992). Coping with mar-
ital transitions. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child
Development, 57(2/3).
Jenkins, J. M., & Smith, M. A. (1990). Factors protecting children liv-
ing in disharmonious homes: Maternal reports. Journal of the
American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 29, 60–69.
Kohn, M. L., & Slomczynski, K. M. (1990). Social structure and self-
direction: A comparative analysis of the United States and Poland.
Oxford, England: Basil Blackwell.
Langer, E. J., & Rodin, J. (1976). The effects of choice and enhanced
personal responsibility for the aged: A field experiment in an in-
stitutional setting. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
34, 191–198.
Lerner, R. M. (1982). Children and adolescents as producers of their
own development. Developmental Review, 2, 342–370.
Lerner, R. M. (1995). The limits of biological inf luence: Behavioral
genetics as the emperor’s new clothes [Review of the book The
limits of family inf luence]. Psychological Inquiry, 6, 145–156.
Lerner, R. M. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development
(3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lerner, R. M. (2004a). Genes and the promotion of positive human
development: Hereditarian versus developmental systems per-
spectives. In C. Garcia Coll, E. Bearer, & R. M. Lerner (Eds.),
Nature and nurture: The complex interplay of genetic and environ-
mental inf luences on human behavior and development (pp. 1–33).
Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lerner, R. M. (2004b). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among
America’s youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lerner, R. M., & Busch-Rossnagel, N. A. (Eds.). (1981). Individual as
producers of their development: A life-span perspective. New York:
Academic Press.
MacDonald, K., & Parke, R. D. (1984). Bridging the gap: Parent-
child play interaction and peer interactive competence. Child De-
velopment, 55, 1265–1277.
Main, M., & Weston, D. R. (1981). The quality of the toddler’s rela-
tionship to mother and to father: Related to conf lict behavior and
the readiness to establish new relationships. Child Development,
52, 932–940.
Marrow, A. J. (1977). The practical theorist: The life and work of
Kurt Lewin. New York: Teachers College Press.
May, M. A. (1932). The foundations of personality. In P. S. Achilles
(Ed.), Psychology at work (pp. 81–101). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. Chicago: University of
Chicago Press.
Moen, P., & Erickson, M. A. (1995). Linked lives: A transgenera-
tional approach to resilience. In P. Moen, G. H. Elder Jr., & K.
Luscher (Eds.), Examining lives in context: Perspectives on the
828 The Bioecological Model of Human Development
ecology of human development (pp. 169–210). Washington, DC:
American Psychological Association.
Moorehouse, M. (1986). The relationships among continuity in mater-
nal employment, parent-child communicative activities, and the
child’s social competence. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cor-
nell University, Ithaca, NY.
Pastor, D. L. (1981). The quality of the mother-infant interaction and
its relationship to toddlers’ initial sociability with peers. Devel-
opmental Psychology, 17(3), 326–335.
Plomin, R. (1993). Nature and nurture: Perspective and prospect. In
R. Plomin & G. E. McClearn (Eds.), Nature, nurture, and psy-
chology (pp. 459–486). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Plomin, R., & Bergeman, C. S. (1991). The nature of nurture: Genetic
inf luence on “environmental” measures. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 4, 373–427.
Plomin, R., & McClearn, G. E. (Eds.). (1993). Nature, nurture, and
psychology. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Plomin, R., Reiss, D., Hetherington, E. M., & Howe, G. W. (1994).
Nature and nurture: Genetic contributions to measures of the
family environment. Developmental Psychology, 30, 32–43.
Pulkkinen, L. (1983). Finland: The search for alternatives to aggres-
sion. In A. P. Goldstein & M. Segall (Eds.), Aggression in global
perspective (pp. 104–144). New York: Pergamon Press.
Pulkkinen, L., & Saastamoinen, M. (1986). Cross-cultural perspec-
tives on youth violence. In S. J. Apter & A. P. Goldstein (Eds.),
Youth violence: Programs and prospects (pp. 262–281). New York:
Pergamon Press.
Riksen-Walraven, J. M. (1978). Effects of caregiver behavior on ha-
bituation rate and self-efficacy in infants. International Journal
of Behavioral Development, 1, 105–130.
Rodin, J., & Langer, E. J. (1977). Long-term effects of a control-rele-
vant intervention with the institutionalized aged. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 35, 897–902.
Rotter, J. (1966). Generalized expectancies for internal versus exter-
nal locus of control of reinforcement. Psychological Monographs:
General and Applied, 80, 1–28.
Rutter, M., & Rutter, M. (1992). Developing minds: Challenge and
continuity across the life span. New York: Penguin Books.
Scarr, S. (1992). Developmental theories for the 1990s: Development
and individual differences. Child Development, 63, 1–19.
Scarr-Salapatek, S. (1971). Race, social class, and IQ. Science,
174, 1285–1295.
Small, S., & Luster, T. (1990, November). Youth at risk for parent-
hood. Paper presented at the Creating Caring Communities Con-
ference, Michigan State University, East Lansing.
Sroufe, L. A. (1990). An organizational perspective on the self. In D.
Cicchetti & M. Beeghly (Eds.), The self in transition: Infancy to
childhood (pp. 281–307). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Sroufe, L. A., Fox, N. E., & Pancake, V. R. (1983). Attachment and
dependency in developmental perspective. Child Development,
54, 1615–1627.
Steinberg, L., Darling, N. E., & Fletcher, A. C. (1995). Authorita-
tive parenting and adolescent adjustment: An ecological journey.
In P. Moen, G. H. Elder Jr., & K. Luscher (Eds.), Examining
lives in context: Perspectives on the ecology of human develop-
ment (pp. 423–466). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Sundet, J. M., Tambs, K., Magnus, P., & Berg, K. (1988). On the
question of secular trends in the heritability of intelligence test
scores: A study of Norwegian twins. Intelligence, 12, 47–59.
Terman, L. M. (1925). Genetic studies of genius: Vol. 1. Mental and
physical traits of a thousand gifted children. Stanford, CA: Stan-
ford University Press.
Tobach, E. (1981). Evolutionary aspects of the activity of the organ-
ism and its development. In R. M. Lerner & N. A. Busch-Ross-
nagel (Eds.), Individuals as producers of their development: A
life-span perspective (pp. 37–68). New York: Academic Press.
Tobach, E., & Schneirla, T. C. (1968). The biopsychology of social
behavior of animals. In R. E. Cooke & S. Levin (Eds.), Biologic
basis of pediatric practice (pp. 68–82). New York: McGraw-
Hill.
Tulkin, S. R. (1973). Social class differences in infants’ reactions
to mothers’ and stranger’s voices. Developmental Psychology, 8(1),
137.
Tulkin, S. R. (1977). Social class differences in maternal and infant
behavior. In P. H. Leiderman, A. Rosenfeld, & S. R. Tulkin
(Eds.), Culture and infancy (pp. 495–537). New York: Academic
Press.
Tulkin, S. R., & Cohler, B. J. (1973). Child-rearing attitudes and
mother-child interaction in the first year of life. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 19, 95–106.
Tulkin, S. R., & Covitz, F. E. (1975, April). Mother-infant inter-
action and intellectual functioning at age six. Paper presented at
the meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development,
Denver, CO.
Tulkin, S. R., & Kagan, J. (1972). Mother-child interaction in the
first year of life. Child Development, 43, 31–41.
Turner, P. J. (1991). Relations between attachment, gender, and behav-
ior with peers in preschool. Child Development, 62, 1475–1488.
Wachs, T. D. (1979). Proximal experience and early cognitive intel-
lectual development: The physical environment. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 25, 3–42.
Wachs, T. D. (1987a). The short-term stability of aggregated and
non-aggregated measures of infant behavior. Child Development,
58, 796–797.
Wachs, T. D. (1987b). Specificity of environmental action as mani-
fest in environmental correlates of infant’s mastery motivation.
Developmental Psychology, 23, 782–790.
Wachs, T. D. (1989). The nature of the physical microenvironment:
An expanded classification system. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly,
35, 399–402.
Wachs, T. D. (1990). Must the physical environment be mediated by the
social environment in order to inf luence development: A further
test. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 11, 163–170.
Wachs, T. D. (1991). Environmental considerations in studies with
non-extreme groups. In T. D. Wachs & R. Plomin (Eds.), Con-
ceptualization and measurement of organism-environment inter-
action (pp. 44–67). Washington, DC: American Psychological
Association.
Wachs, T. D., & Chan, A. (1986). Specificity of environmental ac-
tions as seen in physical and social environment correlates of
three aspects of 12-month infants’ communication performance.
Child Development, 57, 1464–1475.
CHAPTER 15
Phenomenology and Ecological Systems
Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
MARGARET BEALE SPENCER
INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE: A NEED FOR
NEW THEORY 830
CONCEPTUAL SHORTSIGHTEDNESS IN THE
STUDY OF DIVERSE YOUTH: CHILDREN OF
COLOR AND PRIVILEGE 833
Flaw One: Context Ignored 833
Flaw Two: Racism Ignored 836
Flaw Three: General Lack of a Developmental
Perspective When Considering Youth of Color 838
Summary 843
PHENOMENOLOGICAL VARIANT OF ECOLOGICAL
SYSTEMS THEORY: MULTIDISCIPLINARY,
DYNAMIC, SYSTEMIC INFLUENCES, AND
PROCESSES OF A SYNTHESIZED RECURSIVE
FRAMEWORK 844
The Foundational Role of Social Cognition and Linkages
to Phenomenology: Inference-Making, Perceptions,
and Youths’ Everyday Experiences 844
Systems Framework in an Ecological System 847
CROSS-CUTTING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
THEMES OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL VARIANT
OF ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY: SALIENT
FOR THE DESIGN OF INTERVENTIONS AND THE
INTERPRETATION OF COPING OUTCOMES 853
Importance of Broad Cultural Inclusiveness
and Context 854
ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES: EXPLORING THE
BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL 864
Ecological Systems Theory 865
TWENTIETH-CENTURY SOCIAL SCIENCE
ASSUMPTIONS AND PRACTICES, JUDICIAL
DECISIONS, AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS FOR THE
NET VULNERABILITY OF DIVERSE YOUTH 868
This chapter’s organization serves to capture the dis-
tinctive contributions of phenomenological variant of
ecological systems theory (PVEST) to available human
development theorizing. Thus, following a brief intro-
ductory section, we provide a full presentation of the
PVEST framework, and, although applying it to the pre-
829
Inferences, Assumptions, and What Brown v. Board of
Education Should Have Considered: Contemporary
Implications for Research, Practice, and
Theorizing 868
Traditional Assumptions, Beliefs, and Values: The
Conceptual Benefits of a Phenomenological Variant
of Ecological Systems Theory Framework 872
Cross-Disciplinary Contributions from Legal Studies 874
AN EXAMPLE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND
TH E ACHIEVEMENT GAP: AN INTERFACE OF
STIGMATIZING CONTEXT, REACTIVE
COPING RESPONSES, AND TH E “ACTING
WHITE” MYTH 878
Historical Overview of African American
Achievement Motivation 879
Black Response to Freedom: A Social Movement
for Education 880
RACISM AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT 883
CONCLUSIONS AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL
VARIANT OF ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY
INFLUENCED INTERPRETATIONS OF YOUTHS’
STAGE-SPECIFIC COPING OUTCOMES AS A
FUNCTION OF NET VULNERABILITY 885
Conceptual Advantages of Phenomenological Variant of
Ecological Systems Theory as a Dual Axis Coping
Outcome Interpretational Framework of Human
Development: Traditional and Limited Dual
Axis Perspectives 886
Predicting Positive Outcomes in the Face
of Challenge 887
REFERENCES 888
school through adolescence period, introduce PVEST as
a life-span model of human development. The next sec-
tion demonstrates why the theory promotes an identity-
focused cultural ecological (ICE) perspective. It
reviews (a) the fact of human vulnerability (i.e., the
presence of both risks and protective factors), ( b) the
830 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
normative experience of stress, (c) the need for reactive
coping responses, (d) the role of emergent (stable) iden-
tities, and (e) the links with the unavoidability of stage-
specific and patterned coping outcomes. As lives unfold
over time, stage-specific coping outcomes contribute to
the next period’s level of vulnerability. Thus, we also il-
lustrate the dynamic character of PVEST. As a system
of experiences, the interpretation of patterned outcomes
(i.e., referred to as culture) are described as having im-
portant implications for group experiences (e.g., as
stigma, bias, or privilege) or individual supportive mod-
els for emulation (e.g., character development).
To illustrate the themes noted and as a strategy for
comparing and contrasting the experiences of diverse
groups of youths, the third section affords an examina-
tion of several cross-cutting themes of human develop-
ment established by the recursive character of PVEST,
which exemplifies the connectedness between individ-
ual characteristics and context interactions.
We point out that by diverse youth, we refer to all eth-
nicities and races (i.e., unless we specify—diverse youth
of color). This clarification is critically important be-
cause Whites are often not considered under diversity
labels, given a frequent assumption that they represent
the norm rather than one ethnic experience among
many. The primary point is that, all groups have distinc-
tive histories and responsive traditions that evolve into
both unique yet similar cultural patterns. Accordingly, a
major influence described throughout the chapter for di-
verse youth is the impact of distinctive conditions for
each and the role of history.
The fourth section utilizes the 1954 Supreme Court
decision in Brown v. Board of Education for highlighting
and indicating the impact of policy change and its role in
determining long-term youth experiences generally and
schooling specifically. Additionally, the interactions be-
tween context and culture are presented and the contri-
butions of critical race theory (CRT) explored for
describing the individual-context-process links for
White youth. In parallel fashion, the implications of
White privilege for some and the implications of its ab-
sence for others is analyzed.
The fifth section provides an illustration of the recur-
sive processes for African American male adolescents
as an example for understanding their stage-specific
coping outcomes as a function of vulnerability (i.e., bal-
ance between risks and protective factors) as demon-
strated from a PVEST perspective. Finally, the sixth
section of the chapter describes the distinct interpreta-
tional advantages of the PVEST framework and high-
lights competing traditional frameworks while also ex-
plaining their limitations.
INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE:
A NEED FOR NEW THEORY
An inclusive framework for understanding life-course
development is long overdue. The narrowness of views
concerning inclusiveness have made such a framework,
at best, an illusive goal for child development. As used
here, the term inclusive refers to a perspective relevant
to the contextual and cultural experiences of diverse
groups. Thus, an inclusive framework suggests an au-
thentic rendering of developmental processes for humans
considered diverse as a function of characteristics such
as race, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, immi-
gration status, faith community, skin color, and nativity.
PVEST (Spencer, 1995) provides a developmental,
process-oriented, and context-sensitive focus. Thus, it af-
fords unique conceptual contributions to developmental
psychology, specifically, and to the field of human de-
velopment, more broadly. As a systems theory, PVEST
considers and includes the prior emphases noted along
with a combined concern with culture, as lived and ex-
perienced at multiple levels of the environment, and in-
dividuals’ own perceptions. Similar to Glen Elder’s
(1974) sociohistorical analysis of the impact of the
Great Depression on human development, the PVEST
framework acknowledges as a central tenet the historical
and contemporary impact of social policy (e.g., the
Brown v. Board of Education decision or the significant
immigration policy shifts) on the social, cultural, and
political context for the nation’s diverse youth and their
families. Considered together, the theory’s value em-
anates from simultaneous attentiveness to (a) multiple
layers of the environment, ( b) normal human processes
that unfold in varied settings with multiple others, (c)
historical factors and social policy that are associated
with long-standing and contemporary structural condi-
tions and social relations, and (d) cultural sensitivity to
the traditional ways the authentic everyday experience
of human development in context is interpreted.
The specific combination and integration of factors
indicated improves our understanding about the how of
life-course human development while it acknowledges
both behavioral and genetic perspectives (e.g., Spencer
& Harpalani, 2004). Accordingly, as a systems frame-

work that takes into account the individual’s perspec-
tive, or phenomenology (see Rogers’ perspective as re-
viewed in Schultz, 1976), PVEST affords specificity
about the individual-context-process nexus as suggested
by Bronfenbrenner’s (1977, 1989, 1992, 1993) ecologi-
cal systems theory. The integration imparts significant
benefits. Foremost, given its linkages to both observed
and perceived context features, the framework provides
enhanced understanding of foundational processes and
stage-specific outcomes of diverse groups and individu-
als (see Spencer & Harpalani, 2004). Specifically, as
indicated, it enhances the interpretation of disparate ap-
pearing developmental patterns and outcomes by expli-
cating the how of development for diverse groups (a)
sharing what appears to be the same space and opportu-
nities, ( b) attempting behavioral responses to seemingly
parallel human development tasks and stage-specific ex-
pectations for competence, but frequently (c) demon-
strating disparate behavioral outcomes in response to
myriad challenges.
This chapter is intended to provide an updated de-
scription and explanation of PVEST, first published a
decade ago (Spencer, 1995). Given the 10-year interim,
this update is informed by dozens of empirical publica-
tions that describe analyses designed to demonstrate
components of the systems theory (e.g., Fegley, Spencer,
Goss, Harpalani, & Charles, in press; Spencer, Dupree,
Cunningham, Harpalani, Munoz-Miller, 2003; Spencer,
Dupree, Swanson, & Cunningham, 1996, 1998; Spencer,
Fegley, & Harpalani, 2003; Swanson, Spencer, Dell’An-
gelo, Harpalani, & Spencer, 2002). Additional pub-
lished work utilizes the theory for clarifying conceptual
themes and relationships (e.g., Lee, Spencer, &
Harpalani, 2003; Spencer, Dupree, & Hartmann, 1997;
Spencer & Harpalani, 2004; Spencer & Jones-Walker,
2004). Finally, qualitative analyses derived from PVEST
(i.e., either single-method studies or multimethod publi-
cations that include empirical demonstrations) provide
helpful illustrations. Multimethod publications augment
and make obvious speculative theoretical linkages by
providing the voices or expressed meaning-making of
young people themselves (e.g., Spencer, Silver, Seaton,
Tucker, Cunningham, & Harpalani, 2001; Youngblood &
Spencer, 2002).
This current and updated version of PVEST is consis-
tent with established associations demonstrated between
young children’s normal cognitive, affectual, and social-
developmental processes (e.g., Spencer, 1982, 1983,
1985, 1990). It reasserts the important foundational role
Introduction and Rationale: A Need for New Theory 831
of perceptual processes in development (e.g., social cog-
nition; children’s theory of mind) and reinforces the
need to integrate a phenomenological perspective (see
Rogers & Kelly as reviewed in Schultz, 1976) to (a) ex-
plain life-course developmental processes and thematic
outcomes, ( b) explicate the role of cultural traditions, (c)
specify the contribution of history ( both for immigrants
and more long-term and indigenous groups; [see John-
son-Powell & Yamamoto, 1997]), and (d) indicate the
critical contributions of context quality for individual-
context interactions. The expanded description of con-
text this model allows specifies how the role of historical
factors is important at several levels, and it acknowl-
edges individual differences in levels of vulnerability
(i.e., the presence of risk and protective factors). The
framework also enhances the interpretation of varied
outcomes (i.e., productive and unproductive) experi-
enced by diverse group members as each transitions
across contexts (see Figure 15.1). Additionally, the
framework focuses on the roles mediating processes play
between vulnerability levels and the coping outcomes in-
dividuals experience as they transition across the life
course. The processes provide illumination as individu-
als confront both unique challenges and contextual
provocation (see Lee et al., 2003) while attending to the
sets of normative life-course developmental tasks ini-
tially described by Havighurst (1953).
Frequently, when attempting to disentangle and in-
terpret the complexities of the multiple coping trajecto-
ries possible, given the normative character of the
developmental tasks noted, several important contribut-
ing factors are usually overlooked. For example, vulner-
ability is often assumed to be the presence of risks only
without an acknowledgment of protective factors. Worse
yet, particular outcomes are assumed for specific
groups. For example, unproductive outcomes are tacit
expectations for marginalized groups (see Figure 15.2).
Coping Outcomes
Net Vulnerability Level Unproductive Productive
Risks Protective
Factors
Figure 15.1 Deterministic thinking: Traditionally linear
hypothesized relationship between youth characteristics and
outcomes.
832 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Coping Outcomes
Net Vulnerability Unproductive Productive
Risks Protective
Factors
Figure 15.2 Deficit emphasizing: Perspective generally as-
sumed a priori for minorities.
In the first published rendering of the theory, only
risks were explicitly indicated, although the buffering
power of protective factors was inferred. However, given
ongoing readings of the literature, a pattern has emerged.
Assumptions of productive outcomes and successes (i.e.,
as the standard applied to all) have often been implied for
those considered to be empowered (i.e., males, middle-
income people, and generally Caucasians). Even if vulner-
ability is acknowledged and coping products are specified
for privileged youth, there is often a narrow focusing on
only productive outcomes and success. This results in a
degree of conceptual shortsightedness, which produces
very deterministic analyses, as suggested by Figure 15.1.
Another pattern, however, is also evident. For those youth
perceived as marginal individuals (i.e., African Ameri-
cans, low-resource persons, Hispanics or subgroups of
Asian Americans—e.g., Hmong), too much emphasis is
often placed on unproductive coping products. Given the
lack of economic viability that often exists in communi-
ties where marginalized individuals live, countless protec-
tive factors matter but are often overlooked. Protective
factors as buffers have important implications for overall
level of vulnerability. Unfortunately, as suggested, protec-
tive factors are neither assumed nor frequently explored
for those perceived as marginal.
Identity processes, as either the product of basic tem-
perament and/or particular socialization experiences,
have been shown to serve specific protective functions
(e.g., Spencer, 1983, 1988). Unfortunately, except for
the copious self-esteem studies, they are infrequently in-
ferred and considered in research and theorizing about in-
dividual vulnerability level. Thus, as suggested in Figure
15.3, this chapter and suggested framework also consider
the numerous unique and shared protective factors avail-
able to and accessed by diverse youth.
Accordingly, several essential factors are emphasized
that allude to both risks and protective factors that are
Coping Outcomes
Net Vulnerability Unproductive Productive
Risks Protective
Factors
Figure 15.3 Creating new inclusive theorizing requires an-
alyzing both protective factor presence as well as the nuanced
character of risks (e.g., unacknowledged privilege).
generally ignored even though they certainly contribute
to a priori assumptions and inferences made about the
vulnerability of individuals and groups. Moreover, they
are often overlooked in the conduct of basic develop-
mental science. They are not only included here but also
especially highlighted because they represent core per-
spectives and contribute to specific social dynamics,
which include: (a) social stigma—the disparagement of
groups and individuals based solely on particular person
characteristics (e.g., color, race/ethnicity, immigration
status, religion, and social class; see Jaret, 1995); ( b)
privilege—the unacknowledged advantaging of some
that places others at a distinct disadvantage (see Ig-
natiev, 1995; McIntosh, 1989); and (c) persistent eco-
nomic and social inequities—the unfair burden and
challenge to specific individuals, families or groups (see
Darity & Myers, 1998; Jarrett, 1994, 1995).
When all three are considered together, the combina-
tion suggests the salient contributions of CRT for the ex-
plicitly broadened framework. Although these themes
have always been implicit in our view of the theory’s
many strengths, the specific integration and inclusion of
CRT allows for a more productive consideration of race.
Originating in legal scholarship, CRT explicates how the
use of policies upheld by laws but shaped by biases and
perspectives concerning race are not unimportant to the
unfolding life course (e.g., Bonilla-Silva, 2001). CRT—
the perspective acknowledging the historical centrality
and involvement of law in upholding White supremacy
and associated hierarchies of gender, sexual orientation,
immigration, faith community, and social class (see
Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995)—illus-
trates how law and policy are frequently shaped by race.
All have important implications for the flaws that con-
tinue to hamper our research efforts to understand both
the processes and outcomes, which promote and protect
the well-being and development of diverse youth.
 Conceptual Shortsightedness in the Study of Diverse Youth: Children of Color and Privilege
CONCEPTUAL SHORTSIGHTEDNESS IN
THE STUDY OF DIVERSE YOUTH:
CHILDREN OF COLOR AND PRIVILEGE
Shortsighted and erroneous perspectives about diverse
youth fall into two major categories. The first major cat-
egorical error suggests that Caucasian children (i.e., or
assumptions about their development) represent the
standard of normalcy for all others. This group is most
often the subject of normative studies conducted in de-
velopmental and social sciences. The second category of
conceptual errors represents the perceptions about mi-
nority status youth or youth of color and their assumed
atypicality. This shortsightedness also includes refer-
ences used to describe the group itself: Given the
changes in American population statistics, the grouping
previously referred to as minorities is moving toward
majority status and—although not widely—has more re-
cently been referred to as AHAANA (Asian, Hispanic,
African American, and Native American). An aspect of
the privileged status associated with Caucasians is that
even the term diversity or diverse youth, unfortunately,
inconsistently elicits images of Whites. Frequently, ref-
erencing diversity suggests a concern with adding mi-
norities to a particular issue or task. For example, the
role of diversity task forces is often to highlight issues
that are inclusive of non-Whites. Implicit in the designa-
tion is that, without a gentle reminder, the tradition is to
ignore non-Whites: Whites are assumed to represent nor-
mative development themes, and minorities (or the poor)
are highlighted when adversity, pathology, deviance, or
problems are of topical interest.
In this chapter, we evoke a different approach. We use
the term diverse youth in this chapter to include both Eu-
ropean American (Caucasian) and AHAANA (frequently
marginalized) youth. Unlike the narrow and exclusively
positive connotations associated solely with European
Americans (Caucasians) and the more limited (and gen-
erally negative) imagery linked with diverse youths’ of
color representation in the social sciences generally and
developmental science specifically, we posit a strategy
that acknowledges several major conceptual defects that
our proposed framework seeks to remedy.
Flaw One: Context Ignored
First, as consistently shared (e.g., Spencer 1985, 1995;
Spencer et al., 2006), ecology has been frequently viewed
as a nonissue in the consideration of human development.
833
Context has also been ignored. This appears particularly
relevant, when context creates a source of consonance
(i.e., inferences of mainly support), or, in contrast, dis-
sonance (i.e., a lack of individual-environment fit). Thus,
when behavioral outcomes are viewed as problematic, the
pattern has been to not consider the context, but to infer
a relational pattern that localizes the problem in the indi-
vidual. As suggested, negative inferences have more
often than not been localized around human development
experiences assumed for youth of color (see Kardiner &
Ovesey’s, 1951, Mark of Oppression; Pettigrew’s, 1964,
Profile of the Negro American). The position of these
treatises has been consistent in either pathologizing indi-
viduals or positing a style of analysis that associates par-
ticular behavioral patterns with specific characteristics
of settings (see Elliott Liebow’s 1968 classic sociologi-
cal statement Tally’s Corner). An acknowledgment that
these early and significant social science contributions
never placed the burden on a socially constructed context
is important. Rather, more often than not, problematic
behavioral correlates reported or inferred were linked
with or credited to individuals who happened to live in
those contexts. The consistent assumption communicated
was that the pathology of the individuals themselves cre-
ated the untoward character of the settings, however, at
the same time, enlightened and more sophisticated
analyses were available.
The critical and long-term insights provided by early
ecological psychologists such as Roger Barker, Herbert
Wright, and Paul Gump (see Barker & Wright, 1949,
1954; Gump & Sutton-Smith, 1955; Wright, 1967), and
later broadened and refined by Urie Bronfenbrenner
(see Bronfenbrenner, 1985, 1992, 1993; Bronfenbrenner
& Crouter, 1983), existed and continue to provide criti-
cal insights. Fieldwork by ecological psychologists in
the United States and England obtained definitive find-
ings concerning the reciprocal links between the indi-
vidual and context: Conceptual contributions by
Bronfenbrenner illustrated the indisputable interactions,
and space psychologists such as Joachim Wohlwill
(Wohlwill, 1985; Wohlwill & Heft, 1987) clearly expli-
cated the reciprocal links further. Considered together,
given the different though parallel methodological and
conceptual strategies, they quite persuasively linked in-
dividual experiences with context character.
Relatedly, if the character of context is socially con-
structed (i.e., given provisions and omissions of support
as policy decisions and social traditions), then, from a
CRT perspective, policies concerning (a) the owning of
834 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
slaves, ( b) the separations imposed on slave families
(i.e., separating fathers from mothers and children), (c)
the use of immigrants and slaves for free labor (see
Baron, 1971), and (d) the framed policies and enacted
traditions to limit the education of slave children (see
Spencer, Cross, et al., 2003) or import immigrant men
only as free laborers had long-term consequences: The
attendant decisions virtually guaranteed contextual con-
ditions as stigma-producing and peculiar situations that
would foster problems for subsequent generations ( both
for those deemed marginal and those—although unac-
knowledged—deemed privileged). Accordingly, and as
suggested by the examples provided, the observations
noted have special import to diverse youth of color and
their families.
Frequently, these youngsters’ development is as-
sumed to be and studied as if it emanates from a vac-
uum of experience. Inferences about diverse youths’ of
color development associated with broad structural,
physical, historical, and social contexts as well as inher-
ited conditions are overlooked. CRT’s emphasis on the
methods by which attitudes about race influence deci-
sions in the U.S. court system aids in excoriating the
shortsightedness concerning guarantees of equity and
equality of experience. However, in the social sciences
and child development literatures, the unequal condi-
tions and historical circumstances that diverse youth
have inherited, grown up with, and psychologically de-
veloped in response to are, for the most part, inade-
quately considered or totally ignored. For example,
considered as oversights are the numerous manifesta-
tions of symbolic and structural racism, economic
hardships, social inequities, and related barriers that
appear to characterize the environments encountered by
children and youth of color. Moreover, their stage of
development (i.e., cognition-based meaning-making
processes) determines the level of sophistication con-
cerning their own inferences about their situation. Fur-
ther, given vulnerability level as a function of cultural
socialization, parental monitoring, and other available
protective factors, diverse youth reactively cope in
ways that may be either facilitating or exacerbating.
Protective factors often remain unnoticed in the de-
sign and conduct of developmental science, even though
an anthropologist would never purport to engage in
field-based research without knowing something about
the group of interest. This knowledge is assumed to go
significantly beyond self-esteem knowledge (i.e., the
construct of choice by many social scientists). Unfortu-
nately, the implicit, conceptually intrusive, although un-
appreciated, prevalent mind-set by scholars in develop-
mental psychology is that macrolevel conditions experi-
enced at the micro-, meso-, and exolevels of social
ecologies (i.e., generally reported as sample demograph-
ics) do not deserve serious attention. However, enough
research, conceptual frameworks, and new theories
demonstrate not if but how much these factors matter in
the lives of children.
Further, the resistant and limiting shortsightedness
described suggests that when these factors are brought
to conscious awareness through journal policies and fed-
eral funding initiatives, the impact of the many levels of
ecologies described by Bronfenbrenner (1979) and oth-
ers persist as merely acknowledged (i.e., as statistically
manipulated control variables), but not as factors that
impact the questions posed, balanced character of the
samples (or not), and constructs identified and mea-
sured. Moreover, there has been a general disregard for
individuals’ own perceptions and meanings made from
the multiple ecologies traversed, contexts psychologi-
cally experienced (see Steele, 1997; Steele & Aronson,
1995), and limitations explicitly and subtly imposed
(see Chestang, 1972). Perceptions have important impli-
cations for emotional reactions and subsequent analyses
inferred as human processes that fuel reactive (see
Stevenson, 1997) and stable repetitive coping responses.
Patterns of shortsightedness remain for those producers
of science following 3 decades of cogent critiques,
which highlighted major methodological and conceptual
shortcomings of the research enterprise (e.g., Banks,
1976; Guthrie, 1976). For example, the continuing use
of uneven comparison groups (e.g., low-income diverse
youth compared to middle-income European American
samples) has implications for the interpretation of find-
ings and perpetuation of social stigma (see Steele, 1997;
Steele & Aronson, 1995).
Frequently, the conceptual problems described ap-
pear to be resistant to change. Even when the problem of
unequal samples is not an issue, the measurement of
identified variables is frequently insufficient. Identified
variables and measures lack psychometric integrity
across diverse groups, and inferred meanings represent
an unaddressed conundrum: Constructs may lack con-
ceptual validity (i.e., meanings may not be shared).
Often, particular group members’ experiences at the
microsystem level may vary, given individual-context
linked challenges, coping requirements (i.e., the degree
to which social dissonance or consonance is experi-
enced), and reactive coping strategy availability (see
Stevenson, 1997). Further, because many research ini-
 Conceptual Shortsightedness in the Study of Diverse Youth: Children of Color and Privilege
tiatives are well-funded as large multisite, longitudinal
data-gathering enterprises, particularly for young inves-
tigators and dissertating students, strong encouragement
is provided or incentives are made available for second-
ary data analytic options—no matter how ill-conceived
the study. Consequently, the predominance of inade-
quate conceptualizations and data interpretations re-
mains in the literature for significant periods.
Deficit Perspectives and Stigma about Diverse
Youth of Color
As suggested in Figure 15.2, research that depicts di-
verse youth of color’s development in the context of
family, school, community, and broader macrostruc-
tural determined conditions continues to be highly
deficit-oriented. For over a 50-year period, presented
through a deficit-oriented, linear, and deterministic
conceptual lens, diverse youth of color were shortsight-
edly viewed as pathological products of oppression
(e.g., Kardiner & Ovesey, 1951), where only the nega-
tive outcomes associated with some of these youth were
studied. Such myopic tendencies continue to this day.
The resiliency—health and mastery demonstrated in
high-risk environments—associated with many youths’
coping efforts remains generally ignored. As noted in
Figure 15.2, the monolithic perspective about youths’
experiences is not only deterministic in nature but also
ignores the resilience of those who do succeed in spite
of tremendous barriers. Given recent discourse on the
topic of resiliency, the penchant to ignore resiliency
may be an effort to underemphasize the contributions of
socially constructed conditions that privilege some and
undermine others (see Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000), thus,
making particular diverse youths’ developmental tasks
difficult, at best, or a double quandary, at worst (see
Boykin & Ellison, 1995).
For some, perhaps a triple quandary is more accurate
when the special burden of gender is added and consid-
ered for African American male youths’ experiences
(Boykin, 1986). In addition to the chronic struggles that
are linked to race, ethnicity (see Allen, Spencer, &
Brookins, 1985; LaFromboise, 1988; Spencer, 1990;
Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990; Spencer & Dorn-
busch, 1990), and immigration status (Huang, 1989;
Liu, Yu, Chang, & Fernandez, 1990), socioeconomic
challenges frequently remain. Importantly, these chal-
lenges appear endemic, persistent, and are associated
with parenting conditions (i.e., work, housing and
neighborhood adequacy, stable relationships, and par-
enting time availability); they also present unique diffi-
835
culties for adults caring for the very young (Jarrett,
1994, 1995) through to the middle childhood period
(McLoyd, 1990). They may be further imperiled by bi-
culturalism efforts (LaFromboise, Coleman, & Gerton,
1993). Struggles experienced include those that are en-
countered not only at home (Boyd-Franklin, 1989;
Boykin & Toms, 1985) but also at school (Ladson-
Billings, 1994; Lee et al., 2003). Their impact may be
exacerbated by gender when experienced by girls under
dense and unsafe conditions (e.g., Ladner, 1972). Al-
though such struggles are particularly difficult for
males given the more valued status enjoyed by most
males in the majority of the globe, thus providing high
expectations for all males without necessarily condi-
tions of attendant supports (Nanda, 1974). Problematic
structural conditions persist, yet the majority of young
diverse youth of color manage to cope adaptively, al-
though their efforts are infrequently recognized and
factored into the design of research, selection of con-
structs, specific questions posed, or the interpretation
of findings.
Accordingly, a priori assumptions about diverse
youth of color infer risks alone without also emphasizing
and exploring the presence of protective factors. More-
over, the frequent focus on risks and their linkages to
problems leads social scientists to assume only unpro-
ductive and homogeneous outcomes and labels such as
castelike minorities (see Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu,
1985; and critiques by Spencer, 2001; Spencer, Cross,
et al., 2003; Spencer & Harpalani, under review). The
shortsighted perspective and concomitant assumptions
fuel deterministic assumptions, which may reinforce
stereotypes (see Figure 15.2). Although infrequently
acknowledged for privileged youngsters (i.e., middle-
income Caucasians), all humans are vulnerable at some
level (i.e., burdened with risks and buoyed by protective
factors). However, as suggested previously in Figure
15.1, the degree of vulnerability can be determined only
from an appreciation of both risks and protective fac-
tors. A narrow assessment of high vulnerability that is
associated with socially constructed risk conditions but
which frequently ignores protective factors epitomize
poor science. There is a specific need to also understand
available protective factors to achieve an accurate un-
derstanding and assessment of vulnerability (Luther &
Becker, 2002; Luther & Latendresse, 2002).
An analogy from the pharmaceutical sciences is eas-
ily understood because the public would not use, or the
medical establishment designate, a drug regimen without
also understanding the other “ knowns” or protective
836 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
factors concerning its intended use. For example, infor-
mation related to safety and protection might include
(a) establishing the number of milligrams of the drug’s
active ingredient per kilogram of the user’s body
weight, ( b) possessing no known allergies to the drug,
(c) not taking other drugs known to cause untoward in-
teractions with the drug intended for use, and (d) lack-
ing the presence of concomitant medical conditions for
which the drug would be counter-indicated (e.g., a preg-
nant woman drinking alcohol during the pregnancy).
This illustration is helpful given scientific knowledge
concerning the teratogenic influence of many over the
counter, nonprescription drugs (e.g., aspirin and motion
sickness remedies) on prenatal and neonatal develop-
ment (Note: Teratogenic substances are those found to
have an adverse impact on fetus and infant health,
growth, and development). Thus, it is not a new perspec-
tive to undertake thorough understandings about individ-
ual and group vulnerability in some fields. This is done
by contemplating both anticipated risks and protective
factors. This procedure appears relevant irrespective of
a specific issue (e.g., applying for a job, contemplating a
vision screen for contact lenses or laser surgery, consid-
ering a medicinal regimen for health maintenance, or
contemplating marriage). Curiously so, and as illus-
trated, a decision-making style that bears in mind both
risks and protective factors appears less prevalent when
inferences concerning race, ethnicity, and socioeco-
nomic disparity themes are at issue.
Unfortunately, for diverse youth of color, simplistic
analyses and dependence on risk characteristics are
most often the norm rather than the analytic exception.
As suggested, the approach is not only ultimately
stereotype-dependent but also tends to produce or rein-
force further stigma and stereotyping. In presenting al-
ternative and inclusive theorizing, we propose an
improved and nuanced analysis. The conceptual strategy
described suggests improved interpretations of dis-
parate findings frequently obtained for youth who ap-
pear to share family, school, and neighborhood contexts.
Additionally, a more analytic approach that recognizes,
incorporates for consideration, and specifically eluci-
dates the role of protective factors in youths’ lives might
facilitate improved understandings about high-risk pres-
ence along with patterns of positive coping outcomes
(i.e., resiliency). The suggested approach might aid the
identification of culture-sensitive and context-linked
supports and remedies. In sum, for youth of color, social
scientists too frequently err on the side of negative, lin-
ear, and deterministic thinking (i.e., high risks are
linked narrowly and often solely with untoward expecta-
tions). Figure 15.1 noted another deterministic pattern
used in the consideration of European American youths’
experiences.
As reported, the prevalent although simplistic per-
spective noted in Figure 15.2 leaves the analogous issues
ignored among European American youth (e.g., teen
pregnancy and abortion use, White male aggression, and
high suicide rates). Further, when pursuing remedies for
enhancing productive youthful outcomes, the situation
described (i.e., overlooking protective factors) for di-
verse youth of color leaves practitioners with the narrow
and erroneous assumption that untoward outcomes can
be remedied from a one-size-fits-all perspective. As
suggested by Figure 15.3, assumptions about inherent
protective factor presence and a total absence of ac-
knowledged risks (i.e., in the case of privileged youth)
may exacerbate vulnerability level. Examples from Lit-
tleton, Colorado, manifested by the Columbine High
School killings by upper middle-income European
American youths, clearly demonstrate the downside of
privilege and reaffirm the salience of adaptive coping
skills for promoting healthy identity processes and
stage-specific competence (refer to Figure 15.3). Un-
doubtedly, the appearance of resilience among low-
income, immigrants, and minority youth is not well-
studied and is often misunderstood or overlooked (e.g.,
Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) as illustrated by Ogbu’s “act-
ing White” assertions concerning patterns of under-
achievement for some African American and Hispanic
youth. Unfortunately, given its broad presence in the
popular media, Ogbu’s (1985) limited perspective fre-
quently reinforces stigmatizing and stereotyping beliefs
without affording an understanding of the outcomes and
mediating processes. As suggested, this penchant is
most evident when matters of race, ethnicity, and social
class are at issue. CRT would suggest that assumptions
concerning each are frequently made and impair the pos-
sibility of equitable treatment.
Flaw Two: Racism Ignored
Unaddressed contextual and psychological issues such as
racism and class inequities may potentially impact child
and adolescent perceptions of self, others, and decision
making about the current coping responses expected and
required given normative and unique challenges; also in-
fluenced are preparations for future life prospects. In
parallel fashion, although there are a few recent excep-
tions (e.g., Luthar, 2003; McIntosh, 1989), beliefs about
 Conceptual Shortsightedness in the Study of Diverse Youth: Children of Color and Privilege
privilege (or its absence) are seldom acknowledged and
considered in the conceptualization and conduct of re-
search on European American youth, while behaviors
such as off-time sexual activity, behavior problems, un-
derachievement, and aggressiveness are emphasized for
youth of color.
As stated previously, endemic and long-term
economic and social barriers are ignored frequently,
leaving to be inferred that all problems are inherent
in the individual. Further, and most important, the
unacknowledged social consonance (i.e., optimal
individual-context fit) frequently experienced by Euro-
pean Americans, given race-associated privileges, are
imposed as the norm and expressed as the outcomes ex-
pected for all. Although for youth of color, supports af-
forded from protective factors (e.g., prior cultural
socialization experiences including church engagement
and very close parental monitoring) and manifested in-
dividual or family level resiliency factors evident are in-
frequently assumed. Critically important, the social
construction of inequality through discounting the in-
equities noted within and between groups is infrequently
recognized. They are not only unacknowledged but also
often overlooked in the actual design of research and
programming efforts. Worse, they are ignored in the
evaluation of programs and attendant social policy de-
velopment. Published review papers often list egregious
scientific shortcomings (see Fisher et al. 2002); how-
ever, the challenges implied for their continuing pres-
ence and utilization in the making of public policy are
seldom actually acted on as sanctions—when consider-
ing “ what ” gets funded, which research strategies are
modeled, why there is a continuing general absence of
research professors of color in academia, and how stu-
dents are taught to understand the issues. Not only do
programs of research and attendant publications con-
tinue to ignore the conceptual concerns identified thus
far but also fail, as indicated, to consider the special rel-
evance for White youths’ developmental experience.
The issue of privilege is foundationally important par-
ticularly to the human development of Western youth.
The absence of dissonance or appearance of maximal and
patterned social consonance (i.e., maximized individual-
context fit) may compromise the normal development of
important coping skills (i.e., the handling of normative
concerns and the responses to unique challenges) and
healthy identity processes among these youths. Positive
coping skills are important life-course acquisitions be-
cause they provide psychological protection and stability
across time and place given the unavoidable, develop-
837
mental, and countless challenges that accompany youths’
pursuit of competence in response to stage-specific de-
velopmental tasks (see Havighurst, 1953). Moreover, the
lack of an authentic identity that is linked to stable cop-
ing processes may have implications for the character of
contexts enjoyed (or not) by others; this is particularly
important given the universal life course need to cope ef-
fectively with stage-specific challenges and to maintain
balance, even when not generally expected. Even after
“objective needs” have been satisfied, Robert White elo-
quently describes the importance of “effectance” moti-
vation in responding to the need to have an impact on the
outside world (i.e., to demonstrate competence; R.
White, 1959, 1960). Such a need has also been described
as personal causation (see DeCharms, 1968). In sum, vo-
litional history matters and a history of effective coping
has implications for life-course demonstrated compe-
tence given numerous unique and normative challenges.
An important challenge for many youngsters has been
significant changes in family structure (e.g., increase in
two-parent working families for European Americans
and fewer three-generational family systems for youth
of color).
Hetherington and Kelly (2003) and others have been
prolific in describing the impact of divorce as a source of
challenge for European American youth. Inferred is that
a lack of experience with challenges and stress may have
implications for the development of support-accessing
abilities and the acquisition, honing, and exercise of ad-
equate coping skills. Although generally not addressed
in youth development studies, a consistently elevated
pattern of completed suicide rates for European Ameri-
can males has not provoked the cause for alarm that the
statistics and their stability over decades actually de-
serve. Given the economic, social, and developmental
specific supports particularly available for European
American males irrespective of social class versus youth
of color (see Sullivan, 1989), broad research efforts fo-
cused on understanding this pattern’s etiology failed to
solve the conundrum. As tallied across 5 decades in half-
decade analyses by Carroll and Tyler (2001) for the pe-
riod 1940 to 1989, there are no differences for the 25- to
34-year age range between Black and White males. This
period represents the highest peak for Black young adult
males, however, suicide rates begin sooner and continue
to increase through age 85 for European Americans. At
that age, the average reported rate indicates three times
the rate evidenced in the early adult years. When analyz-
ing the data trends, Carroll and Tyler (under review) sug-
gest a gender by race interaction in the maladaptive
838 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
response to stress. At the same time, even though Euro-
pean American males continue to enjoy the most lucra-
tive life-course averages, when earnings and number of
years of education completed are considered over the
several decades of the life course, these males have a
surprisingly high suicide rate. Although, attention has
been paid to the change in peak level of completed sui-
cides for Black young adult males (see Joe & Kaplan,
2002), the lack of anxiety or explanation for the parallel
lines of data for European Americans when compared
against average life income, cumulative education
achieved, and completed suicides considered together
and examined over several decades is cause for alarm.
Flaw Three: General Lack of a Developmental
Perspective When Considering Youth of Color
As indicated, the developmental literature dispropor-
tionately focuses on the experiences of European Amer-
icans. Alternatively (as suggested by Figure 15.2),
theorizing about youth of color frequently underexam-
ines developmental processes and overemphasizes risk
factors and unproductive stage-specific outcomes (e.g.,
early pregnancy, disproportionate incarceration rates,
school failure, and aggression). The thematic patterns
are both interesting and troublesome because the nor-
mative developmental thematic stressors experienced by
youth of color, such as off-timed physical and social
maturation and peer pressure issues, may be com-
pounded by context character factors that are associated
with racial stigma and color-linked traditions that
assume equality of experience and exposures (see
Spencer, 1985; Spencer & Dornbusch, 1990; Spencer &
Markstom-Adams, 1990). Normative child and adoles-
cent developmental processes, such as early maturation,
when considered in conjunction with encounters of race
and economic disparities (e.g., lack of job availability
for parents, under-funded schools, unsafe neighbor-
hoods, inadequate schooling opportunities, and unac-
knowledged racism) suggest inordinately stressful
contexts for achieving healthy normative social experi-
mentation opportunities necessary for development.
Such conditions would be expected to have implications
for phenomena such as off-timed pregnancies, juvenile
justice contact, and underachievement in school. Yet,
apart from a few exceptions (see Spencer et al., 2001),
these perspectives are seldom acknowledged in publica-
tions on the topic. In short, developmental, process-ori-
ented, and context-linked analyses are not emphasized
for youth of color. Alternatively, for European Ameri-
can youth, the concomitant stress and challenges associ-
ated with unacknowledged privilege and its downside
(e.g., inadequate coping opportunities that may be
linked with high rates of male suicides), unfortunately,
are seldom integrated into conceptual formulations of
development. Certainly, as indicated, the implications of
the latter for the development of coping skills remain an
oversight in child psychology. The absence of publica-
tions on the downside of privilege is clearly demon-
strated when considering the several examples of
school-based killings. These occasions are made similar
given the unexpected demographics of the perpetrators;
one of the more recent examples, as noted, was the
killings of fellow students at Columbine High School by
three youth from economically well-endowed families
and communities that were unaware of the threat within.
Domains of Human Development and Competence
Social science research with youth often lacks both cul-
tural understandings (see Lee et al., 2003) and aware-
ness of the af fective component in cognitive functioning
generally (e.g., see DeCharms, 1968) and social compe-
tence formation specifically (i.e., effectance motiva-
tion; R. White, 1959, 1960). The shortcomings are
evident both in the design and the interpretation of
scholarship on youth of color. Similarly, a general over-
sight of cultural inclusiveness, including lived privilege
as culture as experienced by White youth, is lacking.
Minority children and adolescents developing in con-
texts defined by a unique family structure and sets
of cultural practices are (a) generally not well under-
stood, ( b) behaviorally misinterpreted, (c) burdened
with demonizing assumptions, and (d) frequently absent
from developmental science concerned with normative
human processes. The oversights have implications for
schooling experiences (i.e., both for the training of
teaching and administrative professionals), and the
general context-linked socialization experiences of rele-
vance for competence formation and human develop-
ment more broadly. To sum, conceptually inclusive
approaches to developmental science have important so-
cietal implications regarding how policies are framed
and implemented, how contexts are structured, and how
socializing adults (e.g., teachers, administrators, and
service providers) actually deliver the supports intended
for youth of color. Good science representative of the
breadth of human experiences facilitates the best prac-
tices and policies. Accordingly, needed are viable and
 Conceptual Shortsightedness in the Study of Diverse Youth: Children of Color and Privilege
broadly inclusive approaches to child development for
use in maximizing the best possible youth outcomes.
Need for Inclusive Approaches to
Human Development
Particularly during childhood and adolescence, exposure
to social factors experienced as challenges (e.g., social
stigma)—particularly those creating bias (i.e., whether
inferred collectively by the group or experienced
individually)—are important. Further, they have explana-
tory relevance for interpreting individuals’ stage-specific
outcomes. For example, the function and experience of
negative teacher perceptions experienced by youth help
explain performance disparities documented both be-
tween and within diverse groups (see Spencer, 1999a;
Spencer & Harpalani, under review; Steele, 1997). For a
significant length of time, inferences about teachers have
aided the interpretation of gender differences in achieve-
ment findings for European American students (see
Dweck, 1978). Dweck’s research findings suggest that in
the primary grades, European American female students
tend to internalize failure and externalize success. The
opposite pattern has been observed for elementary school
boys who learn early on to internalize success and exter-
nalize failure. The findings are in keeping with observa-
tions that boys and girls have very different school
experiences (Irvine, 1988).
Because elementary teachers are often female,
Dweck’s (1978) findings suggest that female teachers
may be more accurate when anticipating and evaluat-
ing the behaviors of girls. Alternatively, boys tend to
learn that elementary school teachers are in error at
least half of the time when providing evaluative feed-
back to them. Dweck (1978) suggests that boys
compensate by “discounting” the feedback and “cele-
brating” their successes by crediting only themselves.
However, although not included in her study, other
conceptual analyses would suggest a quite different
pattern if investigating the experiences of male youth
of color (see Irvine, 1988). These youngsters have the
added task of sorting out the contribution of teachers’
racial attitudes and bias that become intertwined with
academic evaluation and behavioral feedback. Minus a
few exceptions (e.g., Dweck, 1978; Ladson-Billings,
1994), student characteristics as linked with feedback
patterns, unfortunately, are infrequently and not seri-
ously considered as part of the context for evaluating
the competence and character of youths’ social
relations.
839
Inferred or intended bias may serve both conscious
and unconscious roles in human relations. Bias repre-
sents frequently unacknowledged adverse beliefs about
particular individuals and is often experienced as the
invisible elephant in the room in that it potentially cre-
ates extreme emotional discomfort. The emotional re-
sponse may be apparent and different for those either
recognizing its presence or feigning its absence. Im-
portantly, as described by Chestang (1972), in either
case, the emotional reaction to the experience poten-
tially compromises stage-specific character formation
(i.e., as either specifically patterned behavioral re-
sponses or developmental processes more generally).
In many ways, given gradually emerging cognitive
schemas beginning at infancy, the emotional response
may be not unlike the experience of marasmus (failure
to thrive syndrome). For infants, this syndrome sug-
gests an expressive response to inadequate emotional
or physical care. Alternatively, when applied to the ex-
perience of adults with highly vulnerable infants,
Kennell, Trause, and Klaus (1975) have described the
difficulties encountered in emotionally bonding with
infants deemed terminally ill and not expected to sur-
vive; in such cases, interventions are needed for maxi-
mizing infant-caregiver bonding. Accordingly, when
considering social relations between and among adults
and children, the presence of bias may not only serve as
a source of negative stereotyping and shame for some
but also, as described by McIntosh (1989), may afford
disproportionate protective factors (i.e., conceptual-
ized as privilege) for others. Thus, barring a few excep-
tions (e.g., Spencer, Brookins, & Allen, 1985), the
dilemmas of individual-context consonance for some
(e.g., the privileging experiences afforded some Euro-
pean American youth) and the psychological experi-
ence of social dissonance for others (i.e., more often
than not, experiences of youths of color; see Chestang,
1972) are not equivalent. The conundrum remains inad-
equately integrated and considered in psychology’s
mainstream journals and for most theorizing about
human development particularly for diverse youth,
specifically those of color (see Spencer, 1999). This
conceptual shortcoming (i.e., of interpretation and ulti-
mate planned support as social policy and innovative
program design) has implications for generalized
human development enhancement, basic human rights
infractions, and social justice. Specifically, when de-
scribing diverse populations, the oversight has salient
implications for the design of precise policy, the
840 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
incentive structure in support of best practices, the in-
terpretations made of evaluation study outcomes, the
character and process of juvenile justice system-based
experiences and consequences, and decision-making
processes about basic programs of research to be sup-
ported (e.g., the actual types and sets of questions
posed). The specific points of view espoused in this
chapter support greater conceptual inclusiveness that
goes beyond the mere inclusion of diverse samples in a
study’s design or program of research. As suggested,
good human development theorizing representing real
time and valid human development experiences of
diverse groups and their members serves important
interpretational and decision-making functions. As a
strategy, it impacts the quality of child development
and youth outcomes through implicit social engineering
as social policy. Such a strategy provides ways of artic-
ulating challenges and specifying precise supports re-
quired for facilitating best practices (i.e., as policy and
application) while at the same time altering deleterious
contexts that interfere with the promotion of produc-
tive coping methods, which maximize the various ex-
pressions of positive youth outcomes as reactive coping
practices and stable healthy identities.
Particularly for highly stigmatized groups, within-
group variation is seldom acknowledged and, instead,
homogeneity is often assumed. In contrast, between-
group differences frequently serve to further marginal-
ize or stigmatize outliers (i.e., those performing
significantly outside the mean). The sources of variabil-
ity observed both within and between groups are broad
and may be due to multiple human characteristics or
contextual experiences that operate as processes and
mediate between an individual’s vulnerability level and
stage-specific coping outcome. For example, high per-
formance associated with privilege may be a valid ex-
planation for some; alternatively, high performance for
youth of color may be due to significant levels of adap-
tive coping and resilience. The implications of each may
be different when individuals of each type are con-
fronted with similar challenges and equivalent supports.
Resilient youth may get better scaffolding from extra
supports, already have a history of dealing with chal-
lenges, and thus, possess well-developed coping skills.
However, the same level of challenge for privileged
youth may be more disconcerting than expected because
a history of privileging experiences would not afford
similar opportunities for the developing of multiple cop-
ing strategies. Similarly, responses to a standard level of
support may be different as a function of privileged in-
dividuals’ level of personal vulnerability, which, histor-
ically, may not have been an issue if maximized support
had remained the standard. However, with the standard
of support, perhaps, being lowered to a level different
from individual history, individual vulnerability charac-
teristics might provide ways of explaining expected dif-
ferences. Discussion and exploration of such
within-group variation is infrequently addressed for
Caucasian youth. Variation of responses to challenge for
youth of color is generally not sought and perhaps is un-
dermined by the very design of research studies (e.g.,
given the frequent comparison of middle-income Euro-
pean American youth with low-income youth of color).
Accordingly, when considering either within- or
between-group differences, an individual’s accrued
vulnerability represents the balance between risks and
available protective factors. On the one hand, risk
types have implications for the character of challenges
that one experiences or anticipates. On the other hand,
protective factors may vary, ranging from the intergen-
erational sharing of cultural traditions to unusually
high levels of accumulated wealth. Obviously, both
would demonstrate different manifestations as each
serves as a source of support. Further, it is important to
acknowledge that both types of protective factors (e.g.,
cultural socialization versus intergenerational trans-
mitted accumulated wealth) have important implica-
tions for both the specific nature of anticipated
supports available and their character (e.g., stability
and persistency or internal versus external origin).
Risks and protective factors may take a variety of
forms given variations in race/ethnicity, gender, faith
community, body type, immigration status, skin color,
privilege, health quality or disability status, cultural tra-
ditions, social class, and temperament. All are linked to
the character of the context and the individual’s history
of experiences and even the group’s history in the nation
(e.g., generational experiences of immigrants as newcom-
ers and long-term adaptations of indigeneous groups such
as Native Americans, Hispanic, and African American
youth and families). When experienced as challenges or
supports, the sources of variation within or between
groups may be biologically inherent (e.g., due to the heri-
tability of temperament, skin color, or body type) or so-
cially constructed (e.g., beliefs and biases concerning
race/ethnicity, social class, and physical attractiveness).
When considered together, as suggested, the noted basis
of variation represents potential sources of risk or protec-
 Conceptual Shortsightedness in the Study of Diverse Youth: Children of Color and Privilege
Coping Outcomes
Net Vulnerability Unproductive Productive
Risks Protective
Factors
? also considered (e.g., see Spencer, 1982, 1983, 1985;
Figure 15.4 Non-deterministic theorizing: Acknowledges
intervening mediating/moderating processes thus illustrating
potentially diverse outcomes given unique individual-context-
process interactions.
tion that are associated with some level of human vulner-
ability. The actual character of individual vulnerability is
unavoidably associated with the nature of the context and
its provision of either excessive challenges or supports.
The level of vulnerability has implications for achieving
stage-specific manifested competence (White, 1959,
1960), resiliency (Anthony, 1974, 1987; Luthar, 2003), or
under-development. In addition, and as described in Fig-
ure 15.4 as an example of nondeterministic theorizing,
generally ignored or inadequately recognized (i.e., par-
ticularly as it relates to child development and adolescent
experiences) is an emphasis and acknowledgment of the
individual’s awareness of (cognition-dependent) percep-
tions and stage-specific meaning-making processes.
Mediating Processes between Vulnerability and
Coping Outcomes
From our conceptual perspective (as illustrated in Figure
15.4), we hypothesize that intervening processes between
vulnerability level and coping outcomes go beyond an
understanding of the “what” of the individual-context re-
lationship. A focus on the mediating processes aids in ex-
plaining the “how” of development (Spencer & Harpalani,
2004), not merely the “what,” as eloquently illustrated by
Bronfenbrenner’s model (Bronfenbrenner, 1989). Individ-
uals’ awareness of (cognition-dependent) perceptions and
stage-specific meaning-making processes afford the con-
sideration of critical inferences salient for understanding
youths’ coping and identity-formation processes. Further,
it is the socially linked and maturation-based variability
841
of youths’ cognition dependent perceptions that supports
the acquisition of unavoidable awareness of their own (i.e.,
assumed internal states) and social others’ perspectives.
For example, research on children’s awareness of race as a
social category (i.e., understandings or knowledge about
race) assessed frequently as racial attitudes and prefer-
ence behavior demonstrate the complexity of youthful
meaning-making when cognition-dependent awareness is
Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990). Specifically, the in-
sight affords greater understanding about the unfolding
processes of child and adolescent cognitive, social, and af-
fective capacities when linked with context-linked chal-
lenges (e.g., race biased treatment), given varying degrees
of human vulnerability (i.e., countless levels of race-
associated contextual risks versus privilege-associated,
Caucasian-linked protective factors). Characteristics of
the context observed as numerous patterns of stable condi-
tions and the inferred meanings made about them are not
lost on youth. Accordingly, PVEST as a context-linked
systems framework goes beyond merely linking human
vulnerability (i.e., risk considered against protective fac-
tors) linearly and deterministically with stage-specific
coping products. Moreover, when considering stage-
specific developmental tasks that are experienced as chal-
lenges, the framework also acknowledges and specifies
the breadth of available supports possible; at the same
time, it recognizes the role of supports for productive
stage-specific coping products (see Figure 15.5).
The framework also focuses on the mediating/
moderating function of net-stress responses and
Net Vulnerability Stage Specific Coping
Product
Risks Protective Unproductive Productive
Factors
OR
Net Stress Net Stress
(Engagement) Level (Engagement) Level
Challenges Supports Challenges Supports
Figure 15.5 Stress-focusing research exemplars: Stress con-
ditions may link with either individual vulnerability level or
stage-specific coping outcomes.
842 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Net Stress Reactive Coping
(Engagement) Level Strategies
Challenges Supports Maladaptive Adaptive
Figure 15.6 Stress and coping links: Emphasizes linkages
between reactive coping methods and net level of stress
experienced.
reactive coping styles available through a history of so-
cialization (see Figure 15.6), and, consistent with ego
psychology theorizing by Erikson (1959), it bears in
mind the critical function of emergent, stable, identity-
formation processes (see Figure 15.7).
The three mediating processes were illustrated previ-
ously and collectively (see Figure 15.4) and depicted as
a large question mark and thick arrow between
vulnerability and stage-specific coping outcome. The
mediating processes assist with explanations about the
diversity of individual-context-process mediated links.
These associative relations provide the reason for
a simultaneous consideration of structural factors, cul-
tural influences, individuals’ perceptual processes about
the self, bidirectional interactions with others, and myr-
iad daily life experiences that impact individual vulner-
ability, productive coping outcomes, and, for some,
manifested resiliency. The perceptions and patterned
responses occur as individuals confront normative
developmental tasks while navigating countless contexts
in pursuit of demonstrating competence given the un-
avoidable impact of effectance motivation (R. White,
Emergent Identities:
Stable Coping Responses
Negative Positive
Reactive Coping
Strategies
Maladaptive Adaptive
Figure 15.7 Identity-emphasizing research.
1959, 1960). Accordingly, given both between- and
within-group variations for diverse individuals and as-
sociated contextual heterogeneity, the resulting person-
context-processes system of mediating/moderating
effects may vary. As depicted in Figure 15.5, it is inter-
esting that the literature often narrowly focuses stress
questions (i.e., balances between challenges and sup-
ports) around vulnerability themes for some groups
(e.g., European Americans) while it provides a stress
focus as linked to outcomes of competence or failure for
others (e.g., diverse youth of color). We suggest that the
approach taken often varies by ethnicity. For example,
being African American or poor is frequently linked
with studies of stress for Blacks. Although divorce as a
significant stressor is often linked with particular cop-
ing outcomes for European Americans (refer to Figure
15.5), the level of support provided by privilege as expe-
rienced by European American youth has just recently
become the focus of rigorous developmental science ef-
forts concerned with maladaptive coping (see Luthar,
2003; Figure 15.6).
Consistent with the emphases described and theorized
by Cross (1991) and Erikson (1959) about reference
group orientation and broad ego processes, respectively,
the multiple functions of identity processes are founda-
tional to this framework. Specifically, the central place-
ment of identity processes is evident through its
mediating links between human coping (i.e., net reactive
coping) with broad ego processes (i.e., stable emergent
identities; see Spencer, 1985; Spencer & Dornbusch,
1990; Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990; Swanson,
Spencer, & Petersen, 1998).
The central role of identity and self processes affords
the framework an ICE (identity-focused cultural ecolog-
ical) perspective, given the important and implicit func-
tion of social cognition, perceptual processes, and
context character (e.g., Spencer, 1984, 1985). As de-
scribed in Figure 15.7, negative identity processes for
youth of color have been assumed to be a reactive coping
response to racial group membership; the relationship is
frequently assumed particularly for African American
youngsters. However, the assumptions have not been
confirmed with empirical data (see Hare & Castenell,
1985; Spencer & Dornbusch, 1990; Spencer & Markstrom-
Adams, 1990). Beginning with the work of theorists
such as Kardiner and Ovesey (1951) and Pettigrew
(1964) and as inferred from the Brown v. Board of Edu-
cation decision (i.e., as in the citations of Kenneth and
Mamie Clarks’ research as cited in Cross, 1991), the
 Conceptual Shortsightedness in the Study of Diverse Youth: Children of Color and Privilege
Stage-Specific
Coping Outcomes
Unproductive Productive
Emergent Identities:
Stable Coping Responses
Negative Positive
Figure 15.8 Outcome- and identity-emphasizing theoriz-
ing: Approach narrowly focuses on specific life stage coping
outcomes and makes assumptions about identity character.
consistent assumption of psychopathology and negative
identity processes continue to be associated with as-
sumed internalized risk related to the stigma associated
with skin color and identifiability (i.e., and implications
for biased treatment; see Figures 15.8 and 15.9; Cross,
1991, for a review).
It is interesting that identity processes for African
American youth are not more carefully analyzed and in-
terpreted given their often co-occurrence with appear-
ances of unproductive stage-specific coping outcomes
(e.g., school failure). The lack of anticipated (i.e., nega-
tive) linkage between self concept and unproductive out-
comes is due to the not unexpected and greater salience
of own-group significant others for children’s psycho-
logical functioning and well-being. In other words,
Net Vulnerability
Risks Protective
Factors
Emergent Identities:
Stable Coping Responses
Negative Positive
Figure 15.9 Identity- and vulnerability-focusing approaches:
Perspective focuses mainly on individual vulnerability associ-
ated with speculated identity statuses.
843
youths’ own families, friends, neighbors, and extended
kin represent the comparison others of salience for so-
cial emotional functioning (i.e., inferred self valuing is
reflected from referent others) rather than externally
and negatively evaluated life-stage specific outcomes.
As particularly applied to youth of color, process-
oriented theorizing is needed that acknowledges context
and, at the same time, demonstrates mediating
processes and avoids the conceptual assumptions and
erroneous conclusions of the past. Finally, unlike many
theories of human development that merely mention
context and acknowledge processes, our conceptual ap-
proach more specifically and directly demonstrates the
person-context-process view as espoused by Bronfen-
brenner (1985, 1989). PVEST provides insights about
the “ how” of development (see Spencer & Harpalani,
2004), and, we believe, more directly links the daily ex-
periences of diverse people given individual character-
istics and protective factors (i.e., by ethnicity, race,
social status, religious faith, and physical attributes—
skin color or body type) with environmental quality (in-
cluding the availability of supports and challenges) as
individuals traverse multiple contexts. Specifically,
successful transitions require good person-context fit
for maximizing human processes and behavioral out-
comes (see Matute-Bianchi, 1986; Spencer &
Harpalani, 2004). An approach of this type aids in in-
terpreting the “ how” or “ why not ” of youth outcomes as
promulgated by positive youth development theorists
included in this set of volumes such as Benson (Benson,
Scales, Hamilton, & Sesma, Chapter 16, this Handbook,
this volume) and Lerner (Chapter 1, this Handbook, this
volume). The broad, dynamic, developmental, identity-
focused, and context-linked perspective suggested by
PVEST and relevant to numerous groups, to date, has
not characterized approaches to child and adolescent
development nor life course theorizing (see Spencer,
1999; Swanson & Spencer, 1999; Swanson et al., 1998).
Summary
In summary, this chapter’s organization was structured
to delineate the advantages and contributions of PVEST
for maximizing the applicability of human development
theorizing for many ethnicities or diverse groups of hu-
mans ( both youth of color and European Americans).
The first section indicated the chapter’s focus on the
period of preschool through adolescence and explained
why the theory affords human development a life-course
844 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups

and identity-focused perspective that highlights cultural

patterns as linked to context character. The next section
afforded a detailed introduction to the PVEST frame-
work, and was followed by a discussion of the frame-
work’s useful dynamic character. Several cross-cutting
themes of human development were used for illustrating
the connectedness between individual characteristics Conception End of Life
Course
and context interactions, thus, providing a mechanisms

Middle Childhood

20–35 Young Adulthood

Early Childhood
for interpreting nuanced cultural patterns. Brown v.

Societal Elders
55–70 Mature Years
11–20 Adolescence
Toddlerhood

35–55 Middle Age

Infancy and
Board of Education was introduced as relevant for high-
lighting and demonstrating the impact of policy change
and its role in determining long-term youth experiences
and schooling. The next two text divisions introduce

6–11

70+
0–2

final sections that indicate the distinct interpretational
advantages of the framework.
PHENOMENOLOGICAL VARIANT OF
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY:
MULTIDISCIPLINARY, DYNAMIC,
SYSTEMIC INFLUENCES, AND
PROCESSES OF A SYNTHESIZED
RECURSIVE FRAMEWORK
The meaning-making that individuals formulate about
their lives evolves from basic social and cognitive de-
velopment processes. These formulations become more
sophisticated with broadened social experiences and
increases in cognitive maturation (Flavell, 1968;
Spencer, 1982, 1983, 1985; Spencer & Markstrom-
Adams, 1990). These relationships are better under-
stood both from a dynamic framework that crosses
interdisciplinary boundaries (e.g., individual and group
experience, biological foundations, and cultural tradi-
tions), one that is indelibly linked to contextual forces,
and from a perspective that includes recognition of in-
dividuals’ information processing efforts available and
reflecting the opportunities and constraints of the var-
ious developmental periods.
The Foundational Role of Social Cognition and
Linkages to Phenomenology: Inference-Making,
Perceptions, and Youths’ Everyday Experiences
More recent theorizing about children’s theory of mind
adds to our understanding about recursive and develop-
ment-dependent processes (Frye, 1992; Frye & Moore,
1991; Nguyen & Frye, 1999). We’ve learned that the
character of these recursive processes have implica-
3–5
Figure 15.10 Spiraling and interactive systemic processes:
An assumed “ unfolding” of human processes occurs across
the life course from conception to death.
tions for more general competence as lives unfold
across the life course (see Figure 15.10), and, as
sources of social feedback, the social environment rep-
resents an unavoidable and critical component of this
process (see Figure 15.11).
From the earliest interactions between infants and
parenting adults, feedback impacts children’s behavior
on the environment and a reverse interaction occurs as
well (or consider the lack of feedback and the sequelae
of minimally responsive babies as described by Kennell,
Trause, & Klaus, 1975). Infants’ cognitive awareness
was described by Piaget (1926, 1967) as evolving
schemata. At the same time, early ego functioning was
the subject of theories by Erikson (1968) and others as
Parents
Grand- Siblings
parents
Extended Child/ Peers
Kin Adolescent
Media
Popular School
Culture Church
Figure 15.11 Bidirectional influences of significant others
on youths’ development.
 Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
not independent of cognitive development. Both domains
are involved in critically important personifications or
early self processes of human functioning. These linked
processes occur simultaneously in social contexts and
serve critical roles for life-course development. Inde-
pendent of the domain stressed or the theoretical ap-
proach to which one subscribes, the salient implications
of social feedback for the development of general com-
petence as defined by R. White (1959, 1960) is appar-
ent. Children’s successful use of cognition-dependent
social cues reinforce and support effective management
of the environment and demonstration of stage-specific
competence. Given this recursive process, the feedback
concerning a successful impact on the environment has
implications for subsequent efforts expended and is de-
scribed by R. White as “effectance motivation.” Thus,
as suggested by Figures 15.10 and 15.11, socializing
adults and others are critically important for these bidi-
rectional processes.
Social Cognition and Development
Unavoidable inferences made from experiences may be
linked to individuals’ meaning-making processes. They
include the (a) perception of challenges and available
resources; ( b) exposure to modeled strategies for reac-
tive coping, and (c) character of self processes inferred
and enacted, which then contribute to stable emergent
identity processes. Following this line of thought, indi-
viduals’ life-stage specific coping products (i.e., as a
consequence of a stable identity providing consistency
in coping responses over time and place) are linked to
context character and which have societal implications
as outcomes for what Damon (2002) refers to as either
noble versus ignoble “deeds.” We suggest that the
processes frequently overlooked are imbedded in con-
texts that vary by risk level and the availability of pro-
tective factors that make accessible specific types of
supports. To illustrate, a priori assumptions imposed
from the outside matter and overlap with youths’ un-
folding sense of purpose (e.g., the media’s characteriza-
tion of particular youth as deviant or delinquent, while
ignoring the wrong doing or immature behavior of oth-
ers, reinforces assumptions of privilege for some and
pathology for others). Risk level also matters as it is as-
sociated with our human and unavoidable inference-
making processes (i.e., social perceptions). Both the
unavoidable cognition-linked perceptual processes and
a priori context-associated risk factors make a differ-
ence for self processes (e.g., Spencer, 1981a, 1981b).
845
Experienced as stigma, underanalyzed, or unsubstanti-
ated assumptions may contribute as core features to
context character for some (e.g., underresourced hous-
ing and more general neighborhood conditions) and, as
stereotypes, produce additional risk that compromise
self processes.
Self Processes of Diverse Youth
The ecology of youth development may take on a partic-
ularly troubling hue when examined for culturally mar-
ginalized or diverse youth of color (e.g., Chestang,
1972). Youths’ knowledge of or inferences about the
world have important implications for psychosocial
functioning. As applied to the experiences of youth of
color, epistemology is seldom a concern in the litera-
ture. Epistemology is a branch of philosophy concerned
with the nature of knowledge (see Piaget, as reviewed in
Hergenhahn & Olsen, 1993, p. 275). Relative to patterns
of achievement and minority status issues, the acting
White inferences from particular ethnographic assump-
tions and analyses (e.g., Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) pro-
vide an example. Although theoretically critiqued (e.g.,
Spencer et al., 2001; Spencer & Harpalani, under re-
view) and empirically demonstrated as incomplete (e.g.,
see Steele & Aronson, 1995), the negative impact of the
achievement-linked stigma on the ecology of learning
and development particularly for African American
youth is both unfortunate and undeniable. Specifically,
unwarranted stigma makes it difficult for adolescents to
engage in positive character formation given that the
process is attempted under what Chestang (1972) de-
scribes as “ hostile conditions” (see also, e.g., Phelan,
Davidson, & Cao, 1991). Further, when applied to the
context-associated experiences of African American
youth, correlates of stigma can contribute to youth feel-
ing “missed, dissed, and pissed,” as described by
Stevenson (1997).
Social science has always benefited from analyses
that provide perspectives of others outside the person.
However, we restate that a systems-oriented analysis
that acknowledges the critical and ever-present role of
the person’s own phenomenology or unique set of per-
ceptions is also needed. This perspective affords an
often-ignored or assumed analysis of the individual-
context interface and, consequently, context and cultur-
ally linked behavioral response. As suggested, the latter
is particularly salient because it is inherently ecological
and represents the character of experiences associated
with a particular context. Claude Steele and his
846 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
colleagues’ excellent illustrations provide an effective
vehicle for explaining achievement behavior and school
orientation of a long-term stigmatized group who the
media would infer lack a sense of purpose: African
American students (e.g., Steele & Aronson, 1995).
Because youths’ own perceptions of social contexts
( both past and present) and unique level of individual
vulnerability coexist, it is not unexpected that associ-
ated net-level experiences of stress vary and matter.
The noted associations are seldom acknowledged, ac-
counted for in the design of programs of research, or di-
rectly measured. Further, these themes are not
considered in a culturally sensitive, contextually
linked, or developmentally framed perspective. Con-
sidered together, the shortsightedness considerably
narrows the view of sense of purpose and suggests a
false dichotomy of noble versus ignoble purpose as ex-
pressed behavior (see Spencer, Fegley, & Harpalani,
2003). Efforts that represent noble efforts in the face of
great adversity are generally unacknowledged, not rec-
ognized, or undervalued, given traditional assumptions
concerning representations of sense of purpose. Erro-
neously inferring a lack of purpose is more probable
than not for youth of color or those from low-resource
communities. Their attempts at orientation toward
right action (see Spencer, 1999a) is frequently ham-
pered by very challenging contexts and circumstances
(e.g., the multiple opportunities for adverse profiling
by police officers, social experiences in peer groups
are generally viewed as suggesting gang membership,
driving or riding in motor vehicles are frequently as-
sumed to be drug vans). Most important, European
Americans of diverse groups do not generally en-
counter similar stigma; most youth enjoy the privileges
associated with innocent forays and youthful experi-
ences associated with suburban and affluent communi-
ties without attendant and persistent concerns about
harassment based solely on race, ethnicity, class, faith
community, national origin, or skin color. Contrary to
European Americans’ experiences and as encouraged
by Erikson (1968), diverse youth of color are not pro-
vided opportunities for social experimentation without
significant consequences and personal risks.
As indicated, we view an ICE perspective (Spencer,
1995; Spencer et al., 2006) as a theoretical framework
of human development that is inclusive of culturally
diverse youths’ potential breadth of experiences and
normative identity needs. Given the countless develop-
mental trajectories possible, unavoidably youngsters
infer supports, cope reactively with adversity in the mo-
ment (see Stevenson, 1997), and internalize emergent
identities that have implications for stage-specific cop-
ing outcomes. Particularly for African American and
Hispanic youths, their social experiences along with an
evolving sense of purpose may be highly stigmatizing
and compromising to the latter. For that reason, we view
the theory-driven analysis proposed as a source of pro-
tection against the continuing penchant to misinterpret
youthful efforts for demonstrating a sense of compe-
tence or achieving a sense of purpose albeit frequently
under unacknowledged difficult circumstances tradi-
tionally ignored in developmental science specifically
and the social science more generally.
Thus, PVEST utilizes an ICE perspective, integrat-
ing issues of culture, social and historical context, and
normative developmental processes involved in identity
formation and broad psychosocial processes (see
Dupree, Spencer, & Bell, 1997; Spencer, 1995; Spencer
& Harpalani, 2004; Spencer, Hartmann, & Dupree,
1997). While Scarr (1988) correctly argues that “ the
phenomenology of experiences is . . . correlated with the
genotype of the individual perceiver and processor ”
(quoted on p. 241), we believe that this view is far too
unsophisticated; in the mold of much of the behavioral
genetics research we have reviewed, it is an accurate but
oversimplified statement (see Spencer & Harpalani,
2004). We submit that delineating the processes involved,
rather than a mere statement of obvious correlation, is
necessary for an understanding of nature-nurture inter-
action in human development. A fuller understanding of
process and context is necessary to understand how the
genotype impacts development. We treat the genotype
similarly to Bronfenbrenner’s, as it is an important and
influential aspect in human development, but the expres-
sion of the genotype in context is actually a component
of the developmental system.
Phenomenology and Context Character
The PVEST framework combines a phenomenological
perspective with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems
theory (1989), linking context and perception. The crit-
ical role of phenomenology, among others of the period,
may be best represented by the personality theorizing of
Carl Rogers who described the perspective during the
first half of the twentieth century (e.g., see Schultz,
1976). In combining ecological perspectives with phe-
 Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
nomenology, the integration provides an analytical
mechanism for understanding the individual’s meaning-
making processes that underlie identity development
and coping outcomes (Spencer, 1995; Spencer, Dupree,
et al., 1997). PVEST serves as a model to examine nor-
mative human development—framed through the inter-
action of identity, culture, and experience (given a
particular psycho-historical moment)—in fact, the sys-
tems framework is apropos to individuals of all ethnici-
ties and operates as a set of recursive processes
throughout the life course. As suggested, PVEST utilizes
an ICE perspective, integrating issues of cultural con-
text with normative developmental processes. Each com-
ponent represents part of a system that is nestled in the
multiple levels of youths’ contextual experiences.
Systems Framework in an Ecological System
As described, the framework acknowledges the critical
role of perceptions (Spencer, 1995) and focuses on
identity formation while considering macro-, exo- and
mesolevel structural factors, cultural influences, indi-
vidual perceptions of the self, significant others, life
experiences, and the environments in which individuals
live and function. Identity formation takes place across
the life course and is especially relevant for adoles-
cents given their heightened self-consciousness.
PVEST combines this emphasis on individual percep-
tions with Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory
(1979), thus linking context and perception. Consistent
with classic ecological psychologists, Bronfenbren-
ner’s model provides a means for describing how multi-
ple levels of context can influence individual
development; additionally, PVEST directly illustrates
life-course human development within context. In
doing so, it allows an analysis of the meaning-making
processes that underlie identity development and be-
havioral outcomes (Spencer, 1995, 1999a; Spencer,
Dupree, & Hartmann, 1997). This is important be-
cause, as reviewed earlier, most theories of develop-
ment assume a priori deviance and psychopathology for
highly vulnerable populations; yet they cannot explain
diverse outcomes for individuals in shared contexts
(e.g., siblings’ development in the same family, neigh-
borhood, and socioeconomic status often manifest dif-
ferent life-stage outcomes—one sibling graduated from
secondary school versus the other incarcerated in a ju-
venile facility).
847
Illustrated as a recursive system in Figure 15.12, the
PVEST framework consists of five basic components
that form a dynamic theoretical arrangement.
The first component, Net Vulnerability Level (1), con-
sists of individual, family, and community characteris-
tics that may serve as risk versus protective factors (or
both if considered at different developmental periods)
during an individual’s development. Net Vulnerability
Level is so described because risks usually do not exist
without some protective factors: Accordingly, the ef-
fects of apparent risks may be offset or balanced by the
presence or availability of protective factors (e.g., privi-
lege group membership, a particular cultural socializa-
tion history, skin color, facial features, body type,
intellectual superiority, attractiveness, economic stabil-
ity, well-educated parents and protective extended fam-
ily networks, emotionally available and caring adults or
nonrelated kin, and an individual’s personal history of
productive coping during a prior period of stage-specific
outcomes). We suggest that a net balance between evi-
dent risk factors and accessible protective factors de-
fines an individual’s net vulnerability level for a
particular period. The content and character of the pro-
tective characteristics available at one stage (e.g., mid-
dle childhood) may not remain adequate enough, without
additions, when traversing another stage (e.g., adoles-
cence). Particularly for marginalized youth (e.g., youth
of color, immigrants, and low-resource youths), identi-
fied risk factors may include socioeconomic conditions,
such as living in poverty, and imposed expectations
based on race, immigration status, unstable family eco-
nomic status, and gender stereotypes.
As illustrated in Figure 15.12, the bidirectional
arrow of the Net Vulnerability Level indicates an un-
avoidable linkage between risks and protective factors
and suggests a particular level of vulnerability. The
transactional and dynamic relationship between risks
and protective factors is apparent at different develop-
mental stages as lives unfold with increasing complexity
over time. The balance between risks and protective fac-
tors and consequent level of vulnerability evokes a par-
ticular psychosocial status that can produce either worse
or improved conditions dependent on or due to prior or
attendant experiences. Most important, as individuals
transition across time and place, net vulnerability is it-
self recursively linked to its transformation as everyday
stress processes for individuals as each interfaces with
multiple environments of varying character.
848 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups

1 5
Net Vulnerability Stage-Specific Coping
Outcomes

Risks Protective
Factors Unproductive Productive

Normative Human Systemic

Processes: Individual at a
Specific Development Stage

2 4
Net Stress Emergent Identities
Engagement (Stable coping responses)

Challenges Supports Negative Positive

3
Reactive Coping Processes

Maladaptive Adaptive

Figure 15.12 Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST): Revised (2004) Process Emphasizing Version.

The second component of PVEST, Net Stress Engage-
ment (2), refers to the actual experiences of challenge
and support that can impinge on an individual’s well-
being. In contrast to the risk factors referred to in the
Net Vulnerability Level, stressors are actualized risks
encountered that require some level of response because
they are experienced as specific challenges. Net Stress
Engagement is recursively linked with Net Vulnerability
Level, and represents the balance between challenges
actually encountered and available supports accessible
or available. Challenges and supports may be physically
experienced or symbolically assessed and their signifi-
cance inferred (e.g., assumptions about privilege ex-
pected and supports available or perceptions about tests
or confrontations to be weathered).
Again, Steele (2004) describes the impact of identity
or social stigma on performance outcomes. He describes
the inferred meaning of a stigma’s content that an indi-
vidual may make (i.e., experienced as some level of
challenge) concerning the character of the performance
“expected”; the social experiments by Steele and his
colleagues suggest that the effect can be nullified or its
impact diminished by specific supports provided or
through the reframing of expectations. The nature of the
“ balance achieved” (net stress level experienced) has
implications for an individual’s state of psychological
well-being. Thus, given the media-hyped stigma associ-
ated with the achievement gap for African American
youth (e.g., high achievement’s hypothesized associa-
tion with acting White beliefs or expectations for low
performance), the ways in which an achievement test sit-
uation or other evaluative setting (e.g., work site) is
framed or inferences about personal performance are
communicated may represent significant sources of psy-
chological challenge or fuel assumptions about inherent
support possible (see Spencer & Harpalani, under re-
view). What is interesting about the character and use of
stigma is that it represents a social construction experi-
enced in particular and nonequivalent ways across
groups. For example, Lesser and Stodolsky (1967, 1970)
describe the superior performance of Jewish Americans
over Caucasians and all other groups. However, the high
achievement efforts of other groups have never been de-
scribed as “acting Jewish.” Similarly, when considering
the high performance of Asian American students when
compared with Caucasians, Hispanics, and African
Americans, it remains curious that only African Ameri-
can youths’ high achievement behavior is described as
acting White. African American performance dispari-
ties are usually associated with deficit characteristics of
 Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
self or the group although the lower performance of
Caucasians when compared with Jewish children is
never adversely depicted in parallel ways. Considering
the appearance of particularly structured, widely circu-
lated, and socially constructed media images for sub-
groups of marginalized youth, it is not surprising that
the cultural socialization literature (see Arrington,
2002; Slaughter & Johnson, 1988; Spencer, 1983, 1990)
provides detailed illustrations of how culturally specific
strategies serve as exact types of support for precise di-
verse group members. Jackson, Boostrom, and Hansen
(1993) suggest a group of positive qualities or virtues
that individuals occupying particular systems possess,
or contexts themselves exhibit (e.g., teachers, students,
or classrooms), which maximize the probability of find-
ing positive virtues. They suggest that the best strategy
for accomplishing this “is by adopting and maintaining a
sympathetic outlook, by going about the task biased in
the direction of making positive errors, of seeing virtues
where they are not, rather than the other way
around. . . . For many of the positive qualities of teach-
ers, students, and classrooms are subtly expressed and
are visible to those who look closely and who do so with
a sympathetic eye” (Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, p.
258). The unfortunate dilemma for marginalized young-
sters is that the process described for seeing positively
about others is usually reserved for those who enjoy a
privileged status. Thus, diverse students also receive
ranges of feedback about their status and inferred social
station, which is not independent of the protective fac-
tors available and contributes to youths’ level of net vul-
nerability (i.e., first component of PVEST).
As suggested, accessible or available social supports
are transformed protective factors described as the first
component of PVEST. They aid youths’ transitioning
through challenging experiences thus serving to reduce
or offset the net level of stress experienced. In many
ways, supports are actualized protective factors.
Whereas risks and protective factors denote demograph-
ics or descriptors relevant to individuals, family mem-
bers, or community, net stress level is the balance
between challenges and support. The character or qual-
ity of balance suggests the actual phenomenological ex-
periences of risk and protection in context. For example,
the addition of an adult male to a household may act as
either a stress or a support depending on the context
and, perhaps, the gender or parentage of the offspring in
question. A single mother may marry the biological fa-
ther of one of her children. The introduction of an adult
849
male into the family may be perceived as a source of
significant support by the mother and other family mem-
bers, particularly if he adds significant economic re-
sources to the household. However, the presence of this
new adult male may be perceived differently by adoles-
cent children in the household who are not biologically
related to this new adult male and his intended role as a
source of support. For example, an adolescent male may
perceive this new presence as a loss of his own per-
ceived role as the man of the house; the source of sup-
port may be actually inferred as a serious threat to the
male youth’s inferred status or his very identity.
The scenario may evolve differently for adolescent
females who look to inferred safe adult males for feed-
back to reaffirm femininity and other aspects of gender
identity. However, as a nonbiologically linked male, the
mother’s husband may or may not have the appropriate
understandings about the daughter’s intent or need for
specific and safe feedback. The adult male may (mis)in-
terpret the girl’s efforts as a hyper-sexualized display.
He may not understand the teen’s actual interest in ob-
taining af firmation for her femininity. The transactional
outcomes from interactions with her mother’s spouse
may serve to increase the girl’s risk due to increase
challenges encountered in interactions with her mother.
The girl’s mother may view her daughter’s behavior as
sexually alluring versus the girl’s actual intent (i.e., to
evoke feedback for the purpose of promoting psychosex-
ual development).
Alternatively, as a second scenario, for youth devel-
oping in households burdened with economic insecu-
rity, a mother’s need to obtain work for maintaining the
household economy might invite greater stress due to
expectations for shared household responsibilities.
Privileged youth unfamiliar with the strategies for suc-
cessfully coping with schoolwork and, at the same time,
contributing to household chores might find it difficult
to adjust to a change in lifestyle when a family is con-
fronted with sudden economic downturns and attendant
stressors; a youth from a privileged family history may
have less time to hone the necessary skills for accom-
modating the new family stresses and attendant re-
quired role expansions. Having to cope with the noted
role challenges concomitantly with traditional peer ex-
pectations and new family constraints may potentially
increase overall level of stress experienced in the mo-
ment when confronted by associated challenges (e.g.,
cooking, cleaning, or child care responsibilities for a
younger sibling). It is not only the balance between the
850 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
current challenges, given accessible supports that im-
pact overall stress, but also the recursive links with net
vulnerability because the family situation is increasing
its level of effective risks with potential changes in its
ability to maintain the prior protective factors. In sum,
given the recursive links between net vulnerability
evolving and net-stress level currently experienced,
youth may respond by adopting an in-the-moment reac-
tive coping response.
In response to the challenges noted and in conjunc-
tion with available supports, the net level of stress ex-
perienced requires that the third component, Reactive
Coping Methods (3), is deployed. Figure 15.12 illus-
trates that reactive coping responses include problem-
solving strategies that can be either adaptive or
maladaptive. For instance, given the prior illustration,
in response to decreased time and attention from par-
ents and the need for adolescents to take on more fa-
milial responsibilities, youth may engage in more risk
taking behavior (a maladaptive response) or seek more
support through greater interaction with extended kin
(e.g., grandparents) and non-kin adults (e.g., school
counselor, teacher, or religious leader). Accordingly,
there will be options for positive or adaptive responses
when particular issues surface in peer contexts, the
family system, or with social institutions such as
schools. Conversely, models of maladaptive problem
solving would also be possible reactive coping re-
sponses (e.g., staying away from home or other sources
of support, using drugs, dropping out of school, or be-
coming committed to negative peer models).
As youth employ various reactive coping strategies
consistently over time and place, self-appraisal contin-
ues, and those strategies yielding desirable results (i.e.,
objectively viewed as either positive or negative) are re-
peated. For example, negative peer approval might still
feel comfortable and psychologically safe than the work
involved in creating more adaptive solutions, which
might require a change in peer relationships. The consis-
tency of the reactive coping pattern has important impli-
cations for psychosocial processes. As suggested in
Figure 15.12, the reactive coping strategies become sta-
ble coping responses, and, over time, yield Emergent
Identities (4). Thus, the fourth component of PVEST de-
fines how individuals view themselves in and between
their various contexts of development (e.g., family,
school, peer group, and neighborhood). The combina-
tion of factors such as cultural /ethnic background, un-
derstandings about gender roles, and self and peer
appraisal all define our identity. As new challenges are
met, the stable method of responding has implications
for decision-making processes, options elected, and,
given individual-environment transactional influences
and the role of stereotyping and stigma, objective op-
tional choices available.
As reviewed in great detail elsewhere (e.g., Spencer
& Markstrom-Adams, 1990; Swanson et al., 1998),
identity processes provide behavioral stability over time
and place and lay the foundation for future perceptions,
self appraisals, and behavior such as decision-making
processes. Given the sets of stage-specific developmen-
tal tasks outlined by Havighurst (1953), the resulting
and ongoing problem-solving and decision-making be-
havior can yield adverse or productive Life-stage Spe-
cific Coping Outcomes (5). Figure 15.12 describes the
fifth component and indicates that productive outcomes
might include school engagement, positive family rela-
tionships, adequate employment preparation, staying out
of jail, and low levels of high risk behavior. Alterna-
tively, adverse outcomes can include school dropout,
poor school performance, illegal means of earning in-
come, poor health, incarceration, and teenage or out-of-
wedlock child bearing.
The dynamic and ongoing recursive process of nego-
tiating risks while identifying and garnering protective
factors for decreasing vulnerability continues between,
within, and throughout each life stage. More specifi-
cally, this recursive process occurs as individuals
encounter new stressors (i.e., through balancing chal-
lenges with supports), establish more expansive reper-
toires for reacting to coping needs (i.e., given the
availability of both maladaptive and adaptive coping
“opportunities”), and redefine how individuals view
themselves, which also impacts how others view them.
As noted by Erikson (1968), unresolved issues in one life
stage influence future coping and identity-formation
processes. Accordingly, PVEST aims not only to cap-
ture this developmental process but also to place it in
broader social contexts. As illustrated in Figure 15.13,
one could use the framework for testing any set of ori-
enting issues as an entire system or as easily pursue its
use for examining variable relationships both within and
between only two or three components (e.g., Net Vulner-
ability and Net Stress Experienced). As suggested by
the illustration, one could explore parent- or policy-level
variables for Components 1 through 4 with an examina-
tion of youth outcomes as Component 5. Indeed, Figure
15.13 illustrates several of the numerous constructs
 1 5
Net Vulnerability Stage-Specific Coping
Outcomes

Risk Protective
Contributors Factors Unproductive Productive

Race/Ethnicity/Gender Competence
• Cultural values and beliefs • School status (active, withdrawn)
about family, gender roles,
• School performance (GPA/SAT-9 scores)
work, parenting, education
• Educational aspirations/fulfillment
• Adult support
• Sustainable employment
• Awareness of stereotypes
• Stable interpersonal relationships
Socioeconomic Factors
• Welfare history
Long-term vs. short-term 4
Recent welfare leavers
Emergent Identities
Never recipients
• Family/household composition
Two-parent (biological) family Negative Positive
Stepfamily
Single parent family
Cohabiting family
Extended family Adolescent Identities
Nonfamily • Early adultification

• Number and age of dependent • Self as learner

children/adults • Role identity within family
• Parental work readiness • Exaggerated sex-role presentation
Parental education Hypermasculinity (males)
Parental skills Hyperfemininity (females)
• Neighborhood/school context • Ethnic identity

2 3
Net Stress Reactive Coping Processes
Engagement

Challenges Supports Maladaptive Adaptive

Economic Stress Adolescent Perceptions and Coping Strategies

• Poverty level • Perceived interpersonal competence/ineptitude
due to parental reliance on adolescent
• Change in income
Increase/decrease in amount • Increase/decrease in interaction with non-custodial
of HH income parent, extended family, friends, neighbors, etc.
• Change in source of income • Re-orientation of educational and employment
aspirations
• Parental employment
Stable vs. unstable • Initiate/increase own employment
Full-time vs. part-time • Increase/decrease in religious participation
Type of work performed and practice
• Parental physical or mental disability • Engage/avoid risk-taking behavior
• School engagement/disengagement
• Expressive/inhibitive anger/aggression

Figure 15.13 Demonstration of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) application: Using frame-
work for analyzing the effects of specific economic policies and requirements for parents on adolescent academic and employ-
ment outcomes.

851
852 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
possible for examination in considering each of the five
components of the framework.
The illustrative possibilities would vary as a function
of the populations of concern and specific developmental
period of interest. Further, it is necessary to appreciate
the unique role gender plays because, for instance, when
studying outcomes among boys, the illustrative con-
structs represent unique experiences that are distinctive
to boys across the components. As suggested by the intro-
duction to the framework and illustrated in Figure 15.14,
PVEST is a synthesis of many contributing perspectives
and provides an ICE perspective of human development.
In examining the relationship between net vulnerabil-
ity and net stress, PVEST explores the combined impact
on coping processes specific to particular developmental
stages. Given the contributions from multiple theoretical
perspectives, it aids our explanations and interpretive
analyses of both similar and different outcomes. As illus-
trated in Figure 15.15, the outcomes of these interactions
and processes occur in nested ecologies that vary signif-
PVEST ICE
Framework View of Human
Development:
Outcomes (coping abilities, skills and products):
Patterned and Diverse
Theoretical and Conceptual Formulations:
• Eriksonian theorizing about ego identity processes
• Du Bois’ notion of double consciousness
• Symbolic interactionists theorizing about
phenomenological processes (e.g., Sullivan & Mead)
• Competence and socialization perspectives
(e.g., Robert White & Brewster Smith)
• Resiliency and vulnerability (e.g., J. Anthony)
• Cross’ Reference Group Orientation (RGO) framework
• Chestang’s views of character development and
context quality
• Critical Race Theory (Crenshaw and others)
Figure 15.14 Acknowledging exemplar conceptual contributors to Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
(PVEST) .
icantly in character as a consequence of particular social
constructions and individual characteristics, histories,
and experiences.
Most important, as illustrated in Figure 15.16, cop-
ing outcomes may differ both between groups and
within groups (e.g., including ethnicities, races, and
families). There are numerous differences in meaning-
making processes expected for youth sharing the same
race, household, or classroom.
Our approach is quite different from those that antic-
ipate homogenous group outcomes that are generally as-
sumed to represent either deficits or inferred privilege.
PVEST provides a systems framework for understanding
all possible variability. More important, given the im-
pact of the context on individual or group attitudes and
beliefs, the pattern of coping outcomes has the potential
of contributing to the level of vulnerability. Figure 15.17
on page 854 illustrates the feedback loop created as a
function of societal stereotype dependence thus demon-
strating the recursive relationship between the unique
Net Vulnerability
and Stress Levels
Coping
Processes
• Spencer’s notions about the social cognition/culture
cognition interface
• Ecological psychology and Bronfenbrenner’s views
about context
• Boykins’ notions about a “triple quandary”
• Normal human development life-course theorizing
(e.g. Brim’s notions about continuity and change)
• Historical perspectives (e.g., V.P. Franklin, John Hope
Franklin, & Glen Elder; Brown vs. Board of Educ.)
• White Privilege (McIntosh)
 Cross-Cutting Human Development Themes of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory 853

Nested Ecologies

PVEST Identity-focused Cultural Vulnerability

Framework Ecological (ICE) Level and Stress
View of Human
Development
Coping
Processes

Figure 15.15 Advantages of framework: Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) enhances inter-
pretations of vulnerability with coping processes as linked with diverse sets of life course outcomes specified for particular de-
velopmental periods.

and patterned outcomes produced and their subsequent gest critical cross-cutting themes of importance in the
impact on net vulnerability, net stress experienced, me- design and support of prevention and intervention
diating coping processes, and produced coping outcomes. strategies.
The modeled recursive feedback loop aids the ex-
planation suggested by Claude Steele concerning CROSS-CUTTING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
achievement performance as linked to social stigma. THEMES OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL
Steele’s perspective (2004) indicates that anyone is VARIANT OF ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS
privy to identity insecurity, and social contingencies THEORY: SALIENT FOR THE DESIGN OF
(i.e., the priming of social perceptions) have implica- INTERVENTIONS AND THE
tions for performance. Parallel with our own interpre- INTERPRETATION OF COPING OUTCOMES
tation, his views have important implications for the
character of interventions needed to impact youths’ It is not only symbolically important but also critical to
academic performance. All of the bidirectional rela- conceptualize the unfolding of lives in cultural context.
tionships between components of the framework sug- However, for groups such as urban youth of color, this is

Patterned and Diverse Outcome

Identity-focused
Vulnerability Level
Cultural
and Net Stress
PVEST Ecological
Framework (ICE)
View of Human Coping
Development Processes

Figure 15.16 Predicting diversity: Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) demonstrating the
probability of both unique and patterned outcomes.
854 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups

Coping (abilities and skills) OUTCOMES:

Either overlapping, unique or patterned feeds
back and contributes to net vulnerability level

Coping Includes
Use of Reactive
Net Vulnerability Strategies
PLUS AND
Net Stress Stable Identity
Formation
Processes

Figure 15.17 Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST) analyses afford an integration of individual
coping with context character: As an ICE perspective the framework suggests exacerbating influences (through an acknowledg-
ment of nested ecologies) that impact coping outcomes (i.e., either productive or adverse) given the experiences of net vulnera-
bility and stress level associated with coping processes (i.e., manifested as coping strategies and identity formation efforts).

not frequently the conceptual strategy employed as illus-
trated by the ways in which we formulate questions,
identify constructs, theorize about phenomena, interpret
results, conceptualize, and implement social policy.
There are few places in which this phenomenon—the
study of lives in context—is less apparent than in the
study of human development of marginalized youth in
urban contexts. Further, when considered over time,
there are few developmental periods for which this
shortsightedness has had more dire consequences than in
the formulation of research, theory, practice, and policy
of relevance for middle childhood youth and adolescents.
Importance of Broad Cultural Inclusiveness
and Context
A succinct tracing of the history of psychological science
and the alternative advent of cultural-historical psychol-
ogy helps in highlighting the importance of emphasizing
and integrating the meaning and experience of culture in
the consideration of human development. Although gener-
ally not acknowledged as a social construction, it is impor-
tant to describe and explore the exacerbating influence of
urban character on our thinking about culture, the conduct
of psychological science, the character of educational
praxis, and life-course human development experience.
Considered from a PVEST perspective, all have implica-
tions for the unique challenges experienced by specific
communities for some, and the occurrence of privilege
and significant but unacknowledged support for others.
Meaning and Experience of Culture in the
Consideration of Lives in Context
Developmental psychology came to life as a field of re-
search virtually 100 years ago at the turn of the 20th cen-
tury (S. H. White, 1996). Sheldon White notes that the
field’s birth followed an increase of nineteenth century
writings about children. He reports that their lives and
circumstances were examined philosophically, pedagogi-
cally, medically, politically, autobiographically, statisti-
cally, didactically, sentimentally, and apocalyptically:
There was a commitment to the scientific study of child
development. He goes on to report that, in the beginning,
the approach stood insecurely on scattered facts strung
together with much theorizing. Followers of Darwin put
together observations of children, animals, cross-cultural
beliefs and practices, psychopathology, and so on to
sketch out an evolutionary picture of the human mind. It
was risky, speculative science. Sheldon White reports
 Cross-Cutting Human Development Themes of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
that Williams James, in the Principles of Psychology,
called it “ wild work ” (S. H. White, 1996, p. x).
S. H. White describes the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries as periods with organized coopera-
tive research enterprises that were modeled on the natu-
ral sciences and describes the emulation as a fledgling
discipline that yearned for status as a real science. S. H.
White described it as “physics envy” because the physi-
cal sciences were well-formed and producing findings
that were intellectually interesting and practically useful
(S. H. White, p. xi). S. H. White’s description allows the
inference of a current and historically similar situation.
There was a reasonable explanation for psychologists to
imitate the particular pattern of cooperative activity; it
provided the model for determining how far the approach
would take it as a new science. By focusing on naturalis-
tic questions and methods, psychologists sidestepped
some tricky and risky concerns (S. H. White, 1996, p. xi).
S. H. White’s analysis recognizes that the new psy-
chology was also saddled with unique and awkward re-
strictions. The program of methods of the naturalistic
scientific effort revealed particular patterns of organi-
zation of human perception, learning, and development,
and the rhetoric of that research program asserted that
such patterns must be true for everyone everywhere
(S. H. White, 1996, p. xi). Most important, S. H. White
(1996) champions Michael Cole’s point of entry into the
problems of twentieth-century psychological science as
a reminder that aspects of the early assertion of univer-
sality were not true. He references Michael Cole’s work
with the Kpelle in Africa in the 1960s that led to a
salient observation:
Although tribal children classify, learn, remember, form
concepts, and reason in everyday life, they do not perform in
a sophisticated manner on experimental procedures de-
signed for the study of age changes in those faculties. West-
ern research procedures are grounded in a world in which
children go to school at 6 years of age and are surrounded by
the life, language, and thought of a modern society. Much of
what we consider to be normal to child development is sim-
ply a recognition of what usually happens when children
grow up in such a world. (S. H. White, 1996, p. xii)
S. H. White’s point was that Cole’s work along with
other cultural psychologists suggested significant diffi-
culties in the use of traditional natural-scientific in-
quiries to compare people across cultures. An analogous
point may be made when considering the conjectures
drawn from urban research contexts because a broadly
made assumption is that proximity suggests similar ex-
855
periences, which represents yet another fallacy. S.H.
White also notes that:
The fact that some twentieth-century psychology has pro-
duced findings that are only true within situational bound-
aries is not completely surprising. Before this century, a
number of distinguished philosophers argued that in order
to fully understand how the human mind works we will re-
quire two psychologies of different orders. We will need
the kind of naturalistic psychology with which we are fa-
miliar, analyzing mental phenomena as constructions built
out of sensations, ideas, associations, reflexes, or sensori-
motor schemes. We will need also a less-familiar “second
psychology” describing higher-level mental phenomena as
entities given form by the language, myths, and social
practices in which the individual lives. Such a second psy-
chology would not be expected to yield universal findings.
Since higher mental processes are formed by culture, they
differ from society to another. (1996, p. xii)
In addition to Cole, S. H. White posits there has al-
ways been a lineage of cultural psychologists who have
argued for:
An emphasis on mediated action in a context; the use of
the “genetic method” understood broadly to include his-
torical, ontogenetic, and micro-genetic levels of analysis;
the grounding of analysis in everyday life events; the as-
sumption that mind emerges in the joint activity of people
and is in an important sense, “co-constructed”; the as-
sumption that individuals are active agents in their own
development; rejection of cause-effect, stimulus-response,
explanatory science in favor of a science that emphasizes
the emergent nature of mind in activity and that acknowl-
edges a central role for interpretation in its explanatory
framework; methodologies that draw upon the humanities
as well as the social and biological sciences. (1996, p. xii)
Sheldon White describes efforts expended for this
second psychology that began in the 1920s with work by
Vygotsky who suggested the need for a human science
of psychology that could stand beside the existing natu-
ral science of the time. He argued that the need to “ un-
derstand” human mental life was deeply connected to
the manufactured objects in our world. Human beings
live in a world of human artifacts—tools, words, rou-
tines, and rituals—changeling objects that are at once
and the same time things the individual must deal with
and repositories of prior human thought and judgment
(1996, xiii). As reported by S. H. White, the integration
and consideration of culture, for Michael Cole (as a
cultural-historical psychology) means understanding
856 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
that psychology comes to life only when there are re-
search procedures through which people can experience
and know the world together. As noted by S. H. White,
Vygotsky asserts a critical philosophical position of im-
portance in this regard. “An artifact is an aspect of the
material world that has been modified over by the his-
tory of its incorporation in goal-directed human action.
By virtue of the changes wrought in the process of their
creation and use, artifacts are simultaneously ideal
(conceptual) and material” (p. xiv; emphases added).
S. H. White is quite clear that “artifacts” are the funda-
mental constituents of culture. The growth of the human
mind, in ontogeny and human history, must properly be
understood as a co-evolution of human activities and ar-
tifacts. The words we speak, the social institutions in
which we participate, the man-made physical objects we
use, all serve as both tools and symbols. They exist in
the world around us; they organize our attention and ac-
tion in that world and, in the aggregate, they create “al-
ternative worlds” (p. xiv). It would appear that including
the individual’s own reporting (i.e., as phenomenology)
of the particulars of “alternative worlds” would be criti-
cal for arriving at an understanding of specific meaning-
making processes by individuals as they mature over
time, transition across multiple settings and physical
spaces, and cope with the attendant contextual demands.
Accordingly, there are few places where this phenome-
non is as evident as in the coping processes of youth grow-
ing up in socially constructed urban contexts. There
are few examples more poignant than the unique and co-
existing struggles of diverse urban youth and families in
their efforts to demonstrate resiliency in socially con-
structed although infrequently acknowledged urban cul-
tural contexts. S. H. White (1996) suggests that a
“cultural-historical approach to the study of mind dictates
that when we study human development we must make the
study of surrounding social practices part and parcel of
our inquiry.” And relative to policy and programming is-
sues, “Similarly, if we want to change the pattern of a
human being’s activities, we need to address the sur-
rounding situations in which those activities live” (p. xiv).
As scholars and researchers interested in human
development from a global perspective, there are few
context-concerns of more importance than the need to
examine the assumptions and questions that guide the
conduct of the research industry and policy enterprise.
A clear demonstration of this dilemma is the experience
of immigrant youth (see Spencer, Harpalani, Cassidy,
et al., 2006). As an illustrative case, the cultural context
of African American male youths is described before
moving to the unique experiences of immigrants.
The Cultural Context of African American Males
S. H. White’s “alternative worlds” perspective is particu-
larly evident in the coping processes of African American
boys growing up in socially constructed urban contexts,
particularly in public schools in low-resourced and un-
usually stigmatized social systems. Boykin (1986) sug-
gests that the behaviors and practices evident in
contemporary communities where African American
boys develop have their genesis in African cultures.
These behaviors and practices manifest themselves dif-
ferently, depending on the social, physical, historical, and
economic contexts in which the boys interact. Although
this assertion has multiple political implications, it also
offers insight into the dynamic nature of culture. Simply
by their contrast to mainstream culture, the behaviors and
practices that characterize African American communi-
ties are assumed not to be cultural but, instead, deviant
(Jarrett, 1994; Oyemade, 1985). Kottak (1987) notes that
culture is learned and cultural learning is dependent on
“the uniquely human capacity to use symbols, signs that
have no necessary or natural connection to what they
stand for. . . . A person born anywhere begins immedi-
ately through a process of conscious and unconscious
learning and interaction with others, to internalize, or in-
corporate, a cultural tradition through the process of en-
culturation” (p. 23). As Kottak implies, a great deal of
culture is expressed in the human ability to give meaning
and value to a thing, activity, or event. The next section
places emphasis on understanding the meanings that is
given to experiences that appear to be unique to African
American children and families. Particularly illustrative
to this point are the findings of race awareness and racial
attitudes studies.
From a set of programmatic studies of race aware-
ness, racial attitudes, and self-esteem findings from the
early childhood years to adolescence, Spencer and col-
leagues have obtained quite interesting findings for
Black boys. Beginning in the preschool stage (e.g.,
Spencer, 1970; Spencer & Horowitz, 1973), findings
suggest that Black boys learn the cultural symbols for
group membership at the same rate as girls. There are no
gender differences in preschoolers’ Eurocentric (i.e.,
White valuing and Black devaluing) evaluative judg-
ments of things dark in hue and of pictures depicting
African American people: Three-year-olds learn the
symbols as effectively as 5-year-olds (see Spencer,
 Cross-Cutting Human Development Themes of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
1970, 1999b; Spencer & Horowitz, 1973). As indicated
by Spencer (2005), those cultural symbols and meanings
for “self processes” become increasingly more complex
for Black males by adolescence.
The Unique Experiences of African American
Male Adolescents
As reviewed by Spencer (1999a), for African American
boys who are generally viewed with some degree of disso-
nance and trepidation by the larger society (see Cunning-
ham, 1993), the task of managing an ego-supporting
identity while coping with generalized negative imagery
is daunting. The dilemma may be parallel to male adoles-
cents generally, however, African American males specif-
ically are expected to shoulder the traditional negative
stereotypes associated with male adolescence, along with
the added burden of enhanced, often unacknowledged
negative imagery linked with minority status. Often over-
looked, negative stereotypes influence character and re-
actions to socialization efforts such as those extended
both in and out of school. That these conditions and expe-
riences are not formally recognized (although are part of
youths’ daily experiences) make the individual’s manage-
ment of normative developmental tasks more challenging.
Specifically, those tasks associated with establishing a
moral identity or academic (achievement-linked) identity
are particularly salient when coupled with attendant out-
comes potentially more diverse and open to misinterpreta-
tion. Accordingly, African American male adolescents, in
their efforts to cope with normative developmental tasks
with few resources and supports, may deploy coping
methods that prove to be less than constructive. The re-
sponsive methods deployed by African American youths
(i.e., what we generally term as coping methods) may be
emotionally comfortable for a short period. These strate-
gies are also used by privileged youth in their pursuits of
autonomy; however, given stereotyping they frequently
further exacerbate an already challenging situation in the
end when deployed by African American male youth.
The struggles associated with autonomy linked devel-
opmental tasks are quite challenging. Theorists suggest
that growth in value autonomy is linked to expected cog-
nitive changes. We suggest that these changes, although
infrequently considered for African American youths,
particularly males, require a sensitive and simultaneous
synthesis of context character. Necessary for considera-
tion in this synthesis includes both the process and prod-
uct of individuals’ evolving understanding of the world
as youth struggle with inequitable conditions, normative
857
stage-specific processes, growth in value autonomy, and
expectations for positive outcomes in response to nor-
mative developmental tasks. Irrespective of societal sta-
tus, youthful performance expectations are generic
across groups and an equivalent level of competence and
resiliency is anticipated for all peers independent of de-
gree of special challenges experienced by specific groups.
For the most part, both entitlements and extra chal-
lenges are ignored, although similar stage-specific posi-
tive outcomes of competence, physical and psychological
health status, and broad achievements are expected
for all. Generally lacking in our thinking, however, as we
consider achievement-linked outcomes such as the
achievement gap between Black and White academic
performance, is an appreciation of youths’ interpretive
framework and perceptions concerning (a) context risk
and presence of protective factors, (b) attendant stress
and accessible supports, (c) available coping methods for
reactive deployment (used for guaranteeing psychological
health and physical survival), and (d) models of stable
coping processes (identities) and patterned coping out-
comes (e.g., including both achievement-relevant and
moral identity-linked). An awareness of youths meaning-
making including assessments of resources and chal-
lenges have implications for how they traverse patterned
and unique psychological and physical challenges. There
are also intriguing interactions between factors.
The dilemma of competing allegiances (triple
quandary; see Boykin, 1986) and competing socializa-
tion contexts (see Allen, 1985; Boykin & Ellison, 1995;
Boykin & Toms, 1985; Brookins, 1985, 1988; Hare &
Castenell, 1985; Johnson, 1988) is rarely perceived as
being more evident than in the experiences of African
American males. The growth of value autonomy may be
dramatically illustrated by urban youths’ pursuit and
acquisition of respect. For many boys growing up in low-
resource communities, the demand and demonstration
of independence and responsibility occur early (see
Holliday, 1985a, 1985b). The value and recognition of
both of these character qualities are evident in micro-
systems such as family, community, and church. The
recognition and the early assignment of characteristics
of maleness to African American boys is interesting.
Generally reported anecdotally, there is a penchant to
refer to a male baby or toddler as “little man.” The
motivation for the term’s frequent usage is linked to an
expressed and global valuing of maleness and may not
represent a conscious effort to “adultify” male children.
Instead, the widespread use of the term, particularly by
858 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
African American men, suggests an effort to short-
circuit the use of the slavery-associated penchant of
Whites to refuse adulthood status to Black men by refer-
ring to them as boys. Thus, from an African American
adult male’s perspective, a father’s use of “little man”
to his son may be solely one of endearment. The particu-
lar language used connotes pride in his son and expecta-
tions for a future manly role.
The purpose of such language is its attempt to neu-
tralize the prevalent use of Black male stereotyping and
undervaluing of Black males by the broader society.
Young children, however, are developmentally egocen-
tric (appropriately self-centered) and remain so until
about 6 or 7 years of age (see Spencer, 1976, 1982).
Therefore, taking the perspective of another can depend
on a combination of cognitive maturation and social ex-
perience. As a consequence, children hear, use, and un-
derstand language and interpret its content from their
own (appropriately) limited cognitive perspective. Ac-
cordingly, in the case of African American men and
boys, use of “little man” language may unavoidably re-
sult in children’s inferring a set of expectations to be-
have and take on the responsibilities of manhood while
still a youngster. From a PVEST perspective, specific
socialization strategies, expressed as reactive coping
methods, that are deployed by parents and intended to
short circuit the internalization of prevalent stereo-
types, may themselves introduce errant self perceptions.
Cultural socialization is in addition to the other tradi-
tional socialization tasks for which all parents are re-
sponsible; thus, the additional need of contemporary
Black adults to responsively cope with historical condi-
tions (e.g., the verbal strategy used by slave owners to
render adult African American men to child status) ulti-
mately makes child-rearing responsibilities particularly
onerous for African American parents (see Spencer,
1983, 1990).
African American male adolescents’ pursuit of and
sensitivity to obtaining respect from others (e.g., teach-
ers, police officers, unknown citizens) can be problem-
atic (see Spencer, 1999a). Teachers uniformly expect
student-like behavior from children irrespective of the
problematic and frequently unacknowledged affective
school climate experienced by many African American
and Hispanic children. Given particular cultural tradi-
tions, gender appears to be an exacerbating factor for di-
verse youth, particularly males. Without carefully
internalized reactive coping strategies obtained from per-
sistent cultural socialization efforts by parents, the disso-
nance created for African American males given social
stigma is experienced as an early social challenge. As a
basic ego need, youths’ pursuit of respect may take on
greater importance than the highly shared and valued ac-
quisition of academic achievement (Spencer, 1999a).
Irvine (1988) observes teacher-student tensions begin-
ning in the early grades for boys. Accordingly, in the ab-
sence of close parental monitoring, if generalized respect
from the broader society and the school are not forthcom-
ing, adolescent males’ reactive (or less constructive) cop-
ing response may be problematic; specifically, the taking
on of “ habitual right actions,” which are polar opposite to
those generally valued by society and expected by
schools, may potentially have adverse academic perfor-
mance implications (see Cunningham, Swanson, Spencer,
& Dupree, 2003). The awareness of inequities and need
for respect may complicate family dynamics particularly
when accompanied by biological-based normative chal-
lenges such as off-timed maturational rate differences
(Swanson, Cunningham, & Spencer, 2003).
Gender-intensified behavior, such as hypermasculin-
ity, may be seen by youth as potentially more effective
in generating respect than the instrumentality- and
future-linked outcomes associated with academic
achievement. Another exacerbating but normative factor
is the relatively late acquisition of a time-perspective (a
true sense of the future), which is linked to the present
and past as a cognitive construction and acquisition, and
is usually reserved until mid- or late-adolescence. Be-
fore then, young people require significant aid in under-
standing and implementing the links between current
behavioral investments (e.g., studying and school en-
gagement) and long-terms valued outcomes (e.g., sec-
ondary school graduation and successful career
preparation). Given the normatively late acquisition of a
time concept, it is not surprising that many male youth
do not understand that the 12 years of primary and sec-
ondary school preparation and academic engagement
provide a critically important opportunity; this is an-
other reason why parental monitoring is closely linked
to academic outcomes for youth generally, and, given
the problem of stereotype threat described by Claude
Steele and colleagues, this appears particularly salient
for African American youth (see Spencer et al., 1996;
Spencer & Swanson, 2000). As a long-standing value
espoused by African Americans, documented both be-
fore and after slavery (Spencer, Cross, Harpalani, &
Goss, 2003), and integrated as a cultural value shared
through parental socialization efforts, education contin-
 Cross-Cutting Human Development Themes of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
ues to be highly valued by the African American com-
munity (Spencer, 1983, 1990). Educational success in-
creases (not guarantees) the probability of acquiring the
long-term respect that hypermasculine reactive
coping behavior connotes and that Black boys and ado-
lescents desperately seek and need (Swanson, Cunning-
ham, & Spencer, 2003). However, the variety of
historical, structural, and contemporary barriers and
challenges make the educational process inopportune for
some youth. Similarly, the normative experiences of im-
migrants to the United States appear no less complex
and, from a PVEST perspective, suggest different
sources of risk that may contribute to youths’ vulnera-
bility level. An inclusive and broad understanding of
risks for diverse groups promotes an improved articula-
tion of basic supports required and culturally specific
interventions necessitated for obtaining competence for
youth generally. A PVEST approach provides a cultur-
ally sensitive mechanism for linking unique risks and
protective factors with context features experienced by
specific groups—the individual-context analysis, given
evolving perceptual developments aids, determining the
level of vulnerability anticipated and the kinds of sup-
ports required for obtaining the best possible outcomes.
Special Experiences of Immigrants
Given the cautions described by S. H. White (1996) con-
cerning the need for a cultural-historical approach, this
section explores various risk and protective factors that
second-generation immigrants from collectivist soci-
eties may experience living in the United States. Focus-
ing particularly on the experiences of Asian Americans,
specifically South Asian Americans, we emphasize that
the problems and concerns addressed here are certainly
not indicative of all South Asian Americans. Consistent
with Cole’s (1996) cultural psychology perspective and
S. H. White’s (1996) critique, we believe that an indi-
vidual constructs his or her own worldview in his or her
own way. However, the construction is unavoidably
linked to context character (Lee et al., 2003). As dis-
cussed elsewhere (Spencer, Harpalani, Cassidy, et al.,
2006), using the phrase “South Asian Americans” or
“second-generation South Asian children,” we actually
refer to individuals who are specifically born and raised
in the United States and who have immigrant parents
from the following countries in South Asia: India, Pak-
istan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh. As illustrated previ-
ously in Figure 15.12, PVEST provides a helpful
framework for exploring the development of identity in
859
South Asian Americans. Relative to the first component,
Net Vulnerability (the balance between risks and protec-
tive factors), the particular risks to South Asian Ameri-
cans become salient when discussing the differences
between what constitutes individualistic societies, such
as the United States, and collectivist cultures such as
those of South Asian countries.
Individualistic societies follow an ideology that re-
volves around personal autonomy, independence, and
self-reliance. These societies aim to create individuals
who are able to separate themselves from others and
from situational contexts. The independent self is con-
structed to be a fixed entity that does not change when
social situations change. “ The independent self-system
thus seeks to display or assert attributes or features of
the self. The others in a social situation are important,
but they are important primarily as standards of social
comparison or for feedback that can validate the inner at-
tributes of the self ” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 22).
Collectivist societies strive to emphasize obedience
and conformity. Their primary goal is to shape individu-
als into interdependent beings who are defined by their
relationships. The interdependent self is seen as being
fluid (able to change when the social environment around
them changes), dynamic, and defined by roles according
to situation and context. “Such an interdependent self is
not properly characterized as a bounded whole, because
it changes structure with the nature of the particular so-
cial context ” (Markus & Kitayama, 1991, p. 23).
Given the drastic differences inherent in these two
types of societies, it is highly probable that immigrants
from collectivist societies who move to the United States
may experience many difficulties adjusting to their new
surroundings. When individuals choose to immigrate, they
may come with practical knowledge of the country to
which they are moving. However many will not be ade-
quately versed in the cultural and societal values, beliefs,
attitudes, and so on of the foreign country they are adopt-
ing as their new home. This circumstance may produce
significant problems for some immigrants, especially for
those who may have difficulties in acculturation. Even
though these immigrants may be aware that they are going
through intense emotional and mental changes, they may
be reluctant to seek help from outsiders, including mental
health professionals. This reluctance may be attributable
to suspicion, doubt, fear, uncertainty, confusion, shame, or
ignorance of Western psychology and psychologists. This
analysis and decision to refrain from accessing objective
support may be acceptable for the immigrants themselves,
860 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
but what about their children? The acculturation process
can be daunting for immigrants who may have already de-
veloped a strong sense of identity and self while living in
their mother country. However, the processes of accultura-
tion and identity development are heightened in intensity
for second-generation immigrant children living in the
United States (Spencer, Harpalani, Cassidy, et al., 2006).
Theorizing by Mehta (1998) addresses these processes
in the South Asian Indian American population and sug-
gests that “ the second generation has been exposed to
distinctly different language, goals, food, rituals, dress,
music, landscapes, and values than their parents. There is
a strong urge to retain ethnic identity while rapidly ac-
quiring awareness of American values, partially due to fi-
nancial gains” (p. 133). Because of this disparity between
their ethnic identity and their national identity, South
Asian American children are faced with what many have
coined a clash of cultures: the collectivist ideologies from
their families constantly coming into conflict with indi-
vidualistic ideologies from the surrounding environment.
Second-generation South Asian Americans must grapple
with the exceedingly difficult task of juggling opposing
philosophies successfully to survive. From a PVEST per-
spective, it is safe to say that protective factors in one
cultural setting may not serve as an effective source of
support when acculturating to a new cultural niche.
The tension from a clash of cultures that many South
Asian Americans experience is a significant risk
contributor that increases vulnerability and net stress
and has implications for identity development (Spencer
et al., 2006). Similar to identifiable diverse youth, South
Asian youths’ physical features serve as a risk contribu-
tor because being easily identified can lead others to
perceive them as foreign, even though they have been
born and raised in the United States and are U.S. citi-
zens. This dichotomy between the physical and internal
selves may have implications for disruptions in self-
image and self-esteem, which may interfere with com-
petence strivings and mental health. Interestingly, given
available protective factors, social supports, and models
of adaptive coping methods, many youth still maintain a
healthy sense of self and demonstrate resiliency.
Similar to many families of color, a protective factor,
which also functions as a potential source of support in
the PVEST framework, is the South Asian immigrant
family unit. To understand the relevance of the self in re-
lation to the family, which may function as a risk contrib-
utor, it is important to discuss the concept of in-groups
and out-groups in a collectivist cultural context. An in-
group constitutes an individual’s immediate social envi-
ronment. In South Asian countries, this may include the
family ( both nuclear and extended), friends, coworkers,
and peers (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). The individual is
connected intimately with their particular in-group and
therefore, according to Sethi, Lepper, and Ross (1999)
“ the self and relevant in-group members may become
psychological entities prone to relatively similar inferen-
tial, judgmental, attributional, motivational, and percep-
tual biases” (p. 10). The collectivist self is thus defined
according to his or her in-group. However, the process of
immigration disrupts the concept of an in-group.
Especially relevant in the case of children, when in-
dividuals drastically change their social, societal, and
cultural environments by moving to another country, ex-
tended family, friends, coworkers, and peers are left be-
hind. These individuals must break the close bonds they
shared with their established in-group in South Asia and
leave the stability and security of their lives to seek ful-
fillment of their goals and aspirations in another coun-
try. For people who are interdependent, the experience
of leaving their in-group can be very traumatic. The sev-
ering of ties may be exceedingly difficult, especially if
a comparable kin network is not already established in
the adopted country. From a PVEST perspective, to
maximize supports for offsetting challenges, immi-
grants must learn to create their own kin networks with
other immigrants in their new environment. Although
the friendships formed may be comforting and provide
emotional, psychological, and perhaps financial support
they may not compare as favorably to those relationships
between family members or lifelong friends that were
established in their country of origin. Accordingly, the
identification and acquisition of supports may them-
selves introduce challenges that interfere with the posi-
tive balance sought for overall net stress level.
The character and experience of an in-group
may function differently in a foreign country. Triandis
(1989) suggests that “collectivism is associated with
child-rearing patterns that emphasize conformity, obedi-
ence, and reliability. Such patterns are usually associated
with rewards for conformity to in-group goals, which
leads to internalization of the in-group goals. Thus people
do what is expected of them even if that is not enjoyable”
(p. 513). However, characteristics that might suggest psy-
chological protection in the country of origin might func-
tion differently in the adopted country. For example, the
heavy emphasis on obedience and conformity, especially
among individuals who are highly traditional and conser-
 Cross-Cutting Human Development Themes of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
vative about upholding the customs of their culture may
tend toward strict parenting. Accordingly, this poses a
definite risk for South Asian American children living in
an individualistic society that focuses on independence
and autonomy (Spencer, Harpalani, Cassidy, et al., 2006).
The South Asian family’s economic status also poses
a risk and potential for experiencing a downside of
privilege. Mehta suggests that “Given the fact that
immigration from India has largely been restricted
to the educated groups, this immigrant population in the
United States, unlike other immigrant groups, has
achieved remarkable economic prosperity” (Mehta,
1998, p. 132). Already, Asian Americans are viewed as
the model minority in U.S. culture. The financial suc-
cess of South Asian immigrants may invoke animosity in
other racial and ethnic groups, which can lead to racial
conflicts, leaving South Asian American children vul-
nerable to threats, harassment, and potential violence.
Accordingly, from a PVEST perspective, protective fac-
tors generally available to offset more traditional risks
may not necessarily serve that purpose if the context
presents other risk factors associated with stigma,
stereotypes, and associated stress.
Gender may be another important risk contributor
that enhances vulnerability. Given the varying expecta-
tions and viewpoints in South Asian culture toward both
sexes, we can expect that the processes underlying iden-
tity development have the potential to be drastically dif-
ferent for males and females. However, due to lack of
extensive research available with regards to this racial
group, it may be a better strategy to focus on South
Asian Americans as a collective whole.
Spencer, Harpalani, Cassidy, et al. (2006) suggest that
the theoretically close relationships assumed for collec-
tivist cultures are expected to serve as protective factors
that are transformed into sources of stress. However, two
of the most problematic, controversial, and emotionally
charged areas in a South Asian American’s life are
choice of career and romantic relationships because these
are two of the most important decisions that directly af-
fect youths’ relationship with their parents. Mehta sup-
ports this assertion by including “sexual conflicts” and
“career conflicts” in her five proposed areas of develop-
mental conflicts (1998). However, more generally, the
stressor can be any situation where immigrant parent ex-
pectations conflict with U.S. societal expectations.
Like other youth of color, South Asian American
children must confront a complex social environment in
the United States, including school, university, peer
861
groups, and the media. The latter teaches them to be
their own person, exert their autonomy and independ-
ence, and follow their own aspirations and desires. They
see that there is more than one option available and are
encouraged to choose what they feel is best for them-
selves (including what makes them happiest). However,
South Asian American children are also expected to fol-
low what their parents say and fulfill their obligations to
their families. “ The Anglo-American social and cultural
values of self-sufficiency, autonomy, and personal re-
sponsibility are often misinterpreted by immigrant
parents as selfish, and the parents place excessive re-
strictions on their children” (Mehta, 1998, p. 150).
Second-generation South Asian Americans therefore
receive two completely different messages about con-
struction of self. This dilemma poses a serious challenge
for successful identity development. The South Asian
family unit can serve as a significant and comforting
source of support, especially given its probable close-
ness and intimate nature. Alternatively, given the dia-
metrically opposed identity messages received by youth,
families may also represent a significant source of
stress. Family friends who are a part of the South Asian
family’s kin network and the South Asian American’s
peers from various social settings, including school and
neighborhood, could also serve as potential supports.
However, these supports can also become potential
sources of pain and confusion, depending on how South
Asian Americans choose to handle the decisions regard-
ing choice of spouse and career.
In some South Asian families, it is possible for parents
to accept and feel comfortable with their son’s or daugh-
ter’s choice to adapt and conform to their American sur-
roundings. It is still highly unlikely that conflicts with
these more open-minded immigrant parents will never
occur because most South Asian American children de-
scribe being caught between the two cultures as living an
“American life from 9 to 5 and an Indian life from 5 to 9.
This duality represents a very important feeling of split
identity in the second-generation immigrant from South
Asia” (Mehta, 1998, p. 137). Ideally, these conflicts may
be minor and not hinder the South Asian American’s
identity development, but it is not always the case.
In most instances, children will reach a crossroad at
some point in their lives where they must choose one or
the other. The question is which ideology do they follow,
and how does this play out? Of importance is that
PVEST elaborates the role of reactive coping strategies
specifying salient implications for identity processes. It
862 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
may be this recursive stage between net reactive coping
strategies and emergent identity processes that the South
Asian American’s self-perceptions prove to be most cru-
cial. As described elsewhere, stable self-perceptions can
determine whether one uses or downplays certain abili-
ties, emphasizes or draws attention away from certain
physical attributes, adopts or suppresses certain behav-
iors, and engages in or shies away from certain activities
(Spencer, Hartmann, et al., 1997, p. 47).
If a South Asian American chooses to adapt to his or
her environment by identifying fully as American and
rebelling against their parents to participate in normal
American cultural activities such as dating, going to the
prom, or even choosing a career path that immigrant par-
ents do not deem as acceptable, this action may be
viewed as either adaptive or maladaptive and thus
youths’ weighing of consequences is critical. On the one
hand, this coping strategy can definitely be seen as pos-
itive given the tremendous pressure from society to fit
in with their peers. However, it can also be seen as nega-
tive, considering the tenacity of the bonds between fam-
ily members, second-generation South Asian American
children must face the severe trauma of shaming their
family if they follow the motto of American culture:
“Following one’s own heart and pursuing one’s own
dreams.” Additionally, depending on the amount of con-
servatism the family observes, South Asian American
children run the risk of losing their families altogether
because of exerting their independence. This sense of
shame and loss of the family happens because, accord-
ing to their South Asian parents’ perspective, the action
of South Asian American children making their own
choices in life becomes translated into exhibiting com-
plete disregard and disrespect for their elders and family
as well as displaying outright disobedience.
However, if South Asian American children conform
to what their families want for them in cases where they
internally would like to choose another option, this may
also have negative and positive adaptive implications. By
obeying their parents, these children run the risk of fac-
ing a life of unhappiness because they did not follow their
own dreams. South Asian Americans may immediately
experience this as they begin to feel disconnected from
their peers, particularly if they are not allowed to partic-
ipate in activities and events that are paramount in Amer-
ican culture, such as going out with friends, dating, and
so on. The relinquishment of personal desires is exceed-
ingly problematic when considering major life-altering
decisions, especially if subsequently South Asian Ameri-
can children regret having listened to their families and
are trapped in jobs or marriages that they find unbear-
ably dissatisfying and unpleasant. They may eventually
feel that they wasted their lives on the dreams and expec-
tations of their family and culture and come to resent
both (Spencer, Harpalani, Cassidy, et al., 2006).
Phoebe Eng, in her book entitled Warrior Lessons,
addresses this choice of many Asian American children:
“When asked why we frequently forgo our own wants in
order to fulfill our parents’ expectations, many of us re-
spond with reasons that incorporate notions of filial
piety and reverence for our elders” (p. 25). With obser-
vations such as Eng’s, we can see how collectivist
thoughts learned from the family can influence South
Asian American children. The power of “ filial piety”
can be overwhelming and perhaps even suffocating at
times, especially considering these feelings can be com-
plicated further with guilt. Eng comments, “ ‘Filial
piety’ is often synonymous with payback—a [child’s]
guilt and obedience in exchange for a [parent’s] undying
but tacit support. Our guilt can come in many curren-
cies” (p. 26). These currencies, Eng continues, include
words from immigrant parents that point out the many
sacrifices they may have made. The opportunity to grow
up with privileges and luxuries that immigrant parents
never had and worked hard to give becomes tainted with
guilt, and this guilt can lead South Asian Americans to
feel compelled or obligated to obey their parents.
It is important to note that immigrant parents should
not be viewed as selfish or wrong. These views and atti-
tudes toward children are embedded within South Asian
culture and are normal for collectivist societies. How-
ever when South Asian immigrants are placed within an
individualistic framework, they may not realize that the
same rules and social norms that they held in their
mother country cannot necessarily be applied to all situ-
ations. The amount of conservatism immigrant parents
may observe can directly relate to whether or not they
themselves have successfully acculturated and dealt
with the immigration process.
South Asian Americans therefore choose to adapt in
various ways, according to how they perceive they
should. They could go through one extreme, rebelling
against their parents and essentially their culture to
identify completely as American, or through another by
identifying completely with their ethnic culture and
denying their national identity. A third possibility is for
 Cross-Cutting Human Development Themes of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
South Asian Americans to choose neither. These three
coping strategies can be maladaptive and lead to poten-
tial problems. A fourth possibility is that they may nego-
tiate and balance both identities successfully, which is
obviously the most positive and adaptive solution.
The next phase of the PVEST model involves emer-
gent identities. If South Asian Americans choose to
rebel, they may come to view themselves positively if
they gain acceptance and support from their American
peers or friends. Mehta (1998) coins this identity as the
“Amerocentric identity” where they hold “strong Amer-
ican values and [have] little contact with their ethnic
background” (p. 134). They are most likely to feel com-
fortable in U.S. society, but feel disconnected to their
families. South Asian American children may also view
themselves negatively, especially if they are labeled as
bad by their parents, which translates to meaning that
they are a failure or have brought shame to the family. In
extremely strict South Asian households, South Asian
Americans may eventually be disowned or cast away
from their families. They essentially take on the identity
of being the black sheep of their family.
If South Asian Americans conform to their family’s
expectations, they may develop a positive identity with
relation to their parents. Their family and culture be-
come primary sources of support, and they are viewed
and come to view themselves as the good and obedient
child. However, these children may confront isolation
and possible humiliation or ridicule from their peers, es-
pecially if they focus entirely on studies and do not par-
ticipate in social gatherings, activities, or events. Mehta
(1998) refers to these individuals as having developed
the “Ethnocentric identity” (p. 134).
When South Asian Americans choose neither, they
develop the “Compromised identity” which Mehta
claims is the most problematic. In this case, South Asian
Americans cannot connect to either their surroundings
or their family’s culture and become lost or alienated.
Interestingly, this identity may develop if the South
Asian immigrant parents have not dealt with accultura-
tion successfully and they feel confused or conflicted
about their own identity development since they immi-
grated themselves (Mehta, 1998).
The “Bicultural identity,” which results from suc-
cessful negotiation of both national and ethnic identity,
develops in those children whose parents are willing to
be flexible and open-minded toward U.S. culture and
have successfully adapted to the United States them-
863
selves. These children feel connected to both their South
Asian heritage and to their national identity as Ameri-
can (Mehta, 1998).
This leads to the final component of the PVEST
model, “life-stage specific outcomes or coping products”
(Spencer, 1999a, p. 47). Depending on which emergent
identity eventually develops, the South Asian American
can experience positive outcomes such as healthy rela-
tionships with their family, friends, kin network, peers
from school or the neighborhood, and so on. They may
experience healthy identity formation. However they
may also experience identity confusion, psychological
problems, disownment, and development of psychologi-
cal disorders, which can lead to depression, even suicide.
The plight of South Asian Americans is serious when
considering possible maladaptive coping strategies that
lead to negative emergent identities and unproductive
outcomes. These problems must not be taken lightly or
overlooked. More and more cases of psychological dis-
turbance, psychopathology, and suicide in the South
Asian immigrant community are surfacing. Although it
is difficult to determine what the exact cause of these
problems may be, it is safe to guess that conflicts with
marriage, love relationships, academics, and career play
pivotal roles in troubling and complicating the lives of
South Asian Americans to a great extent.
Despite the negative stigma attached to mental health
and psychological problems in the South Asian immigrant
community, more research needs to be conducted to in-
vestigate these issues. Additionally, clinical psycholo-
gists must be cognizant of these problems when treating
South Asian American clients. The issues brought up in
this section underscore the fact that it is imperative for
psychologists in the United States to be trained in ethnic
minority concerns and to be sensitive to the needs of their
clients. By understanding the cultural context in which
immigrant children live, psychologists can help South
Asian Americans develop healthy emergent identities that
leave them with stable, positive coping products.
Consistent for marginalized youth generally, immi-
grants specifically, and for youth who enjoy the appear-
ance of consonant individual-context experiences (i.e.,
although, as indicated, European Americans may be vul-
nerable to the downside of privilege), context matters.
Integrated and implicated in multiple ways from a
PVEST perspective and as applied uniquely to diverse
youths’ experiences, positive outcomes more frequently
occur when programming, socialization ef forts, social
864 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
practices, and broad policies are linked to context char-
acter. Multiple perspectives about ecological contexts
are available, vary by emphasis, and provide unique con-
tributions to understanding transactional individual-
context interactions.
ECOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES:
EXPLORING THE BIOECOLOGICAL MODEL
As reviewed in several places (e.g., Spencer &
Harpalani, 2004), Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994)
present four distinguishing attributes of the bioecologi-
cal model. First, they define measurable mechanisms,
known as proximal processes, through which genetic
influences are actualized into observable phenomena.
Thus, the processes that mediate genetic and environ-
mental influences on human development are a
fundamental component of the model. Second, Bronfen-
brenner and Ceci (1994) highlight the aforementioned
variability of heritability, noting that the bioecological
model stipulates system variation in heritability as a
joint function of proximal processes and characteristics
of the environment in which these processes take place
(p. 570). With this second feature, the bioecological
model provides heritability as a measure—which ironi-
cally is the same measure used in most behavioral ge-
netic studies. In the model, heritability is interpreted as
the proportion of variance attributable to actualized ge-
netic potential (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1993, 1994), as
opposed simply to genetic influences. Bronfenbrenner
and Ceci (1994) note that heritability matters; they
view its most important contribution in social science as
those instances when researchers focus on its variabil-
ity. The variation in heritability allows a linkage be-
tween heritability and developmental functioning, with
the proximal processes defined in the first feature serv-
ing as the conceptual bridge between the two. The third
characteristic of the bioecological model is that it con-
siders variation in heritability as it relates to particular
developmental outcomes (see Figure 15.18).
The fourth feature is that the model simultaneously
evaluates heritability and absolute level of developmental
competence. Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994) postulate
that improving the quality of proximal processes will lead
both to higher levels of heritability and to elevated levels
of developmental functioning. The reason for the latter is
readily apparent: Heritability will increase because as
proximal processes improve in quality for individuals in a
given population, these individuals will maximize their
genetic potentials, and observed differences in the popu-
lation will be due to these differing genetic potentials.
Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994) derive three propo-
sitions from their bioecological model, which they use
to formulate hypotheses. The first proposition delin-
eates the person-environment interaction in human de-
velopment, stating “ human development takes place
through processes of progressively more complex recip-
rocal interaction between an active, evolving biopsycho-
logical human organism and the persons, objects, and
symbols in its immediate environment ” (p. 572). Bron-
fenbrenner and Ceci (1994) note that this interaction
must be consistent over time to effectively facilitate de-
velopment. Consistent patterns of interaction are the
proximal processes defined earlier. Examples of proxi-
mal processes include a child’s interactions with parents
and peers, development of competencies and problem-
solving skills, and acquisition of knowledge.
The second proposition of the bioecological model
states, “ The form, power, content, and direction of the
proximal processes effecting development vary system-
atically as a joint function of the characteristics of
Outcome
(Individual’s Phenotype)
High
Highest
Heritability,
Moderately high Most competent
Heritability,
More competent
Poor Environment Good Environment
Moderately low
Heritability,
Lowest Less competent
Heritability,
Least competent
Low
Levels of Proximal Processes
Individual
(Genotype)
Figure 15.18 Bioecological model. Figure adapted from
Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994). Source: From Spencer &
Harpalani, 2004.
 Ecological Perspectives: Exploring the Bioecological Model
the developing person, of the environment—both imme-
diate and more remote—in which the processes are
taking place, and of the nature of the developmental
outcomes under consideration” (Bronfenbrenner &
Ceci, 1994, p. 572). With this precept, Bronfenbrenner
and Ceci (1994) introduce the factors—attributes of the
person and the environment, and the character of devel-
opmental outcomes being analyzed—that govern proxi-
mal processes and their impact.
With the third proposition, Bronfenbrenner and Ceci
(1994) restate that proximal processes transform ge-
netic potentials into actualized outcomes (phenotypes)
and note that the factors that govern proximal processes
dictate their power to actualize genetic potentials. From
these three propositions, Bronfenbrenner and Ceci
(1994) derive three hypotheses. First, they restate the
view that effective proximal processes will increase her-
itability by increasing the proportion of variation attrib-
utable to actualized genetic potential. Second, they
propose that in actualizing genetic potentials, proximal
processes work to both enhance competence and reduce
dysfunction, increasing heritability in both cases. The
implications that follow from this hypothesis are:
1. Proximal processes have more power to actualize ge-
netic potentials for positive developmental outcomes
in organized, advantaged environments than in incon-
sistent, disadvantaged environments.
2. Proximal processes have more power to buffer ge-
netic potentials for negative developmental outcomes
in inconsistent, disadvantaged environments than in
organized, advantaged environments.
These first two hypotheses essentially state that heri-
tability, defined in terms of variance attributable to actu-
alized genetic potential, varies as a direct function of the
quality of both proximal processes and the environment.
Bronfenbrenner and Ceci’s (1994) third hypothesis is that
proximal processes have a greater ability to actualize ge-
netic potentials for positive developmental outcomes for
individuals living in more inconsistent and disadvantaged
environments. Bronfenbrenner and Ceci (1994) cite a few
studies that they interpret as supporting their first two
hypotheses (Fischbein, 1980; Riksen-Walraven, 1978;
Scarr-Salapatek, 1971), and they note the obvious impli-
cations for intervention of the third hypothesis, which is
derived from the first two. However, the authors also note
that the model still needs to be tested extensively.
865
Ecological Systems Theory
While the bioecological model lays out the relationship
between genetic influences, heritability, and proximal
processes as they take place in particular environments,
ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1989,
1993) focuses on characterizing levels of environmental
influence in terms of dynamic, interactive, systems of
person-environment relationships (Figure 15.19).
As suggested by Figure 15.19 and carefully reviewed
by Spencer and Harpalani (2004), ecological systems
theory is organized hierarchically, involving interactive
systems of increasing complexity embedded in the
framework of human development. Bronfenbrenner
(1979, 1993) begins by transforming Lewin’s (1935)
formulation that behavior is a coupled function of the
person and the environment. He substitutes develop-
ment for behavior, stating that development is also a
function of the person and the environment over time.
Also noted is the temporal contingence of developmen-
tal function. Each successive developmental period is
dependent on all previous periods of development.
Bronfenbrenner (1993) notes that through most of de-
velopmental psychology, theoretical constructs devised to
describe the characteristics of the person have not consid-
ered issues of context; developmental qualities of individ-
uals are conceived without reference to the environments
in which they are occurring (see Figure 15.19). Examples
of such qualities include standardized psychological mea-
sures such as personality and IQ tests. This type of
analysis reflects the personal attributes model (Bronfen-
brenner, 1989) and has a narrow focus on the individual,
assuming that findings from standardized measures can
be generalized without attention to context. Bronfenbren-
ner (1993) questions the assumptions of environment gen-
eralizability that underlie the personal attributes model;
he does recognize that these standardized measures are
useful, but he argues that research designs must simulta-
neously consider issues of social, cultural, and historical
context and incorporate context-oriented measures.
Conversely, the social address model (Bronfenbrenner,
1989), which is the most common approach, considers
only environmental factors, such as social class, family
size, and other demographic variables. The specific char-
acteristics of the environment, activities that occur in par-
ticular environments, and the impact of these activities on
individuals are all neglected in the social address model
(Bronfenbrenner & Crouter, 1983). The person-context
model examines both the individual and the context but
866 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Macrosystem
Exosystem
Mesosystem
Microsystem
Individual
Fam
ol
Fam
ho
ly
Sc
i
Neig
hborhood
i
ly
Fr
en
i
ds
Social Services
Soc
ia l, Cult ence
ural, Historical Influ
Figure 15.19 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory.
Source: From “Ecological Systems Theory” (pp. 187–248),
by U. Bronfenbrenner, in Annals of Child Development. R.
Vasta (Ed.), 1989, Greenwich, CT: JAI; and “ The Ecology of
Cognitive Development ” (pp. 3–44), by U. Bronfenbrenner, in
Development in Context: Acting and Thinking Is Specific Envi-
ronments, R. H. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), 1993, Hills-
dale, NJ: Erlbaum.
does not analyze the processes involved in development.
This model specifies ecological niches (Bronfenbrenner,
1989), but it does not delineate the processes by which de-
velopmental outcomes are attained.
Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 1989, 1993) ecological sys-
tems theory, in contrast, is a process-person-context
model that, like the bioecological model, highlights
variability in developmental processes as a function of
the characteristics of the person and the environment.
Ecological systems theory is organized in four levels
of environment, which mediate person-environment
interaction: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and
macrosystem (refer to Figure 15.19). The first level of
Bronfenbrenner’s model, the microsystem, involves the
interaction of the person with the immediate social and
physical environment: home, family, or school settings.
All of the levels of environmental influence are filtered
through microsystems, where actual experiences take
place. Proximal processes, earlier defined in the bioeco-
logical model as the mechanisms through which ge-
netic influences are actualized into observable
phenomena (Bronfenbrenner & Ceci, 1994; refer to
Figure 15.18), are essentially patterns of person-envi-
ronment interactions in the microsystem and change
during the development of the person (Bronfenbrenner,
1979, 1989, 1993). The mesosystem describes interac-
tions between the various microsystems in a person’s
life, essentially constituting the network of interper-
sonal relationships that overlap across the various set-
tings. The exosystem entails more distal influences,
including the structure of the community where the
person resides and settings where the person is not di-
rectly involved. Finally, the macrosystem is comprised
ng
of the larger societal institutions, such as government,
etti
kS
economy, media, and so on, which lay the social and
or
W
historical context for development (Bronfenbrenner,
1979, 1989, 1993).
s Spencer and Harpalani’s (2004) analysis suggests
that ecological systems theory provides a dynamic,
contextually sensitive framework from which to ana-
lyze environments and gene-environment interactions.
It can be applied to shed light on the behavioral genetic
theorizing noted earlier. For example, to the extent that
they can occur, the active and passive effects of gene-
environment correlation (Plomin, DeFries, & Loehlin,
1977; Scarr & McCartney, 1983) primarily involve the
lower levels of the model. Individuals may have some
ability to shape their own environments and those of
their relatives (perhaps based on their genetic makeup)
at the level of the microsystem, and perhaps even at the
mesosystem. However, individuals are by definition not
involved in their exosystems of development, and
notwithstanding a few extraordinary examples (e.g.,
Dr. Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi), few
can influence the macrosystem. Broad, societal influ-
ences such as structural racism (Spencer, Cross, et al.,
2003; Swanson, Cunningham, & Spencer, 2003) and
racial stereotyping (Harpalani, 1999) are filtered
through macrosystems to impact the development and
experiences of minority youth. Regardless of their ge-
netic makeup, individuals can do little to eliminate
these factors. Even more mundane situations of
stress—such as being ignored in commercial venues
(e.g., not provided service) or followed and closely
monitored in a place of business may be cumulatively
experienced as “microoppression”; given their pat-
terned and persistent impact, the cumulative exposure
can have a significant impact on stigmatized groups
such as African Americans (e.g., Carroll, 1998).
In addition to the uncontrollable effects of the
macrosystem and their impact on everyday experiences,
the ability to shape immediate environments is limited
for many youth. For example, Stevenson (1997) de-
 Ecological Perspectives: Exploring the Bioecological Model
scribes how African American youth are “missed” and
“dissed” by mainstream American society, and how this
treatment in conjunction with neighborhood factors re-
lates to African American youth becoming “pissed”
while managing their anger. Black youth are missed as
stereotypical media-based images distort the meanings
of their social and affective displays—usually in nega-
tive terms. Hence, these unique cultural displays are de-
valued and viewed with insolence—dissed. These are
effects of the macrosystem that cannot be regulated by
individuals. In conjunction with these misrepresenta-
tions, many Black youth reside in high-risk contexts
where anger display may be an appropriate coping mech-
anism. Anger may indeed become a form of competence
for social and emotional viability in certain high-risk
contexts, such as neighborhoods, which are microsys-
tems. These displays may also be misconstrued or con-
stitute inappropriate behavior in other microsystems
such as school settings. Hence, misrepresentation, disre-
spect, and hazardous contextual factors at various eco-
logical levels interact in creating the anger of Black
youth (i.e., pissed). Phelan et al. (1991) describe how
dissonance between various microsystems—hence, at
the level of the mesosystem—can impinge on resiliency
and health development.
It is useful to consider the role of the genotype in eco-
logical systems theory. Ecological systems theory fo-
cuses on delineating environmental influences rather
than genetic influences. The genotype (i.e., genetic
makeup), is an implicit component that Bronfenbrenner
obviously considers but does not identify explicitly in
his model. This is probably because the genotype in-
volves only the person and not person-environment in-
teraction; it is not changed by environmental influences.
Indeed, focus on the genotype in part leads behavioral
geneticists to often take a rather static view of human
development. However, as reviewed by Spencer and
Harpalani (2004), the important component in develop-
ment may not be the genotype itself, but rather its ex-
pression (i.e., phenotype). The expression of the
genotype is dependent on environmental interaction, and
this expression cannot be determined accurately without
actually observing the particular genotype being ex-
pressed in a given environment (Gottlieb, 1995). While
the genotype is an important and measurable component
in developmental analysis, its expression (and thus its
true impact) should be considered in conjunction with
environmental influences and developmental processes.
Specifically, cognition-linked perceptions matter.
867
For twentieth-century America, there have been few
proximal processes left unaffected by the particular
gene expressions manifested as skin color (see Franklin,
1968). Additionally, there have been sets of attendant
historical conditions created (Du Bois, 1903), socially
constructed meanings made of race (Pettigrew, 1964),
associated professional practices and perspectives pro-
duced (e.g., Kardiner & Ovesey, 1951), and policy deci-
sions determined (see Crenshaw et al., 1995). However,
few policy changes up through the last century have been
more pregnant with meaning for youth of color than
Brown v. Board of Education. Consistent with the per-
spectives shared about immigrant youths’ experiences,
immigration policy has had parallel influences on the
lives of American newcomers.
Unfortunately, there is inadequate space for a thor-
ough and integrated coverage of the many salient immi-
gration policies of relevance for contemporary child
development outcomes of special relevance particularly
for marginalized youth. However, excellent reviews are
available. Prashad’s (2000) analysis has particular
salience for the contemporary experiences of South
Asian Americans. Further, many of the early policy de-
cisions remain especially significant for today’s new-
comers given the greater within-group diversity and
relevance of the historical timing of arrival for particu-
lar waves of immigrants. The within-group diversity of
values, beliefs, global economic factors, and perspec-
tives along with inferences and stigma held by the
broader society (e.g., model minority stereotypes) have
particular relevance for the experiences of all youth of
color and immigrants, particularly more recent arrivals
(e.g., Hmong) and second-generation Asian Americans
(e.g., see Koshy, 1998).
Yet, independent of their actual authenticity, social con-
structions and inferences made about the psychosocial
functioning of diverse group members matter. They repre-
sent the Zeitgeist held about diverse group members’ so-
cial standing and inferred psychological well-being. Most
important, from a PVEST perspective that acknowledges
the central role of ecological and phenomenological fac-
tors, externally based assumptions and assessments of
salience to policy matters may actually function in opposi-
tion to their intended role. As significant influences on pol-
icy decisions, particularly in the case of undervalued
(marginalized) youth and families, manifested policies
may inadvertently serve as sources of risk as opposed to
their desired and intended protective function (attenuating
the significant social vulnerability of particular citizens).
868 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
TWENTIETH-CENTURY SOCIAL SCIENCE
ASSUMPTIONS AND PRACTICES,
JUDICIAL DECISIONS, AND THEIR
IMPLICATIONS FOR THE NET
VULNERABILITY OF DIVERSE YOUTH
As a basis for providing alternative and inclusive human
development theorizing relevant to diverse youth, we
described the benefits of PVEST. A major rationale
supporting the framework’s use is its applicability to all
individuals irrespective of group demographics (e.g.,
economic status, race, ethnicity, nativity, and immigra-
tion status). The framework’s inclusive character repre-
sents an important benefit because the literature
narrowly and frequently infers deviance, pathology, and
problems for those categorized as different (i.e., from
the accepted and nonstigmatizing norm of being Cau-
casian and middle income). As described, the early re-
search on Black children was conceptually flawed in
multiple ways (see Spencer, 2005). And at the same
time, traditional and widely disseminated child devel-
opment research efforts assumed the findings to be rep-
resentative of all youths’ experiences (i.e., diversity
within-group is generally not inferred). Specifically,
the operating perspective suggests that European
American experiences represent the normative standard
for all. For the most part, process-oriented developmen-
tal analyses have been restricted to middle income peo-
ple or European Americans. Conversely, problem- or
pathology-oriented outcome-focused studies have pri-
marily been assumed as representing the experiences of
minorities in the social science literatures generally but
continue to characterize the developmental sciences
specifically.
Inferences, Assumptions, and What Brown v.
Board of Education Should Have Considered:
Contemporary Implications for Research,
Practice, and Theorizing
The pattern of published research suggests specific as-
sumptions such as an unacknowledged status of privi-
lege for some (i.e., and who represent what is thought of
as normal for all), and an inferred homogenous experi-
ence of atypicality for most others. Inferable from the
developmental sciences is that normal remains the
provenance of European Americans and middle-income
people. At the opposite end of the spectrum, marginal-
ized group members are conceptualized as the other. Er-
roneously, their experiences are assumed to be homoge-
nous as the minority case, and as suggested, they are
most frequently represented in the literature under cate-
gories of deviance, difference, problems, pathology, and
deficit (see Spencer, Brookins, & Allen, 1985). More-
over, the two juxtapositions frequently ignore the multi-
ple contributions of the social and physical ecology:
Except for crediting diverse youth of color for the char-
acter of the context, and thus, the source for the group’s
high vulnerability ( higher risks than available protective
factors).
Unfortunately, as such, this latter perspective contin-
ues to the disadvantage of some youth (i.e., immigrants,
low-income families, and youth of color) because it com-
municates the penchant that individuals are solely re-
sponsible for their own social situations. The working
notion reinforces the stereotype that the problem or
major sources of risk reside in individuals who deter-
ministically create their own environments. Thus, the
assumption is that they are responsible for their own dis-
advantaged situation. The stereotypes reinforced by
narrow and under-representative scientific efforts have
failed to contribute to inclusive theorizing, proactive re-
search traditions, or culturally authentic programmatic
applications that adequately address and enhance human
development stage-specific outcomes for diverse groups.
As a process-oriented, culturally sensitive and identity-
focused framework that addresses the “ how” (which is
important for application), PVEST aids in filling the
long-term void described by S. H. White (1996), Cole
(1996), Lee et al. (2003), and others.
S. H. White’s (1996) chronicling of the history and
cultural shortcomings of contemporary research sug-
gests a significant lack of inclusive thinking. The ICE
perspective provided by PVEST in response, given S. H.
White’s critique, brings attention to the patterned lack
of cultural competence and generally inadequate re-
search perspectives (including acknowledgment of the
broad diversity both within and between groups). Infre-
quently acknowledged, except to occasionally lament
their existence, the problematic conduct, character, and
interpretation of such programs of research remain en-
demic to the social sciences and have been highlighted
more recently as “outcome disparities,” particularly in
the education and health literatures. As a consequence,
given the shortcomings noted, social policies themselves
have provided neither the conceptual leadership nor the
social and psychological protective functions usually in-
tended or inferred from good social policy.
 Twentieth-Century Social Science Assumptions and Practices, Judicial Decisions, and Their Implications
At the same time, the broad privileges associated
with middle and high socioeconomic status and Euro-
pean American group membership continue to be under-
appreciated and more frequently generally ignored (see
McIntosh, 1989). Luthar’s (2003) program of research
with affluent Caucasian suburban youth provides the
potential for new beginnings for understanding the
special character of vulnerability experienced by privi-
leged youths. Similar to Roediger’s (2002) analysis,
equally relevant is Moore’s (2002 and documentary,
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com) perspective con-
cerning school-based mass killings such as the one at
Columbine High School. Given his analysis, evidence for
a downside of privilege begs attention. Generally speak-
ing, questions concerning the relationships between
privilege and underdeveloped coping skills are needed
for the design and implementation of intervention and
prevention strategies. Inadequate coping responses to
many common but painful adolescent or childhood stres-
sors, such as teasing and marginalization, are inade-
quately addressed in the literature, particularly as they
relate to privilege, coping strategies, and completed sui-
cide rates. This oversight in the child and adolescent lit-
eratures is especially troubling, given that White males
on average have the highest completed suicide rate
among adolescents and individuals in middle adulthood
(see Carroll & Tyler, under review). On average, how-
ever, they are also expected to obtain the highest life
course earnings and complete the most years of educa-
tion. Accordingly, high suicide rates among White
males in adolescence and middle adulthood (see Carroll
& Tyler, under review) appears inconsistent with other
indicators of mean successes accrued. This disparity
suggests the need for intervention /prevention strategies
and analyses that differ from those assumed for margin-
alized youths and particularly males.
Speculations about the challenges faced by youth of
color and low socioeconomic-resourced youth may be
more readily associated with the lack of opportunity,
economic difficulties, and underserviced neighbor-
hoods. Irrespective of the many challenges and the
media exploitation of obvious coping failures, the ma-
jority of young people successfully tackle the develop-
mental tasks described by Havighurst (1953). Their
successes are generally underacknowledged; in fact,
their resiliency amidst persistent challenges suggests
that many demonstrate carefully honed adaptive coping
skills. Resilient outcomes, however, are not solely de-
pendent on environmental influence. The variability of
869
coping success and failure often occurs in the same
family, where environmental influence may be similar
across siblings (one son becomes a medical professional
and a second becomes an inmate in jail). A particular
strength of PVEST is its capacity for understanding the
unique experiences of each sibling by including the con-
sideration of phenomenology. Youths’ meaning-making
can be totally different even if, for example, brothers are
believed to be exposed to the same parental messages,
ecolevel structural conditions including the character of
neighborhood resources and challenges.
Additionally, explicit experiences of cultural social-
ization and carefully developed strategies of parental
monitoring predict positively to healthy emergent identi-
ties and developmental stage-specific coping products
(e.g., completing school, obtaining employment, living a
healthy lifestyle; Spencer, 1983, 1990; Spencer et al.,
1996). Thus, given the variability possible, context-
linked challenges confronted, and coping processes
evoked (i.e., independent of shared demographics, child-
rearing, and schooling environments), both within- and
between-group diversity of outcomes is possible. Inclu-
sive conceptual frameworks should be amenable to and
effective in explaining the “ how” of (a) youths’ unique
meaning-making processes that govern coping and iden-
tity processes, ( b) their active usage or self-restraint of
opportunity structures (e.g., optimizing or pushing back
from educational options provided through public school-
ing), and (c) children’s broad range of within-group
behavioral variation. The wide spectrum of adaptive cop-
ing prospects are not independent of the fact that youths,
as they transition across time and place, may be burdened
with stereotyping encounters or stigmatizing imagery
(i.e., of themselves or their referent group) and limita-
tions of proactive or adaptive coping experiences given
assumptions frequently associated with privilege, or its
absence. Moreover, youths’ ensuing social epistemologies
that result (i.e., given stage-specific developmental varia-
tions in youths’ perceptual processes and phenomenol-
ogy) promote further variability in coping strategies
available and outcome options.
As inferred from Chestang (1972), the persistent en-
counters with hostile environments are often based solely
on group-linked stigma such as race, gender, low socio-
economic resources, skin pigmentation, ethnicity, and
immigration status. We suggest that how young people
make meaning and cope with challenges require dy-
namic, recursive, and culturally sensitive interpretive
frameworks. These conceptual advantages promote the
870 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
design, determination, and construction of the most ap-
propriate and effective prevention /intervention supports.
PVEST serves as an effective conceptual tool for de-
scribing the range of coping strategies possible and aids
in determining the character of coping options that an in-
dividual might use in the moment. Some responsive
strategies might evoke jail-time sentencing decisions by
the judicial system (e.g., see Stevenson, 1997) or precip-
itate effectance motivation that can lead to youths’ high
levels of success and competence (e.g., see R. White,
1959, 1960). The range of reactive coping responses pos-
sible may result in resiliency for some (i.e., positive out-
comes in the face of inordinate challenge) or produce
unfortunate labeling and unproductive coping products
that lead to the oft-reported group disparities for a par-
ticular characteristic (e.g., academic underperformance,
health status, special education placement, and dispro-
portionate sentencing to the criminal justice system).
In contrast, the several mass school shootings over
the last decades, most recently that at Columbine High
School (Moore, 2002 and documentary, http:// bowling-
forcolumbine.com), certainly make the point of privi-
leged youths’ understudied but apparent vulnerability,
which is consistent with the patterned suicide rates for
White males. Although generally lacking parallel media
coverage, which is frequently reserved for mishaps com-
mitted by low-resource youth, particularly youth of
color, these unfortunate situations also fall into the cate-
gory of unproductive coping processes and outcomes.
Their patterned quality for privileged youth suggests a
particular level and character of vulnerability. Although
not generally discussed, these themes deserve theory-
driven scholarly analyses for informing intervention and
prevention efforts. As most evidenced by stereotyping
of marginalized youth, there is a potential downside to
bringing attention to a specific need because the result-
ing stigma increases individuals’ experiences of risk and
underscores the need for additional protective factors.
For example, the media acknowledges and highlights
particular disparities, which further stigmatizes referent
group members and can lead to situations of stereotype
threat (Steele, 1997, 2004; Steele & Aronson, 1995). Ac-
cordingly, a theoretical perspective relevant to diverse
youth (i.e., both privileged and those inordinately chal-
lenged) should accommodate the exacerbating impact of
(a) maturation-linked complexity (e.g., early versus late
physiologic maturation; Spencer, Dupree, Swanson, &
Cunningham, 1998), ( b) transactional-determined dy-
namism (i.e., individual-context interactions; e.g.,
awareness of bias; Spencer, 1985, 1999b, 2001), and (c)
cultural embeddedness (e.g., Lee et al., 2003). The effi-
cacy of a theory as a process-oriented conceptual tool
should aid in explaining the “ how” of outcomes, given
the breadth of experiences possible and the persistence
and character of situations under which many children
struggle and have little control. For example, the tradi-
tional literature on service learning and volunteerism
positively acknowledges and credits supports provided
by youth only if provided to others or nonrelated groups.
For some children, the garnering of official approval,
support, and recognition for service learning provided to
their immediate or extended family system and commu-
nity is equally important and should earn equivalent psy-
cho-social benefits and academic reward to youth when
compared against service provided to unknown others
(Spencer & Cassidy, 2004).
Given the salient role of context, PVEST satisfies
criteria for good theory as suggested by S. H. White
(1996). Specifically, it accommodates the considera-
tion of traditional externally based information about
study subject(s) such as neighborhood and community
characteristics and assessments. These are frequently
obtained through “ windshield” observations of context
or similar strategies. This information resource is par-
ticularly relevant for studies of older middle childhood
youth and especially adolescents who transition across
neighborhoods as an aspect of the developmental task
requiring the establishment of broader social relation-
ships. Parental reports and other interview data sources
are also useful context-based information in answering
the “ how” question from a PVEST perspective.
Achievement testing process and outcome data repre-
sent an additional context-linked data source on par
with teacher ratings. Considered together, PVEST pro-
vides an analysis, which includes the individual’s own
view as well as the transactional contributions of the
context; thus, it provides an ICE perspective that repre-
sents a valuing and recognition of the individual’s own
perspective or phenomenology considered from within
the cultural context.
The varied meaning-making, coping processes, and
emergent identities of youth may be associated with
several possible levels of environmental hostility or
racism, which are contributed to by social infusions of
what Steele and colleagues (Steele, 2004; Steele &
Aronson, 1995) characterize as “stereotype threat ” or
inferred hostility (see Chestang, 1972). Further, when
considered developmentally, the responsive coping
 Twentieth-Century Social Science Assumptions and Practices, Judicial Decisions, and Their Implications
styles may be highly heterogeneous in character and do
not necessarily include the internalization of negative
affect assumed by the larger society given the group’s
social placement and denial of rights (see Spencer,
1990; Spencer & Markstrom-Adams, 1990; Swanson,
Spencer, Harpalani, Noll, Seaton, et al., 2003). From a
policy perspective, the nuanced and developmental-
sensitive perspectives published in the past 25 years
were not in place when the Courts determined Brown v.
Board of Education in 1954 (see Cross, 1991). As a
major historical event, the decision’s salience and after-
math greatly inf luenced social and educational policy,
practice, and legal decisions. Most important, the deci-
sion continues having significant relevance today—50
years post-Brown.
Shortcomings of Mid-Twentieth-Century Social
Science Contributions to the Brown Decision
The research efforts of Kenneth and Mamie Clark
(1939, 1940) were cited as a footnote in the U.S.
Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education
decision (see Lal, 2002). The published scholarship and
known programs of research available at the time were
used to support the notion that Black children developed
a low self-esteem due to segregation, and that integra-
tion was necessary to mitigate feelings of inferiority.
The 50th anniversary of that decision suggests an appro-
priate point to integrate, revisit, and reanalyze the legis-
lation’s impact for youth development but particularly
for marginalized youths’ academic experiences and out-
comes in U.S. school settings. The power of better the-
ory for interpreting the Clark’s research without either
castigating the researchers or pathologizing the children
is overdue. The case enlightens both the importance of
training diverse investigators and having authentically
inclusive human development theory for interpreting
findings and enhancing the efficacy of policy decisions
for the common good.
Jack Balkin’s (2001) edited volume, What Brown ver-
sus Board of Education Should Have Said, reports on his
request of a group of constitutional scholars to rewrite
the opinion in Brown v. Board of Education. He asked
the specific question, “How would you have written the
Brown opinion in 1954, if you knew then what you
know now about the subsequent history of the country
and the progress of race relations in the past half cen-
tury?” (Balkin, 2001, p. ix; Note: It should be acknowl-
edged that the opinion called Brown is actually based
on three opinions: Brown I, May 17, 1954; Brown II,
871
May 31, 1955; and Bolling v. Sharpe, May 17, 1954.)
Balkin (2001) instructed participants to draft an opin-
ion (a majority opinion, concurrence, or dissent) based
on the material available in 1954. The contributors ad-
dressed three sets of issues. Given feedback and overall
case analysis, Balkin argues that Brown is one of the
most recognized and treasured court decisions in his-
tory. He states:
The civil rights policy of the United States in the last half
century has been premised on the correctness of Brown,
even if people often disagree (and disagree heatedly)
about what the opinion stands for. No federal judicial
nominee and no mainstream politician today would dare
suggest that Brown was wrongly decided. At most they
might suggest that the opinion was inartfully written, that
it depended too much on social science literature, that it
did not go far enough, or that it has been misinterpreted by
legal and political actors to promote an unjust political
agenda. The use made of Brown is often criticized, but the
idea of Brown remains largely sacred in American politi-
cal culture. (Balkin, 2001, p. 4)
However, as recently analyzed (see Spencer, 2005),
the sentiment described was clearly not evident in the
first decade following the decision; indeed, there was
much upheaval over the decision. Many opponents ar-
gued that it was more a sociological rendering than a
legal decision, claiming that it ignored history and legal
precedent. The South raised massive resistance claim-
ing that Brown was an abuse of judicial power. However,
Brown has gradually come to be highly esteemed.
Balkin (2001) claims that the decision falls in line with
the U.S. “Great Progressive Narrative,” which states
that the United States through its Constitution and
through history is gradually reaching its social justice
goals and that the United States is essentially a just so-
ciety and that through struggle and history these goals
will be realized. The fame of Brown is ironic, in that
today, many public schools remain segregated by race
and are often taught by teachers who have difficulty ed-
ucating certain children, particularly those with whom
they lack history (see Ladson-Billings, 1994). During
the 1970s and 1980s, southern schools were rapidly de-
segregated turning the south into one of the most inte-
grated parts of the country. However, more recently
there has been resegregation of schools based primarily
on differential resources structured demographically
along the poverty line, and the penchant has visible
racial consequences.
872 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
The pace of desegregation slowed in the middle
1970s, in part, because of Supreme Court decisions
that failed to regulate desegregation across primarily
White suburb and minority inner city boundaries. For
example, Milliken v. Bradley, 1974, in Detroit, “ freed
white suburban districts from any legal obligation to
participate in metropolitan desegregation efforts”
(p. 6). Despite these court implications, desegregation
actually continues into the 1980s. As chronicled by
Balkin (2000), during the 1990s, however, the Supreme
Court actively restricted their supervision of school
districts with:
• 1991, Board of Education v. Dowell: The Supreme
Court held that “courts could end desegregation or-
ders in school districts that had attempted in good
faith to comply, even if this would result in immediate
resegregation” (p. 6). The replacement of Justice
Thurgood Marshal (major civil rights supporter) with
Justice Clarence Thomas in 1991 gave further impe-
tus to this trend of restricting court supervision.
• 1992, Freeman v. Pitts: The Supreme Court held that
“courts could end some aspects of school desegrega-
tion orders even if other aspects had never been fully
complied with” (p. 7).
• 1995, Missouri v. Jenkins: The Supreme Court “over-
turned an ambitious plan for magnet schools in
Kansas City designed to attract white students back
into inner city schools” (p. 7).
Two salient implications and consequences of these
Supreme Court rulings ensued: (1) The federal court’s
desegregation orders have been largely stopped, and (2)
districts technically subject to court orders face no en-
forcement activity. Thus, in the 1990s, there has been a
tendency to resegregate. An implication is that schools
can be segregated by race as long as the status is not due
to direct government impetus. In his analysis, Balkins
(2001) states that “racial segregation today is the result
of a complicated mix of social, political, legal, and
economic factors, rather than the result of direct state
commands ordering racial separation . . . it remains
overwhelmingly the case that minority children in cen-
tral cities are educated in virtually all-minority schools
with decidedly inferior facilities and educational oppor-
tunities” (p. 7). Evident is that Brown called for the im-
portance of equal educational opportunity; however, it is
evident that minority students do not receive an equal
education compared to that provided by public schools in
wealthier, Whiter suburban districts. As a major and
consistent source of risk, the schooling contexts are not
equivalent for youth of color versus privileged youth.
However, achievement gap language implies that it is an
individual’s own performance inadequacy that is the
culprit rather than sets of policy determined, con-
structed, and supported social inequities. Accordingly,
inclusive and sensitive theorizing matters for producing
the most beneficial policies and practices.
Traditional Assumptions, Beliefs, and Values:
The Conceptual Benefits of a Phenomenological
Variant of Ecological Systems Theory Framework
Given the process-emphasizing rendering of PVEST in
Figure 15.12, good developmental theory appears im-
portant because it explains how youth respond to exter-
nally imposed inequities and cope with adverse
ecological conditions or what Chestang (1972) refers to
as character development efforts pursued in persist-
ently challenging environments. Brown has come to
mean different things to different people: It has also
been used in diverse ways by different groups. Brown
was implemented to support public equity in buses,
pools, restaurants, and retail outlets (i.e., all important
contexts of socialization and youth development) and
has become a symbol of equality generally, beyond
racial equality. This is both interesting and informative
given the intent of the originating cases.
Brown opposed Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896, which al-
lowed for segregation of public spaces and gave justifi-
cation to Jim Crow. The only Justice to oppose this
decision was John Marshall Harlan who maintained
that this country should not support a caste society and
that it should be color-blind. His words have been ap-
plauded by civil rights supporters. However, more re-
cently, the differences between anti-classification and
anti-subordination have become more apparent and are
exceedingly important for youths’ developmental op-
portunities and experiences. As one example, there are
those who support classification in affirmative action
to promote Black equality (see Balkan, 2001).
According to the anti-subordination approach, the
question is not whether the law classifies by race, but
rather whether the law is doing anything to remedy sub-
ordination or whether it is doing something to enhance it.
Anti-classification, because the law does not currently
 Twentieth-Century Social Science Assumptions and Practices, Judicial Decisions, and Their Implications
directly impose classification, actually tends to work to
perpetuate Black inequality because it fails to acknowl-
edge the dif ferential ways in which Blacks have suf fered
cumulative ef fects and continue to be burdened by social
and economic subordination. Thus, this tends to sanctify
the many indirect practices that subordinate Blacks,
without directly classifying: “It encourages people to
explain persistent black inequality as the result of pri-
vate choices, cultural differences, or black inferiority
rather than at least partially as the result of facially neu-
tral legal policies that help preserve social stratifica-
tion” (Balkin, 2001, p. 13). The New York Times (Rimer
& Arenson, 2004, June 24, Sec. A, P1) described analy-
ses by two Harvard researchers, Skip Gates and Lani
Guanier. The researchers suggest that selective school
attendance by Blacks represent immigrant Blacks and
not indigenous Blacks for whom the Brown decision was
targeted. The admissions profile favoring immigrants
imply efforts to satisfy the law without considering its
spirit and the variability of experience by ethnicity and
immigration status within race. The admissions profile
and its implementation by respective selective college’s
admissions office provides a powerful illustration of the
broad manipulation of opportunity thus suggesting that
supports are not always supportive to those actually in-
tended to benefit. Selective postsecondary schools of
higher education such as Harvard, Yale, and Princeton
communicate a solid track record of admitting Blacks.
However, the admissions procedures in practice at select
schools, in fact, admit Blacks of first- or second-genera-
tion immigrant status whose academic record and
schooling experiences lack the cumulative intergenera-
tional effects of long-term U.S. race-based hostilities,
which the Brown decision sought to remedy.
The broad controversy between color-blindness and
equal citizenship extends into every part of anti-
discrimination law and policy. Each side substantiates
their claims in Brown. Balkin’s (2001) analysis of the
feedback suggests an important role for the politicized
views of the moment. Actually, the Balkin perspective
underscores the powerful role of the political-ecology
and contends that the Court rulings coincide very
smoothly with the political climate and are not, as some
have argued, free from this context. Even Brown was not
revolutionary in an isolated sense. From a global and
broad psycho-historical perspective, it was relevant to
the Cold War climate and the image U.S. leaders wanted
to present abroad to diminish criticism of Jim Crow:
873
Using Chestang’s (1972) analysis of the ecology, the
goal was to suggest a less hostile context of development
for those suffering under Jim Crow practices. Brown
made sense as a blow to communism and to demonstrate
the democratic tenets of our constitution and the ways
the United States upholds these despite its lived societal
inconsistencies. Considered from a PVEST perspective,
the penchant produces a level of official deniability rel-
ative to responsibility for diverse youths’ life course
coping patterns, processes, and outcomes.
Many critics maintain that the view of the Supreme
Court as brave and a progressive, counter-majoritarian
institution is largely a myth and that is does not work to
favor minorities in the face of majority opposition. As
Derrick Bell (cited in Balkin, 2001) maintains, Brown is
congruent with his “interest convergence thesis,” which
maintains that advancement for Blacks will only occur
if these advancements are in White interests. Bell ar-
gues, “ending Jim Crow—at least formally—was in the
interests of northern whites and the foreign policy es-
tablishment. However, the convergence of interests be-
tween blacks and white elites did not mean that whites
had an interest in full social and economic equality for
blacks, and the limited convergence of interests that did
exist did not last. Actual desegregation remedies were a
long time in coming and fell far short of providing gen-
uinely equal educational opportunities for blacks” (see
Balkin, 2001, p. 22). From a child development and
parental socialization perspective, an understanding of
such nuanced analyses is required and itself represents
an unfair burden for minority group and disenfranchised
parents. Appropriate use of the legal insights requires an
ability to translate complex policy-relevant information
into particular parenting strategies: For parenting of Eu-
ropean American or well-resourced youth, a goal would
be to counteract easily inferred privilege assumptions by
young people. For poor and marginalized youth, the goal
would be to monitor and support youth development in
ways that would reinforce effectance motivation and
model adaptive coping strategies needed for responding
to socially unacknowledged, unfair, and ethnicity-linked
challenges.
Critics maintain that Brown is a symbol of how inef-
fective the Supreme Court is at promoting social change.
They argue that the lack of implementation and the rever-
sal in the 1990s demonstrates the ineffectiveness of judi-
cial change. For example and as reported by Balkin
(2001), Rosenberg in his 1991 book, The Hollow Hope:
874 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Can Courts Bring about Social Change? argues that
Brown’s role in promoting equality has been overstated.
Rosenberg suggests that enforcement did not proceed
until the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and rather that Brown
instigated a forceful resistance from southern Democ-
rats. Also, critics oppose the view that Brown initiated
the civil rights movement, naming the many grass-roots
efforts that proceeded Brown. Balkin (2001) claims that
legal precedent such as Brown is important in that it
structures the discourse that can ensue. Brown provided a
symbol, linking the Constitution and rule of law to civil
rights and racial equality. Balkin maintains that Brown is
currently very important and the argument is not over
whether it was correct, but rather, contesting its mean-
ings and implications. Interestingly, 50 years later, the
argument is whether the underlying principle of constitu-
tional equality provided by Brown is anti-classification or
anti-subordination. “Is the real evil of Plessy the classifi-
cation of persons by race or is it the subordination of one
race by another?” (Balkin, 2001, p. 55). Following the
Brown decision, there were no provisions for equalization
and true integration, rather the specified legal doctrine
noted that states could not assign pupils based on race
alone. Many states adopted choice plans and the use of
private schools to avoid directly contesting Brown.
Balkin states, “Indeed, because the schools were techni-
cally ‘desegregated’ once overt assignments by race
ended, one could argue that there was no continuing obli-
gation to equalize facilities between schools; he notes
that the situation might be even worse than it was before
Plessy” (p. 65). Importantly, there has been little discus-
sion in the youth-focusing social sciences about the im-
pact of these events on the psychological context of child
development research, on everyday coping experiences in
the daily lives of children, or on the myriad levels of
youths’ socialization contexts.
In the 1990s, significant disillusionment surrounded
Brown, given that a majority of Blacks still receive sub-
standard education in deteriorating schools and that the
push for desegregation for the most part has been re-
jected. In particular, public schools in urban areas con-
tinue to be mostly Black: “In 1998–1999, 90% of the
public school students in Chicago were African Ameri-
can or Latino; 83% lived in poverty-stricken house-
holds. In Detroit, 90% of public schools students were
black and 70% were poor enough to qualify for free
school lunches; more than one-half of the city’s students
did not graduate from high school” (Balkin, 2001,
pp. 211). In addition, many large school districts, in-
cluding Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Minneapolis, and so
on, “ were allowed by judges in the late 1990s to phase
out or terminate court supervision” (p. 212). Hence, in-
tegration of schools vastly declined in the late 1990s.
Several court decisions in the late 1990s ended ef-
forts to desegregate (e.g., busing) and also ended
race-based decision-making in many schools, thus
canceling affirmative action practices. Data indicate
that gaps between Black and White achievements are
increasing again in the 1990s after slightly decreasing
in the 1970s and 1980s. However, the data also suggest
that the gaps remain even in districts that are inte-
grated and of a higher economic status. Family struc-
ture, income level, and educational level did not seem
to alter these gaps.
Cross-Disciplinary Contributions from
Legal Studies
Like Balkin, Sarat (1997) argues that Brown chal-
lenged legal precedent and rearranged the ways in
which the law could work toward progressive change in
society. Sarat states: “Brown was at once a turning
point and a source of resistance, a point of pride and an
object of vilification. Its legacy, like the legacy of all
great historical events, is, even today, contested and
uncertain” (p. 5). Although not acknowledged, it is evi-
dent that a strong legal position continues to be the
problem of subordination: Racism, stereotypes, and
low expectations continue to haunt particularly His-
panic and Black children as an integral and persistent
aspect of their social ecologies. Importantly, theories
of development that guide the training of teachers in
pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and beyond nei-
ther adequately nor authentically represent the individ-
ual-context experiences of diverse youth. Parents
frequently appear equally handicapped in providing the
necessary supports as counteractions against race-
linked challenges. Teachers and administrators not
only miss adequate training information about youth of
color but also are frequently not accountable for ana-
lyzing their own internalization of subordination be-
liefs. Except for the scholarly thrust of the CRT
initiatives, Whiteness studies (in general), and White-
privilege perspectives (specifically), there remains a
strong pattern in social science and developmental sci-
ence to inadequately consider race or to attempt to
minimize or to statistically control for its impact on
youths’ coping processes.
 Twentieth-Century Social Science Assumptions and Practices, Judicial Decisions, and Their Implications
Critical Race Theory (CRT): Contributions
and Limitations
Another important development in scholarship on
racism, CRT (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001), draws its ori-
gins from legal studies and represents another histori-
cally important innovation. CRT began as a critique of
liberal post-civil rights ideology that de-emphasized the
role of race in U.S. society. The CRT movement has
drawn attention in a variety of academic disciplines, in-
cluding education, the humanities, and the social sci-
ences. In parallel with sociological theorizing, CRT
highlights racism as a normal component of society, not
an aberration, and examines the subtle racial interests
and tangible consequences of legal decision-making and
policy in a society marked by racial hierarchy. Addition-
ally, CRT scholars often use rhetorical devices and nar-
rative storytelling, often autobiographical, to illustrate
everyday manifestations of racism and their connection
to broader, structural forces. As a representation of a
phenomenological perspective, CRT begins to link indi-
vidual experiences with societal theories of racializa-
tion, integrating the structural, ideological, and material
expressions of racism in the routine course of daily life.
Critical Race Theory: Tenets, Analytic Applica-
tions, and Theoretical Renderings of Race. As a
movement that is both theoretical and activist oriented,
CRT arose from the discipline of legal studies. CRT de-
parts from many other disciplinary regimes as it at-
tempts to name the inequities in our current social
structure and then re-envision the categories and as-
sumptions that we as society use to frame our world.
Formally begun in the mid-1970s through the founding
work of Derrick Bell (e.g., Bell, 1995, 2000a, 2000b)
and Alan Freeman (e.g., Freeman, 1995), CRT poses
critiques that disrupt the blinders that social systems
create in an attempt to make racism invisible. The per-
spective forces an acknowledgment of the ways in which
discourse and social structure cooperate in the realiza-
tion of inequities and racism.
The CRT approach was situated in a particular histor-
ical period and arose primarily as a dialogue with and in
response to the civil rights movement. The theorists
were critical of the changes brought about by this move-
ment, in particular, the lack of steady advancement in
racial reform in the United States. Regarding the more
recent retrogression of progress that have been made
since earlier legal gains (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000),
Bell (1999a) indicates that “statistics on poverty, unem-
875
ployment and income support the growing concern that
the slow racial advances of the 1960s and 1970s have
ended, and retrogression is well under way” (Bell,
1999a, p. 2).
CRT, as a discipline, is based on the foundations laid
by critical legal studies and feminism and its intellec-
tual ties extend back to U.S. thinkers, such as W. E. B.
Du Bois, and European theorists such as Gramsci and
Derrida (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000, 2001). From a
PVEST perspective, it delineates the role of race for
vulnerability and demonstrates the countless ways in
which race for youth of color increases net stress level
through its manifestation of subtle and explicit daily
challenges borne by youth and their families. CRT ques-
tions the very foundations of legal reasoning, and al-
though CRT still predominantly produces new legal
discourse, analysis is now applied more broadly in
fields, such as education, where the tenets of CRT are
used to understand tracking, curriculum, and the
history of IQ and achievement testing (Delgado & Ste-
fancic, 2001). Thus, from the child and adolescent de-
velopment perspective of the social sciences, CRT
provides an important and generally overlooked contex-
tual perspective by defining it in race-linked terms. CRT
is inherently nondevelopmental; however, it provides
lenses for articulating the influence of racism and
stigma as a presence and potential impact on normative
developmental tasks pursued by youths. Its inclusion
and or consideration represents a significant variation
from traditional child development approaches that at-
tempt to clarify the salience of race through statistical
strategies that categorically defines the impact of race
for hypothesized outcomes. Further, as a statement
about everyday practice as supported by the law, CRT
specifies the differential character of race-based prac-
tices as experienced by marginalized youth. When con-
sidered from a PVEST perspective, CRT provides a
service to the social sciences by fully specifying the
varied contributions to vulnerability level as experi-
enced by diverse youth. As supported from legal stud-
ies, the perspective specifies the contributions to the
high-risk context of development as experienced by
youth of color and, at the same time, specifies the im-
plicit protective character of racial group membership
particularly for European American children.
CRT incorporates two main concepts from the field
of critical legal studies. First, legal indeterminacy ac-
knowledges the subjectivity of legal outcomes and main-
tains that “not every legal case has one correct outcome”
876 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
(Delgado & Stefacic, 2001, p. 5). The legal outcome
depends on whose interpretation is privileged, which is
dictated by the power and authority of various interpre-
tations. Second, favorable precedents tend to erode over
time due to the ways in which lower courts interpret
precedents using narrower definitions and because of
the general lack of enforcement of legal doctrine (Del-
gado & Stefacic, 2001).
CRT also incorporates concepts and terminology
from feminism. Specifically, it applies theoretical femi-
nist views on power, the construction of social roles in
society, and its use of hegemony. As reported by Hall
(2000), the concept of hegemony was developed by
Gramsci and is defined as “ total social authority” ac-
quired through the combination of coercion and consent
at the economic, political, ideological, intellectual, and
moral levels. CRT also works in the feminist premise
that legal and social theory have practical consequences
in society and that these consequences must be ad-
dressed (Armour, 2000; Delgado & Stefacic, 2001).
Delgado and Stefancic (2000, 2001) summarize four
underlying tenets of CRT. The first tenet maintains that
“[R]acism is normal, not aberrant, in American Soci-
ety” (Delgado & Stefancic, 2000, p. xvi). As opposed to
being relegated to the undifferentiated level of the ecol-
ogy described by Bronfenbrenner as the macrosystem,
instead, racism is conceptualized as an intricate part of
the everyday life experiences in the United States and is
woven into all institutions and social interactions. It is
an ingrained aspect of our society to such an extent that
racist practices and interactions are deemed as normal.
Most important, as understood in the social sciences
generally and child research specifically, the roots of
these injustices are ignored or frequently not perceived.
Formal equal opportunity rules and laws target extreme,
overt injustices but do not in any way address these mi-
crolevel everyday expressions of racism. For example,
legal doctrine requires the demonstration of intent of
racist action to litigate. However, this intent is often dif-
ficult to prove and racism is frequently built into the
fabric of U.S. social structures and institutions such that
a specific intent is not immediately apparent. From our
perspective, legal doctrine has no precedent for address-
ing these forms of racism.
The second tenet assumes a critique of liberalism.
According to Delgado and Stefancic (2000, 2001), liber-
als uphold the neutrality of the law and view it as objec-
tive and morally accurate. However, CRT questions
these assumptions and the liberal notion of change in the
law through the process of gradualism. As alluded to
previously in this chapter, CRT draws on a term created
by Derrick Bell, interest convergence, which describes a
phenomenon in which Whites will only support Black
advances if these advances serve White interests. Build-
ing on this concept, critical race theorists contend that
the civil rights movement and the current legal structure
do not foster structural change and that only through
drastic alterations to systems, structures, and ideologi-
cal foundations can true racial progress and equity
ensue. These linkages are too infrequently considered
both in the design and conduct of child and adolescent
research, theory, and policy and in their interpretation
in the social sciences.
Critical race theorists maintain that “structural de-
terminism” in society impedes racial reform through a
variety of means. Freeman argues that civil rights law
enforces racial progress at a slow rate, creating a social
control mechanism that insures enough change to pre-
vent civil uprising while not actually altering the status
quo (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001). The awareness of this
may have implications for differences in cultural social-
ization practices, thus also an implication for youths’
cultural identity formation, manifestations as part of re-
active coping strategies for some, and implications for
youths’ degree of individual-contextual fit (e.g., see
Swanson et al. 1998).
One of the tenets of CRT establishes that race is a
product of social construction. Their analysis suggests
that prevalent definitions and assumptions in society are
never innocent of the inequities shaped by power rela-
tions. Youths’ social-cognitive maturation makes the
awareness of inequities difficult to articulate but remain
unavoidably experienced as either a source of risk or a
contributor of a protective factor. Thus, from a develop-
mental perspective given maturing perceptions, CRT in-
creases our understanding of youths’ vulnerability level,
coping processes, and stage-specific coping outcomes,
given the several developmental tasks requiring mastery.
As an important conceptual contribution to child de-
velopment scholarship, CRT acknowledges the impor-
tance of context and uses legal studies to further specify
its impact. For example, the legal system functions
based on the premises of generalizability and essential-
ized notions of right and wrong. These premises do not
provide the legal space for consideration of the ways in
which individuals are inequitably influenced and shaped
 Twentieth-Century Social Science Assumptions and Practices, Judicial Decisions, and Their Implications
by their specific contextual factors. CRT uses the term
intersectionality to acknowledge the complex, contra-
dicting, and cumulative ways in which race, gender,
class, and sexual orientation affect an individual’s posi-
tioning in larger social structures. CRT contends that
racism exists and continues in our society because the
mind-set of the majority of people in the United States
has not changed, despite the civil rights movement. This
lack of change in mind-set introduces an entrenched co-
nundrum: Although unacknowledged, its impact is in-
clusive of those individuals responsible for funding,
designing, implementing, publishing, and interpreting
social science research both for children of color and
European American youth. Its use in the training of pro-
fessionals and their modeling of the content (e.g., in
youth and family service delivery and education prac-
tice) further contributes to its entrenched character, for-
midability, and persistence.
Encompassed under the umbrella of CRT are other
subsidiary studies including critical White, Asian, and
Latino studies and feminist and gay critical studies.
Asian studies look critically at the model minority
stereotype, while feminist and gay studies look at inter-
sectionality. Critical White studies examine the ways in
which Whiteness is socially constructed and how groups
have historically moved in and out of this category. For
example, certain ethnic populations in the United States
such as Jews, Italians, and Irish have moved into the cat-
egory of White, after being labeled as non-White during
their early history in the United States. Such studies also
explore the ways in which privileges associated with this
label structure power relations and how discourse
through literature and cultural forms powerfully rein-
forces stereotypes and the values associated with White-
ness in contrast to color (Delgado & Stefancic, 2001).
In sum, unlike the traditional approach to child de-
velopmental research, critical White studies contribute
by affording an opportunity to deconstruct and specify
the process of normal human development experienced
in context for members of diverse groups. Roediger
(2002) looks at the social construction of Whiteness and
maintains that, historically, this category has been ig-
nored. This continues to be the case particularly in the
adolescent and child development literatures. Roediger
cites Fusco who contends that to ignore this category
tends to “redouble its hegemony by naturalizing it ”
(Roediger, 2001, p. 327), thus Whiteness becomes fur-
ther ingrained as the normative standard. Roediger ex-
877
plores the historical process by which immigrants
earned their status as White. The process of American-
izing European immigrants (“White ethnics”) allowed
them to be accepted as White rather than Irish or Polish.
Underlying premises of CRT are instituted to critique
the justice system, the educational system and policy af-
fecting the broader society.
CRT has also been useful to analyze the implications
of various educational legal reforms including integra-
tion and affirmative action (which affects a broad
range of institutions including the educational system).
Derrick Bell (2000b), in Serving Two Masters, looks at
the outcomes of integration mandates and asks an im-
portant question: Is racial balance in the schools enough
to provide educational equity? Bell contends that his-
torically, since the 1930s, the approach of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) has been to eliminate racial segregation
across society. This approach took precedence in the
education system, particularly, with the passing of
Brown in 1954. The subsequent lack of compliance with
the legal precedent set by Brown led to a series of school
litigation cases being filed. For some theorists, the lack
of compliance has not been unexpected and, again, reaf-
firms the salience of history for contemporary and en-
trenched practices.
W. E. B. Du Bois named the educational dilemma for
our society in 1935 and his concerns remain prevalent
even today and, although infrequently acknowledged,
are particularly relevant in the field of child develop-
ment. Integration has not proved to be the silver bullet
for educational equity in our society, as predicted by
Du Bois, and more comprehensive changes need to be
made in society before educational equity can be a real-
ity. Du Bois states:
[T]he Negro needs neither segregated schools nor mixed
schools. What he needs is Education. What he must re-
member is that there is no magic, either in mixed schools
or segregated schools. A mixed school with poor and un-
sympathetic teachers, with hostile public opinion, and no
teaching of truth concerning black folk, is bad. A segre-
gated school with ignorant placeholders, inadequate equip-
ment, poor salaries, and wretched housing is equally bad.
Other things being equal, the mixed school is the broader,
more natural basis for the education of all youth. It gives
wider contacts; it inspires greater self-confidence; and
suppresses the inferiority complex. But other things sel-
dom are equal, and in that case, Sympathy, Knowledge,
878 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
and the Truth, outweigh all that the mixed school can
offer. (Bell, 2000b, p. 243)
Critiques of Critical Race Theory and Their Im-
plications for Child Development Research. It is
important to note that CRT has not been without its
share of critiques. Delgado and Stefancic (2001) relay
general critiques of the CRT approach, and some schol-
ars in the broader discipline of legal studies have cri-
tiqued the CRT’s use of storytelling in the law. Their
critique rests on several premises, which are not unlike
the standard research tensions between the use of quan-
titative versus qualitative research approaches in child
development research: (a) These stories may not repre-
sent the typical experience of members of the larger
group of individuals of color, ( b) narratives lack analyt-
ical rigor, and (c) stories told by individuals of color sti-
fle wider discussion due to the general belief that these
individuals have a superior understanding of race. Some
scholars critique the perspective held by critical race
theorists that truth is a social construct created to fur-
ther the position of those in power.
Another critique of CRT is that it focuses on chang-
ing discourse and cultural forms of racism and does not
speak to the deeply ingrained structural /material
racism, more strongly affecting the poor. This critique
maintains that CRT focuses primarily on issues of iden-
tity and does not incorporate a thorough enough class
analysis. Even in the discipline of CRT, theorists voice a
need to develop further theories that look at the inter-
section between race and class. Also, critical race theo-
rists express the need to develop a broader global
analysis of race, looking at the connections of sweat-
shop concerns—the oppression of people of color
abroad working low-wage jobs—and the unemployment
of people of color in the United States (Delgado & Ste-
fancic, 2001).
When considered together, Whiteness studies delin-
eating the impact of racism and privilege along with
CRT increase our understanding of proximal processes
experienced by America’s diverse youth post-Brown.
Unfortunately, the links are seldom acknowledged and
the oversight has important implications for the continu-
ing dissemination of stigma and unquestioned assump-
tions concerning privilege. As elaborated, there are few
demonstrations of the interaction of these themes than
in the acting White myth associated with African Amer-
ican youth achievement and coping patterns (see
Spencer, Cross, et al., 2003, pp. 276–287).
AN EXAMPLE OF AFRICAN AMERICANS
AND THE ACHIEVEMENT GAP: AN
INTERFACE OF STIGMATIZING CONTEXT,
REACTIVE COPING RESPONSES, AND THE
“ACTING WHITE” MYTH
In their analysis and critique of the acting White myth,
Spencer and Harpalani (under review) describe Ford-
ham and Ogbu’s (1986) position that one of the main
reasons that Black students do so poorly in school is that
“ they experience inordinate ambivalence and affective
dissonance in regard to academic efforts and success”
(Fordham & Ogbu, 1986, p. 177). Fordham and Ogbu
further state that the cultural orientation in the Black
community is that learning is equated to “acting White.”
Although roundly critiqued by Bronfenbrenner (1985),
their three-group classification describes “autonomous”
minorities as those who are minorities primarily in the
numerical sense, “immigrant ” minorities as those who
arrived voluntarily with hopes of improving their lives,
and “castelike,” or involuntary minorities (e.g., Blacks,
Native Americans, and Chicanos) as those who came to
America involuntarily through slavery or conquest
(Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Ogbu, 1986).
Focusing on the castelike group, specifically Blacks,
they purport to examine the expressive dimension of the
relationship between minorities and the dominant cul-
ture. In exploring the African American and European
American relationship, they focus on twin phenomena:
oppositional cultural identity and oppositional frame of
reference (Ogbu, 1990). Their analysis concludes that
African Americans develop a sense of identity in oppo-
sition to the social identity of Whites due to their treat-
ment in both the political and economic domains.
Fordham and Ogbu’s (1986) analysis suggests that an
oppositional frame of reference is used as a protective
device as a strategy to promote Black identity and foster
the maintenance of Black / White cultural boundaries,
thus development of protective devices is aimed at pro-
moting Black identity. They posit that the setting and
maintenance of boundaries reinforces solidarity and
unity, suggesting that slavery reinforced this tendency
through the creation of traditions such as beliefs con-
cerning duty-bound relationships that extended beyond
family relations (e.g., fictive kin networks).
They suggest an emphasis on group loyalty in situa-
tions involving conflict and competition with the major-
ity group. Fordham and Ogbu (1986) suggest that these
ideas influence children’s perception of their potential
 An Example of African Americans and the Achievement Gap
for success (see also Fordham, 1988, 1996). As ana-
lyzed by Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003), Fordham and
Ogbu’s contention is that, accordingly, Black students,
especially adolescents, attending both integrated and
predominantly Black schools face the burden of acting
White. This line of reasoning suggests that Black
youths’ academic prowess and success are controlled by
external and within-group factors. Thus, according to
Fordham and Ogbu, “Apparently, Black children’s gen-
eral perception that academic pursuit is ‘acting White’
is learned in the Black community. The ideology of the
community in regard to the cultural meaning of school-
ing is, therefore, implicated and needs to be reexam-
ined” (p. 203). Overall, Fordham and Ogbu conclude
that Blacks have not historically valued education and
define academic achievement as a White cultural attrib-
ute. There is major shortsightedness in the conceptual-
ization of this work, which is consistent with the flaws
noted initially concerning the need for new theory. The
first flaw is the absence of historical accuracy.
Historical Overview of African American
Achievement Motivation
It is commonly assumed that slavery made achievement
motivation impossible. As described, critiqued, and
analyzed by Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003), the view sug-
gests that from slavery forward, Blacks struggled not
only with external sources of oppression but also with
the effects of slavery, such as family dysfunctionality,
psychological hatred, high rates of criminality, and low
achievement motivation: the pattern is inferred by
some to indicate a “mark of oppression” (see Kardiner
& Ovesey, 1951, as the classic illustration of the deficit
assumption). However, historical evidence traces the
evolution of Black achievement motivation. The record
shows that from the end of slavery and well into the
twentieth century, Blacks, as individuals and as a so-
cial group, evidenced high achievement motivation,
and we are hard-pressed to think of any White ethnic
group, including Eastern European Jews, who evi-
denced a higher regard for achievement motivation for
the period from the end of the Civil War to the early
1930s. The insufficiency of efforts to translate such
high achievement motivation into social mobility was
not linked to the legacy of slavery but to the larger soci-
ety’s failure to cultivate, compliment, reinforce, and
authenticate the numerous manifestations of Black
achievement motivation.
879
At the start of the twentieth century, Carter G.
Woodson was surprised at the copious evidence con-
cerning Black education (Woodson, 1919) that resulted
in his 454 page scholarly text. In thinking about freedom
for slaves, in a theoretical sense, certain owners became
curious as to whether emancipated Blacks could handle
freedom and the level of education demanded by the sta-
tus as a free person; consequently, certain individual
slaves were turned into test cases. Bullock (1967) de-
scribes how John Chavis of North Carolina was selected
as an experimental case and sent to Princeton. Chavis
not only passed his tests with flying colors but also re-
turned to North Carolina to become a leading teacher for
the children of the planter class. Both Bullock (1967)
and Woodson (1919) underscore that the atmosphere of
the revolutionary period stimulated a certain degree of
leniency concerning the formal education of Blacks, and
the curiosities and whims of the planters resulted in
highly educated slaves. A few became part of the popu-
lar culture of the times, including Phyllis Wheatley, the
Black poet, and Benjamin Banneker, the Black mathe-
matician and author of the first Farmer’s Almanac ever
written in the United States. It is during the revolution-
ary period that the manumission of individual slaves
helped produce large clusters of free Blacks in Atlanta,
Charleston, and other major cities across the South; and
as these clusters of free Blacks formed communities, the
development of formal educational structures became an
immediate enterprise.
Another ripple effect was the birth of the abolitionist
movement. White leaders of this movement took the
likes of Frederick Douglass, assisted in his formal edu-
cation, and turned him loose, as an icon for their move-
ment. Beyond assisting individuals, the movement helped
found colleges where scores of Blacks could obtain a
higher education. For those Whites who could not fathom
a nation that included Blacks, but whose moral compass
required that Blacks be educated, manumitted, and,
then, sent back to Africa (colonization), also created ed-
ucational opportunities for Blacks, including the con-
struction of schools.
Black Response to Freedom: A Social
Movement for Education
As delineated by Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003) as a his-
torical overview, the Black community enjoyed a critical
mass of educated leaders, teachers, and potential educa-
tional administrators. Du Bois estimated that 150,000 of
880 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
the 4 million slaves were able to read and write, and lit-
eracy was commonplace among free Blacks (Du Bois,
1935; p. 638). Thus, the source of the social movement
suggests ex-slaves themselves because they seemed to
carry educational designs in their ragged pockets as they
crossed over into freedom. After the Civil War, edu-
cated Blacks and their White allies were dumfounded
and even mildly shocked at the level of educational de-
mands the ex-slaves immediately made on themselves
and their leaders (Anderson, 1988): “A teacher at Port
Royal declared that he could not set forth, in anything
like adequate terms, the eagerness and determination
with which the Black freedmen apply themselves, young
and old, to the task of learning the alphabet [Another
teacher was greeted by] a motley assemblage [who were]
cold, dirty and half naked but eager to learn; [she found
them less concerned with food and clothing] but anxious
to feel sure that they would have the privilege of coming
to school everyday” (Butchart, 1980, p. 169). Available
research reported by Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003) indi-
cate that the hunger for education came not simply from
the eyes of children as “many teachers conducted night
school as well as day schools to accommodate the aspira-
tions of [adult] workers” (Butchart, 1980; p. 170). In
sum, the drive for Black education was organic: It came
from the ex-slaves themselves.
Just after the Civil War, John W. Alvord was ap-
pointed the national superintendent of schools for the
Freedman’s Bureau, and in 1866 he reported that Black-
controlled schools numbered 500 and were to be found
all over the South. Just 3 years later, in 1869, Black
schools, now often associated with evolving Black
churches, totaled 1,512, with 6,146 teachers and
107,109 pupils. The demand for education and the de-
sire to be taught by Black teachers quickly strained the
teaching force that first greeted the ex-slaves and their
children. To meet the demands being made by the ex-
slaves, educated Blacks, Northern societies, and the fed-
eral government helped to launch such new entities as
Howard University and other Black colleges (Anderson,
1988; Bullock, 1967; Du Bois, 1935). Spencer, Cross,
et al. (2003) suggest that the drive toward Black educa-
tion, after the Civil War, can only be given its due if
framed as a social movement—not a trend, not a drift,
and not a contrivance imposed by White allies from the
North. While educated free Blacks and White allies
where crucial elements, the sheer scope of the educa-
tional demands and depth of ex-slaves revealed a deep
seated achievement motivation that had its origins in
slavery itself. As Anderson noted, “[B]lacks emerged
from slavery with a strong belief in the desirability of
learning to read and write. This belief was expressed in
the pride with which they talked of the other ex-slaves
who learned to read or write in slavery and in the esteem
in which they held literate Blacks. It was expressed in
the intensity and frequency of their anger at slavery for
keeping them illiterate” (Anderson, 1988; p. 5).
W. E. B. Du Bois noted that the ex-slaves’ immediate
drive for education was one of the most amazing stories
in the annals of Western history and culture (Du Bois,
1935). Had this drive and achievement motivation been
positively received, cultivated, protected, and sustained
by the larger society, within 100 years Blacks would
have outstripped the social mobility patterns of all
groups in modern American society, including Eastern
European Jews. As noted by Spencer, Cross, et al.
(2003), one is hard-pressed to think of any White ethnic
group who entered the United States at the turn of the
twentieth century with a collective achievement motiva-
tion that could match that exhibited by the ex-slaves on
the heels of the Civil War. They suggest that those who
would try to draw a straight line connecting contempo-
rary problems in Black education with the legacy of
slavery, such as Fordham and Ogbu (1986), are ignorant
of this resilient history.
Reconstruction did not bring the ex-slaves land redis-
tribution, education, protection, liberty, the right to
vote, or social justice. During the bleak period between
1900 to 1930, historians have recorded that Blacks
would often double and triple tax themselves to build
and sustain schools, despite not receiving a fair share of
tax dollars already paid.
In effect, Black citizens of Mississippi, Georgia,
North Carolina and South Carolina, and other southern
states reached deep into their grinding poverty and
found the wherewithal—the achievement motivation—
which propelled them to support the education of their
children. History does not support Fordham and Ogbu’s
(1986) contention that Black communities have not val-
ued education and that this devaluation is a reaction to
White racism. The assumptions of Fordham and Ogbu
(1986) are woefully negligent of the resilience that
many African Americans displayed in the face of viru-
lent institutionalized oppression. Their shortsighted
perspectives have contributed to what Claude Steele
(2004) refers to as social and identity contingencies that
 An Example of African Americans and the Achievement Gap
reinforce social stigma and dissonance in the individual-
context match.
Developmental Considerations for Research on
Black Academic Achievement
As analyzed by Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003), in addi-
tion to neglecting the resilient history of Black achieve-
ment motivation, the acting White myth also makes
large conceptual errors in its analysis of racial identity
and cultural influences on human development. For ex-
ample, the acting White hypothesis can be criticized
on several grounds. It draws psychological inferences
from sociohistorical data (Trueba, 1988), neglects
within-group variation, and fails to understand and
capture the psychological and developmental processes
that lead to academic achievement and other outcomes.
As noted by Obidah (2001), Ogbu (1990) does not ac-
count for variation in the so-called involuntary or
castelike minorities and fails to note that some mem-
bers of the majority group demonstrate characteristics
he associates with involuntary minorities (MacLeod,
1987). Further, when considering Bronfenbrenner’s
(1989) ecological systems theory, it is apparent that
Ogbu (1987; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986) limits much of
his analysis at the level of the macrosystem, narrowly
focusing on the social and historical conditions impact-
ing African American academic achievement. He neg-
lects the micro- and mesosystems, thereby failing to
understand how these larger conditions play out in
everyday lives. The previous section that reviewed the
history of Black achievement motivation illustrates
well how Ogbu’s macrolevel analysis falls short in its
inferences about the attitudes and motivation of
African Americans toward education.
Further, as reported by Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003),
Ford, Harris, Webb, and Jones (1994) note that Ford-
ham (1988) neglects the phenomenon of “code switch-
ing”—demonstrating different modes of cultural
communication and style in different settings—and
that Black students can become bicultural rather than
“raceless” and maintain their ethnic identities. Bicul-
tural identity is one of the different modes of the Inter-
nalization stage that Cross (1995) has described in his
model. It also represents a particular emergent identity
in the PVEST framework, one that is not represented in
Fordham’s (1988, 1996) or Fordham and Ogbu’s
(1986) work. Other coping options also sensitive to di-
verse youth more generally are described by Datnow
881
and Cooper (1996), which illustrate adaptive coping in
the school context and show how peers of the same race
in different contexts interpret the same phenomena dif-
ferently. As noted earlier, such within-group variation
is also largely neglected by Fordham and Ogbu (1986).
In a study of 562 Black adolescents, aged 11 to 16
from a southeastern U.S. city, Spencer, Noll, Stolzfus,
and Harpalani (2001) found that individuals with a Eu-
rocentric orientation, as indicated by a high score in
Cross’s (1971, 1991) Pre-Encounter stage, exhibit lower
academic achievement and lower self-esteem than those
individuals who have a proactive Afrocentric orienta-
tion—the Internalization stage. While individuals with
a reactive Afrocentric orientation (Immersion-Emersion
stage) performed poorly, the study indicates that a
strong, proactive sense of Black cultural identity is as-
sociated with positive academic achievement for Black
youth. The study by Spencer et al. (2001) illustrates the
importance of considering both adaptive and maladap-
tive coping outcomes and shows how Black racial iden-
tity can be related to both. It also contradicts the claims
of Fordham and Ogbu (1986) and Fordham (1988,
1996), who contend that Blacks must distance them-
selves from Black culture to achieve. As reviewed by
Spencer, Cross, et al. (2003), it is interesting to note that
Fordham and Ogbu’s (1986) paper was not the first aca-
demic article to use the phrase “acting White.” The ear-
liest reference we found was a 1970 article by McArdle
and Young entitled “Classroom Discussion of Racial
Identity or How Can We Make It Without ‘Acting
White?’ ” The very question posed by McArdle and
Young (1970) implies that it is possible to make it with-
out acting White, an idea denied by Fordham (1988) and
Fordham and Ogbu (1986).
Adolescents of all ethnicities engage in identity
searching and strive for acceptance and approval.
Cross’s (1971; Cross et al., 1991) Immersion-Emersion
identity stage may be characterized by anti-White atti-
tudes. While this can be maladaptive, it is not an abnor-
mal initial reaction to devaluation, particularly at this
salient developmental period. If Black youth perceive a
classroom, school, or other setting as a context where
they are devalued, they may cope by defining the expec-
tations of this context as acting White. However, this
is reflective of normative identity development
processes rather than a cultural devaluation of educa-
tion. As Spencer et al. (2001) note, “acting White has so
many potential variations based on multiple contextual
882 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
realities” (p. 28). The acting White phenomenon is not
responsible for Black academic underachievement, nor
is it reflective of a broad cultural frame of reference, as
Fordham and Ogbu (1986) suggest. It is simply one of
many coping responses to feeling devalued. Curiously,
and acknowledged by Ogbu (1985), when describing
high academically performing, first-generation South
Asian immigrants, this high achievement has never been
described as acting White. As noted by Trueba (1988),
culturally based assumptions that represent sociohistor-
ical assumptions are at best troubling. At worst, they
serve as an additional source of stress and challenge to
Black academic achievement and youths’ effectance
motivation.
As reviewed by Harpalani and Spencer (2005), irre-
spective of whether racism functions as product of
economic relations, sociological relations, or as a conse-
quence of some configuration between the social and
economic race is defined by Omi and Winant (2002) as a
“concept which signifies and symbolizes social con-
flicts and interests by referring to different types of
bodies” (p. 123). Stoler (2002) complicates this notion
of race by contending that there is a historical diver-
gence between racism as overt, biologically based, and
psychologically based and the new racism as insidious,
cultural, and complex. There is a historical divergence
in capturing racism as a difference between the seen
and the unseen, on noticeable differences or on more
subtle cultural differences. The selection of biological
traits and/or cultural qualities for classification is a so-
cial and historical process, not rooted as a biological
given. Over time, different groups of individuals have
moved in and out of racial categories as economic and
social conditions have changed. Hence, one can locate a
plurality of racisms constructed as a result of the com-
plex relationship between specific social, cultural, and
economic factors (Hall, 2002; Omi & Winant, 2002;
Stoler, 2002). Omi and Winant (2002) characterize
“racial formation” as the “sociohistorical process by
which racial categories are created, inhabited, trans-
formed and destroyed” (p. 124).
Another historical way of categorizing racisms is ar-
ticulated by Omi and Winant (2002) who explain the
ways in which definitions and understandings have be-
come more complex only recently. They contend that
racism, before the 1960s, was understood using a rather
limited lens—expressed through interpersonal rela-
tions and extending from individual prejudices. During
the 1960s, our understanding of racism expanded to ex-
plore broader forms of discrimination and the ways in
which racism is institutionally sanctioned and pro-
duced through structural inequities.
Essed (2002) develops an understanding of racism
that synthesizes the ways in which microaggression
works in conjunction with and through systemic in-
equities. Essed defines “everyday racism” as:
a process in which (1) socialized racist notions are inte-
grated into meanings that make practices immediately de-
finable and manageable, (2) practices with racist
implications become in themselves familiar and repeti-
tive, and (3) underlying racial and ethnic relations are ac-
tualized and reinforced through these routine or familiar
practices in everyday situations. (p. 190)
Furthermore, everyday racism is not necessarily com-
municated through direct interactions with people of
color. For example, journalists produce their everyday
products that perpetuate racist discourse and policy-
makers produce programs that can inadvertently per-
petuate inequities. Essed maintains that “ when racist
notions and actions infiltrate everyday life and become
part of the reproduction of the system, the system re-
produces everyday racism” (2002, p. 188). Hence,
macro and micro forms of racism are extensions of one
another as microaggressions while racists are not al-
ways founded by intentional prejudice.
Omi and Winant (2002) refer to a “common sense”
understanding, which they contend is a normative sys-
tem of ideas and practices—perpetuated through educa-
tion, the media, policy, and so on. Similar to Essed’s
characterization of everyday racism, racial inequities
are perpetuated through these commonsense ways of
relating and being in such a way that they are more in-
sidiously woven into the fabric of society rather than ex-
pressions of direct racial prejudice. However, the
existence of this form of racism in society does not
eliminate more direct forms of prejudice. Rather, Omi
and Winant maintain that our understanding of racism
has broadened such that we now understand it to exist in
plural forms that function through diverse contexts and
power dynamics.
It is through the development of this normative sys-
tem that hegemony operates. Hegemony defines the
ways in which relations of power frame the shape of
racism. This form of racism, as discussed previously in
this review, is related to the historical and temporal con-
text. This context is also shaped through power relations,
and the form of racial inequity is molded through the

ways in which hegemony functions through coercion and
particularly, through consent. Omi and Winant (2002)
argue that as racial rule transitions in many societies
from dictatorship to democracy, rule is based more di-
rectly on processes of consent rather than coercion, and
beliefs concerning racial superiority and inferiority are
a part of the discourse.
Cornel West (2002) has sought to locate the founda-
tion of the idea of Black racial inferiority in Western
culture. His efforts include an attempt to characterize
the genealogy of modern racism, looking specifically at
the cultural discourse. He makes links between the dis-
course associated with modernity and the ways in which
White supremacy became substantiated as a dominant
discourse. West contends that modern discourse of the
late-seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Western
Europe and during the Enlightenment was structured
such that the discourse of Black beauty and intelligence
as equivalent to White standards was silenced. The
modernity discourse of science and rationality fostered
the observation, comparison, ranking, and ordering of
physical characteristics of human bodies. The intellec-
tual ordering and co-option of classical norms of beauty
and culture made the equality of Black beauty and intel-
ligence not only unreasonable but also barbaric. West
(2002) argues that White supremacy is connected not
only to economic relations and psychological needs of
the White ruling class but also to the ways in which dis-
course is structured. Only certain notions of race are
conceivable based on the structuring of the dominant
modern discourse.
Goldberg (2002) complicates West’s analysis
through linking historical conceptions of moral subjec-
tivity, the creation of racial exclusion, and modernity.
He maintains that only in the second half of the twenti-
eth century has the concept of rights been claimed as
“ vested and borne by the subject ” (p. 298). This con-
ception of rights has fueled the critical attack on racial
discourse. However, Goldberg cites MacIntyre’s char-
acterization of “rights as a moral fiction,” which
claims to rest justifications on objective notions of
morality but in actuality the moral order is based on
subjective standards that shift over time and space.
Goldberg points out the subjectivity of the moral order
and how historically, morality has been used in diverse
ways to both justify and critique the racial order. Moral
categories are derived from the social structure and
moral construction discourages certain racist expres-
sions while failing to recognize and discourage other
Racism and Human Development 883
forms. Goldberg (2002) contends: “ The rights others as
a matter of course enjoy are yet denied people of color
because black, Brown, red and yellow subjectivities
continue to be disvalued; and the devaluation of these
subjectivities delimits at least the applicability of rights
or restricts their scope of application that people of
color might otherwise properly claim” (p. 299). Thus,
the progressive subtlety and subjective character of
racial beliefs and their impacts concerning perceived
inferiority and superiority of particular societal mem-
bers is not independent of developmental factors. Ac-
cording, as a final theme and as reviewed by Harpalani
and Spencer (2005), when considered especially for
children and adolescents, it is important to detail the
impact of denied rights as subjectively experienced in
the course of human development.
RACISM AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
As described elsewhere (see Harpalani & Spencer,
2005) and inferred from the integration and analysis
presented, racism is an insidious and omnipresent phe-
nomenon that is translated through multiple levels of so-
cial, cultural, and historical contexts and affects a large
impact on human lives. The traditional definition of
racism as simply discrimination based on race does not
cover the vast range of ways in which this phenomenon is
manifested. As experienced by youth, racism is signi-
fied not only by discriminatory behavior but also by
structural relationships, political ideologies, and institu-
tional practices, all of which are often viewed as norma-
tive components of our society and a critical aspect of
every day life for all. These structural and ideological
components are highly institutionalized, thus affecting
individual experiences and life trajectories, not only by
disadvantaging people of color but also by privileging
White people. To help understand how racism operates,
we integrate various theoretical traditions here, examin-
ing social, political, and cultural forces that shape his-
tory and society and the ways in which these forces
impact individuals’ identities and everyday lives.
Classical opinions about racism, while acknowledg-
ing its damaging impact, tended to view this phenome-
non as a set of aberrant attitudes and behaviors
resulting from mistaken beliefs or miseducation. Newer
theories have critiqued this approach and provided a
broader, systemic delineation of racial hierarchy in
884 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
societies. To understand the salience of racism for
human development and life-stage specific outcomes, it
is first necessary to examine its broad, systemic char-
acter. However, a societal approach to racism by itself
is not sufficient for developmental science; it is also
necessary to examine the different ways that youth
cope with experiences of racism that present many
challenges for youth of color and unrecognized privi-
leges for White youth. To accomplish this end, both so-
ciological theories of racism and contextually sensitive
frameworks for human development are useful, and
these can be integrated to understand how systemic
racism impacts the lives of youth.
Among the most widely cited works on the sociohis-
torical formation of racism is Omi and Winant’s (1994)
treatise, Racial Formation in the United States. This text
outlines the various paradigms that sociologists in the
twentieth century have employed to understand race and
racism. The authors highlight the social construction of
race: Racial groups do not reflect discrete biological
categories, but are social and political divisions based
on superficial physical features—divisions that are cre-
ated primarily for the purpose of economic and political
subordination (i.e., racism). Omi and Winant (1994)
note that in sociological theorizing, analyses of race and
racism have often been subsumed under other para-
digms, including ethnicity (with an emphasis on culture
and assimilation processes), class (with a Marxist orien-
tation underscoring economic and labor divisions), and
nation (with a focus on anti-colonial struggles and col-
lective consciousness formed in response to these strug-
gles). Omi and Winant’s (1994) perspective centers on
racial formation, which they define as, “ the sociohistor-
ical process by which racial categories are created, in-
habited, transformed, and destroyed” (p. 55). Racial
formation emphasizes the intersection of various influ-
ences in this process of racialization and recognizes
racial formation as a phenomenon that occurs at multi-
ple levels, with macrolevel structural manifestations
that translate into individual everyday experiences at
the microlevel. Omi and Winant (1994) discuss racial
formation in terms of “ historically situated, racial proj-
ects,” which are posited interpretations and explana-
tions of the racial dynamics in a society and serve to
reallocate resources to various racial groups. Racism is
constituted by those racial projects that “create or repro-
duce structures of domination based on essentialist cat-
egories of race” (p. 194).
Building on Omi and Winant’s (1994) ideological no-
tions of racial formation, Bonilla-Silva (2001) outlines a
theory of racism that is both structural and process-
oriented: the racialized social systems framework. In
this framework, racialized social systems are societies
that allocate material and social rewards differentially
by race, and such societies develop a particular racial
structure: the set of social relations, cultural practices,
and tacit and explicit assumptions, based on physical
distinctions that govern the social construction of racial
groups in the society.
Inclusive theories of human development, in
conjunction with systemic analyses of racism often
found in CRT, can help elucidate how racism impacts
developmental outcomes. For example, Bronfenbren-
ner’s (1989) ecological systems theory provides an ef-
fective framework to analyze the role of social, cultural,
and historical context in human development, and thus
to illustrate the impact of racism at multiple levels. As
reviewed by Harpalani and Spencer (2005), in its role as
a process oriented theoretical tool, ecological systems
theory offers mediating points between larger struc-
tural processes and the immediate settings where
racism is encountered in everyday life. A final step for
developmental scientists interested in the effects of
racism is to employ an identity-focused, contextually
sensitive, theory of human development that can illus-
trate how bias (e.g., racism) impacts experiences, cop-
ing, identity formation, and outcomes from a
developmental perspective—through all stages of the
life course. We posit that PVEST (Spencer, 1995) pro-
vides such a framework (see Figure 15.12).
As suggested, PVEST links context and experience
with individual meaning-making and identity formation,
all from the perspective of human development. While
ecological systems theory provides a means for describ-
ing hierarchical levels of context, PVEST directly illus-
trates life-course human development as influenced by
these multiple levels of context. PVEST serves as a
model to examine normative developmental processes—
framed through the interaction of identity, lived cultural
experiences, and tangible manifestations of racism, in-
cluding White privilege, for youth of all ethnicities. In
doing so, it takes into account individual differences in
experience, perception, and negotiations of stress and
dissonance. PVEST demonstrates a recycling through
the life span, as individuals encounter new risks and pro-
tective factors, experience new stressors (potentially
 Conclusions and Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory
offset by supports), establish more expansive coping
strategies, and redefine how they view themselves,
which also impacts how others view them. Thus, as elab-
orated in Harpalani and Spencer (2005), PVEST is a
temporally contingent model; it illustrates how out-
comes in prior stages impact developmental challenges
that individuals encounter and resolve in current situa-
tions. Many researchers have examined the relationship
of systemic racism to outcomes; however, PVEST high-
lights the mediating processes between race, as a risk
factor, and tangible outcomes. As suggested by Figure
15.20, essentially, it allows us to examine “ how” differ-
ent individuals cope with racism throughout their life-
course development.
Future research on racism, along with social, politi-
cal, and legal attempts to mitigate its impact, should
take into account both the subtle, normative expressions
of this phenomenon and the different levels at which it is
manifested. Individual level interventions are neces-
sary, but transformation of institutions and their prac-
tices will also be vital in the long run. The theories
noted along with many others, afford varying insights
on the nature of racism and its broad impacts on human
lives. Developmental scientists have the option to draw
on these frameworks in the production of better science,
which allows all youth, regardless of race, to achieve
their full potential.
In summary, it is apparent that the several themes
pursued have important implications for the content of
the invariable linear or deterministic thinking that
continues to serve as shorthand analyses of youths’
life-course coping efforts. Accordingly, it is obvious
that context, cultural traditions and normative human
developmental processes matter and interact while hu-
mans transition across time and place. Utilizing
PVEST as an organizing framework, this final section
provides helpful heuristic devices for inferring more
sensitive and valid conclusions about expected out-
comes. The strategy should diminish the dissemina-
tion of stigma and stereotypes in the conduct of
developmental science: Interpretive frameworks repre-
senting models, which afford best inferences concern-
ing both dual aspects implicit in youths’ Net
Vulnerability (i.e., levels of risks and protective fac-
tors)—given the experience of net stress and coping
processes—that may be anticipated for a particular
stage-specific coping outcomes (i.e., unproductive ver-
sus productive options).
885
CONCLUSIONS AND
PHENOMENOLOGICAL VARIANT OF
ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY
INFLUENCED INTERPRETATIONS OF
YOUTHS’ STAGE-SPECIFIC COPING
OUTCOMES AS A FUNCTION OF
NET VULNERABILITY
One major certainty to be concluded from the multidisci-
plinary literatures integrated and analyses provided in
demonstrating the benefits of PVEST is that any inclu-
sive theory of human development should bear a particu-
lar burden. Specifically, not only should the framework
acknowledge and incorporate the major objectively iden-
tifiable expressions of human variation (e.g., race, gen-
der, and unique life-course placement—an infant versus
an elder) that may differentially interface with context,
but also provide an adequate explanation of the “ how” of
human development processes that leads to the “ what ” or
particularly patterned outcomes (see Figure 15.20).
The uniquely structured and experienced processes of
human development are inextricably linked to the ten-
sions produced between nuanced developmental tasks
pursued by the individual given context character and in-
fluences of the psychohistorical moment, along with ex-
pectations for competence. However, unavoidable
tensions are also produced as a function of children’s
characteristics such as group membership and context
quality; although infrequently noted, the latter continues
to be linked to structural conditions associated with
race, racism, and White privilege. As indicated in the
synthesis statement, this unchanging dilemma is over-
looked in the child psychology literature except for a pri-
ori assumptions of deviance, psychopathology, or
problems associated with youth of color. Further, this
situation, experienced as stigmatization, is linked to his-
torical conditions and includes their perpetuation as val-
ues, beliefs, attitudes, contextual inequalities, and
psychosocial experiences. Considered together, they
serve neither to perpetuate risks nor to promulgate pro-
tective factors as net stress is experienced, reactive cop-
ing responses evoked, and emergent identities enacted.
Thus, recursively structured, they become associated
with particular stage-specific outcomes as young lives
unfold given particular cultural traditions. Accordingly,
our introduction of PVEST as an ICE perspective sug-
gests that the unfolding coping processes and consequent
coping products experienced at one stage serves as the
886 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups

Reorienting As suggested by the literatures reviewed and synthe-

Processes sized, high risk assessments without the consideration of
1
available protective factors have generally represented the
5
Vulnerability Level Life Stage Outcomes
analyses of youth of color. At the same time, unacknowl-
edged White privileging views about European Americans
Protective Risk are generally not associated with estimates of vulnerabil-
Factors Contributors Productive Unproductive ity (i.e., only protective factors such as social class are
considered). As suggested and more problematic, the high
Goal Seeking
(Tertiary Coping and performance often associated with middle-income Euro-
Orienting) Processes pean Americans is assumed to be the expected norm for
all youth; outliers are considered deviant or atypical. As
4
Emergent Identities: illustrated, two groups are usually compared when con-
Proximal Stable Coping Responses ducting research with diverse youth; middle-income
Processes Whites are invariably compared with a group or groups of
Positive Negative low-resource marginalized group youth. This lack of
equivalent sample comparisons, as described in an early
Identity Formation section of the paper, remains a significant problem in the
(Secondary Coping)
Processes developmental literature on child development. However,
as illustrated in Figure 15.21 and when compared against
2 3 Figure 15.22, there remain conceptual shortcomings and
Net Stress Reactive Coping Strategies
(Engagement) Level simplistic assumptions when dual analyses of vulnerabil-
ity are provided.
Social Challenges Adaptive Maladaptive As suggested, as a dual axis model of vulnerability,
Supports
too frequently Quadrant I is assumed to be poor and mi-
Primary
Coping
Processes
RISK FACTOR LEVEL
Figure 15.20 Processes Emphasizing Phenomenological Vari- High Low
ant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST). Source: From
Spencer & Harpalani, 2004. Low Special Needs
(Not Evident)
or Deviant:
major source of the individual’s net vulnerability at the Atypical
PROTECTIVE
next stage given the ongoing experiences of individual- FACTOR
LEVEL
context interface. Thus, as a dynamic recursive theoreti- (Presence/
Experience)
cal framework, PVEST moves beyond narrow determin-
High Performance:
istic perspectives of human development. High Considered
(Significant the “Norm”
Presence)
Conceptual Advantages of Phenomenological
Variant of Ecological Systems Theory as a Dual
Axis Coping Outcome Interpretational Figure 15.21 Traditional and limiting dual axis Perspective:
Framework of Human Development: This view narrowly compares extremes. Source: From “What
Traditional and Limited Dual Axis Perspectives Does ‘Acting White’ Actually Mean?: Racial Identity, Adoles-
cent Development, and Academic Achievement among African
As illustrated in Figure 15.21, in general, traditional American Youth,” by M. B. Spencer and V. Harpalani, in Mi-
and limited views of human development may consider nority Status, Collective Identity and Schooling, J. U. Ogbu
(Ed.), submitted, Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum; Adapted from “Intro-
risk level and protective factor intensity for understand-
duction: The Syndrome of the Psychologically Vulnerable
ing human vulnerability. However, the approach is still Child” (pp. 3–10), by E. J. Anthony, in The Child in His Family:
generally underdeveloped when considering the experi- Children at Psychiatric Risk, E. J. Anthony and C. Koupernik
ences of diverse youth of color. (Eds.), 1974, New York: Wiley.
 Conceptual Advantages of Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory 887

RISK FACTOR LEVEL comes in the face of risk. Inferred from his definition is
that one can only be resilient given the presence of high
High Low
risk and its net-balancing with protective factors. Thus,
Low Quadrant I as described in Figure 15.23, lacking a high level of pro-
Quadrant II
(Not Evident) Special Needs ––– tective factors, Quadrant I youth can be labeled highly
Deviant: Atypical
(Assumed to be poor
(Assumed non-existent vulnerable; however, Quadrant II youth are low on risk
PROTECTIVE or ignored)
FACTOR
and/or minority status) factor level although generally lacking high levels of
LEVEL protective factors; accordingly, Figure 15.23 describes
(Presence/
Experience) Quadrant IV them as lacking in significant symptomatology but show
Quadrant III High Performing: overall “masked vulnerability.”
––– Considered the “Norm”
High (Assumed to be As indicated, Quadrant IV youth are generally those
(Assumed
(Significant middle income [MI]
non-existent) who have high levels of protective factors and low or no
Presence) or non-minority status)
discernible risks; problematically, they are often used as
the standard or norm for all; however, as indicated, they
Figure 15.22 Shortcomings and assumptions of a tradi- are described as “ untested” or actually possessing “ un-
tional dual axis model. Source: Adapted from “Introduction: determined vulnerability” as depicted in Figure 15.23 as
The Syndrome of the Psychologically Vulnerable Child”
the PVEST-linked vulnerability level and resiliency pre-
(pp. 3–10), by E. J. Anthony, in The Child in His Family:
Children at Psychiatric Risk, E. J. Anthony and C. Koupernik diction dual axis coping outcome model. Considered
(Eds.), 1974, New York: Wiley. carefully from the theoretical perspective of James An-
thony, as a major contributor to the PVEST framework,
“resiliency” can only be expected for Quadrant III Group
nority, on the one hand, and Quadrant IV is assumed to because, as defined by Anthony, resiliency is associated
be youth of middle-income and nonminority (or model with those experiencing significant levels of risk but con-
minority) status; on the other hand. Quadrant II is gen- comitantly have access to high levels of protective fac-
erally ignored in the literature except for recent efforts tors. As indicated, we believe that this dual axis model
by Luthar (2003) with extremely affluent suburban Eu- provides a clarifying heuristic device for understanding
ropean Americans. Alternatively, when considering levels of vulnerability and resiliency prediction estimates
Quadrant III, the major publication patterns in child without engaging in unfair and stigmatizing analyses.
psychology have overwhelmingly ignored this high risk
and high protective factor level group or assumed that it
does not exist. There are a few theorists that explore RISK FACTOR LEVEL
protective factors such as parental monitoring, cultural High Low
socialization, specific achievement enhancing program-
ming, and reference group identity as protective factors Low Special Needs Symptoms Not Evident/
(e.g., Spencer, 1983; Spencer, Fegley, & Harpalani, (Not Evident) Evident: Overlooked:
Quadrant I Quadrant II
2003; Spencer, Noll, et al., 2001; Swanson et al., 2002;
PROTECTIVE (Highly Vulnerable) (“Masked” Vulnerability)
Youngblood & Spencer, 2002). When considered to- FACTOR
gether, it appears that as a specific outcome oriented LEVEL
(Presence/
perspective of the PVEST framework, Figure 15.23 pro- Experience)
Untested:
vides important implications for interpreting resiliency Resilience Expected:
Quadrant IV
High Quadrant III
particularly as conceptualized by Anthony (1987). (Low Vulnerability)
(Undetermined
(Significant
Vulnerability)
Presence)
Predicting Positive Outcomes in the
Face of Challenge
Figure 15.23 PVEST-linked vulnerability level and re-
siliency predicting dual axis coping outcome model. Source:
One of the many strengths of James Anthony’s (1974)
Adapted from “Introduction: The Syndrome of the Psycho-
formulation of resiliency is its acknowledgment of the logically Vulnerable Child” (pp. 3–10), by E. J. Anthony, in
simultaneous interfacing of protective factors with risk. The Child in His Family: Children at Psychiatric Risk, E. J.
He defines resiliency as the attainment of positive out- Anthony and C. Koupernik (Eds.), 1974, New York: Wiley.
888 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Unfortunately, this is not the orientation of most theories
of human development that consider the experiences of
diverse youth. Importantly, PVEST is not only applicable
to identifiable diverse young people and sensitive to their
unique cultural and contextual niches but also serves as a
broad life-course theory of human development, which
analyzes the systemic relationships between vulnerabil-
ity, stress level, coping processes (i.e., reactive, stable
coping as emergent identities), and stage-specific coping
outcomes as lives unfolds across the life course irrespec-
tive of group membership (including privilege) and its so-
cially structured social standing.
In sum, considered together, PVEST and its dual axis
coping outcome model of human development provide
conceptual tools and heuristic devices for accounting for
the diverse expressions of human development in cul-
tural context.
REFERENCES
Allen, W. R. (1985). Race, income and family dynamics: A study of
adolescent male socialization processes and outcomes. In M. B.
Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: The
social and af fective development of Black children (pp. 273–292).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Allen, W. R., Spencer, M. B., & Brookins, G. K. (1985). Synthesis:
Black children keep on growing. In M. B. Spencer, G. K.
Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: The social and af-
fective development of Black children (pp. 301–314). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Anderson, J. D. (1988). The education of Blacks in the south,
1860–1935. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
Anthony, E. J. (1974). Introduction: The syndrome of the psychologi-
cally vulnerable child. In E. J. Anthony & C. Koupernik (Eds.),
The child in his family: Children at psychiatric risk (pp. 3–10).
New York: Wiley.
Anthony, E. J. (1987). Risk, vulnerability, and resilience: An
overview. In E. J. Anthony & B. J. Cohler (Eds.), The invulnerable
child (pp. 3–48). New York: Guilford Press.
Armour, J. D. (2000). Race Ipsa Loquitur: Of reasonable racists, in-
telligent bayesians, and involuntary negrophobes. In R. Delgardo
& J. Stefancic (Eds.), Critical race theory (chap. 17). Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press.
Arrington, E. G. (2002). Negotiating race and racism: Black youth in
racially dissonant schools. Dissertation Abstracts International,
62, 12. (UMI No. AA13031636)
Balkin, J. M. (2001). What Brown versus Board of Education should
have said. New York: New York University Press.
Banks, W. C. (1976). White preference in Blacks: A paradigm in
search of phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin, 83, 1179–1186.
Barker, R. G., & Wright, H. F. (1949). Psychological ecology and
the problem of psychosocial development. Child Development,
20, 131–143.
Barker, R. G., & Wright, H. F. (1954). Midwest and its children: The
psychological ecology of an American town. Evanston, IL: Row
and Peterson.
Baron, H. (1971). The demand for Black labor: Historical notes on
the political economy of racism. Radical American, 5(2), 1–46.
Bell, D. A. (1992). Faces at the bottom of the well: The permanence of
racism. New York: Basic Books.
Bell, D. A. (1995). Brown v. Board of Education and the interest con-
vergence dilemma. In K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K.
Thomas (Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed
the movement (pp. 20–28). New York: New Press.
Bell, D. A. (2000a). After we’ve gone: Prudent speculations on
America in a post-racial epoch. In R. Delgado & J. Stefancic
(Eds.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge (pp. 2–8). Philadel-
phia: Temple University Press.
Bell, D. A. (2000b). Serving two masters: Integration ideals and
client interests in school desegregation litigation. In R. Delgado
& J. Stefancic (Eds.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge
(pp. 236–246). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Board of Education of Oklahoma City v. Dowell, 49.8 U.S. 237
(1991).
Bolling v. Sharpe, 347 U.S. 497 (1954).
Bonilla-Silva, E. (2001). White supremacy and racism in the post-civil
rights era. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.
Boyd-Franklin, N. (1989). Black families in therapy: A multisystems
approach. New York: Guilford Press.
Boykin, A. W. (1986). The triple quandary and the schooling of Afro-
American children. In U. Neisser (Ed.), The school achievement of
minority children (pp. 57–92). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Boykin, A. W., & Ellison, C. M. (1995). The multiple ecologies of
Black youth socialization: An afrographic analysis. In R. L. Tay-
lor (Ed.), African-American youth: Perspectives on their status in
the United States (pp. 93–128). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Boykin, A. W., & Toms, F. (1985). Black child socialization: A
conceptual framework. In H. P. McAdoo & J. McAdoo (Eds.),
Black children: Social, educational, and parental environments
(pp. 33–52). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of
human development. American Psychologist, 32, 513–531.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Ex-
periments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1985). Summary. In M. B. Spencer, G. K.
Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: Social and af fective
development of Black children (pp. 67–73). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1989). Ecological systems theory. In R. I. Vasta
(Ed.), Annals of Child Development: Vol. 6. Six theories of child
development (pp. 187–249). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1992). The process-person-context model in de-
velopment research: Principles, applications and implications. Un-
published manuscript, Cornell University, Department of Human
Development and Family Studies, Ithaca, NY.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1993). The ecology of cognitive development. In
R. H. Wozniak & K. W. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context:
Acting and thinking is specific environments (pp. 3–44). Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1993). Heredity, environment, and
the question “How?”: A first approximation. In R. Plomin & G. E.

McClearn (Eds.), Nature, nurture, and psychology (pp. 313–324).
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994). Nature-nurture reconceptu-
alized in developmental perspective: A bioecological mode. Psy-
chological Review, 101(4), 568–586.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Crouter, A. C. (1983). The evolution of envi-
ronmental models in developmental research. In P. H. Mussen
(Series Ed.) & W. Kessen (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychol-
ogy: Vol. I. History, theory, and methods (pp. 357–414). New
York: Wiley.
Brookins, G. K. (1985). Black children’s sex role ideologies and oc-
cupational choices in families of employed mothers. In M. B.
Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Beginnings: Social
and af fective development of Black children (pp. 257–272). Hills-
dale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Brookins, G. K. (1988). Making the honor roll: A Black parent’s per-
spective on private education. In D. T. Slaughter & D. J. Johnson
(Eds.), Visible now: Blacks in private school (pp. 12–20). New
York: Greenwood Press.
Brown I. 347 U.S. 483 (1954).
Brown II. 349 U.S. 294 (1955).
Bullock, H. A. (1967). A history of Negro education in the south:
From 1619–present. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Butchart, R. E. (1980). Northern schools, southern Blacks, and re-
construction: Freedmen’s education, 1862–1875. Westport, CT:
Greenwood Press.
Carroll, G. (1998). Mundane extreme environmental stress and
African American families: A case for recognizing different real-
ities. Journal of Comparative Family Studies, 29(2), 271–283.
Carroll, G., & Tyler, K. (under review). A portrait of African Ameri-
can suicide: An interaction of racism and stress.
Ceci, S. J. (1994). Cognitive and social factors in children’s testi-
mony. In B. D. Sales & G. R. VandenBos (Eds.), Psychology in lit-
igation and legislation (pp. 11–54). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Chestang, L. W. (1971). The dilemma of biracial adoptions. Social
Work, 17, 100–105.
Chestang, L. W. (1972). Character development in a hostile environ-
ment (Occasional Paper, No. 3). Chicago: University of Chicago,
School of Social Service Administration.
Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. P. (1939). The development of conscious-
ness of self and the emergence of racial identity in Negro pre-
school children. Journal of Social Psychology, 10, 591–599.
Clark, K. B., & Clark, M. P. (1940). Skin color as a factor in racial
identification of Negro preschool children. Journal of Social Psy-
chology, 2, 159–169.
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Crenshaw, K., Gotanda, N., Peller, G., & Thomas, K. (1995). Criti-
cal race theory: Key writings that formed the movement. New
York: New Press.
Cross, W. E., Jr. (1971, July). The Negro-to-Black conversion experi-
ence. Black World, 13–27.
Cross, W. E., Jr. (1991). Shades of Black: Diversity in African-Ameri-
can identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Cross, W. E., Jr. (1995). The psychology of nigrescence. In J. Pon-
terotto, J. Casas, L. Suzuki, & C. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of
counseling (pp. 93–122). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
References 889
Cross, W. E., Jr. (2001). Encountering nigrescence. In J. Ponterotto,
J. M. Casas, L. A. Suzuki, & C. M. Alexander (Eds.), Handbook of
multicultural counseling (pp. 30–44). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cross, W. E., Jr., & Vandiver, B. J. (2001). Nigrescence theory and
measurement. In J. G. Ponterotto, et al. (Eds.), Handbook of mul-
ticultural counseling (pp. 371–393). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Cunningham, M. (1993). Sex role inf luences of African American
adolescent males: A literature review. Journal of African Ameri-
can Male Studies, 1, 30–37.
Cunningham, M., Swanson, D. P., Spencer, M. B., & Dupree, D.
(2003). The association of physical maturation with family has-
sles in African American adolescent males. Journal of Cultural
Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 9, 274–276.
Damon, W. (2002, February). The development of purpose during
adolescence. Paper presented at the Fuller Thrive Author Confer-
ence for beyond the Self: Perspectives on Transcendence and
Identity Development, Pasadena, CA.
Darity, W. A., Jr., & Myers, S. L., Jr. (1998). Persistent disparity:
Race and economic inequality in the United States since 1945.
Northampton, MA: E. Elgar.
Datnow, A., & Cooper, R. (1996). Peer networks of African-American
students in independent schools: Affirming academic success and
racial identity. Journal of Negro Education, 65(4), 56–72.
DeCharms, R. (1968). Personal causation: The internal af fective de-
terminant of behavior. New York: Academy Press.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2000). Introduction. In R. Delgado &
J. Stefancic (Eds.), Critical race theory: The cutting edge
(pp. xv–xix). Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Delgado, R., & Stefancic, J. (2001). Critical race theory: An intro-
duction. New York: New York University Press.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The souls of Black folk. Greenwich, CT:
Fawcett Publications.
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1935). Black reconstruction. New York: S. A. Russell.
Dupree, D., Spencer, M. B., & Bell, S. (1997). The ecology of
African American child development: Normative and non-norma-
tive outcomes. In G. Johnson-Powell & Y. Yamamoto (Eds.),
Transcultural child psychiatry: A portrait of America’s children
(pp. 237–268). New York: Wiley.
Dweck, C. S. (1978). Achievement. In M. Lamb (Ed.), Social and per-
sonality development (pp. 114–130). New York: Holt Reinhart.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1974). Children of the great depression. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Eng, P. (1999). Warrior lessons. New York: Pocket Books.
Erikson, E. H. (1959). Identity and the life cycle. Psychological Is-
sues, 1, 1–171.
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. New York: Norton.
Essed, P. (2002). Everyday racism: A new approach to the study of
racism. In P. Essed & D. T. Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theo-
ries: Test and context (pp. 176–194). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Fegley, S. G., Spencer, M. B., Gross, T. N., Harpalani, V., & Charles,
N. (in press). Bodily self-awareness: Skin color and psychosocial
well-being in adolescence. In W. Overton & U. Mueller (Eds.),
Body in mind, mind in body: Developmental perspectives on em-
bodiment and consciousness. Mahwah, NJ: LEA.
Fischbein, S. (1980). IQ and social class. Intelligence, 4, 51–63.
Fisher, C. B., Hoagwood, K., Boyce, C., Duster, T., Frank, D., Grisso,
T., et al. (2002). Research ethics for mental health science involv-
ing ethnic minority children and youths. American Psychologist,
57(12), 1024–1040.
890 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Flavell, J. H. (1968). The development of role-taking and communica-
tion skills in children. New York: Wiley.
Ford, D. Y., Harris, J. J., Webb, K. S., & Jones, D. L. (1994). Rejec-
tion or confirmation of racial identity: A dilemma for high-
achieving Blacks? Journal of Educational Thought, 28(1), 7–33.
Fordham, S. (1988). Racelessness as a strategy in Black students’
school success: Pragmatic strategy or pyrrhic victory? Harvard
Educational Review, 58(1), 54–84.
Fordham, S. (1996). Blacked out: Dilemmas of race, identity and suc-
cess at Capital High. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Fordham, S., & Ogbu, J. U. (1986). Black students’ school success:
Coping with the “ burden of ‘acting White.’ ” Urban Review,
18, 176–206.
Freeman, A. D. (1995). Legitimizing racial discrimination through
antidiscrimination law: A critical review of Supreme Court doc-
trine. In. K. Crenshaw, N. Gotanda, G. Peller, & K. Thomas
(Eds.), Critical race theory: The key writings that formed the
movement (pp. 29–45). New York: New Press.
Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U.S. 467 (1992).
Frye, D. (1992). Causes and precursors of children’s theories of
mind. In D. Hay & A. Angold (Eds.), Precursors and causes in de-
velopment and psychopathology (pp. 145–168). West Sussex, En-
gland: Wiley.
Frye, D., & Moore, C. (1991). Children’s theories of mind: Mental
states and social understanding. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Goldberg, D. T. (2001). Race critical theories (P. Essed & D. T. Gold-
bert, Eds.). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Goldberg, D. T. (2002). Modernity, race, and morality. In P. Essed &
D. T. Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories: Text and context
(pp. 14–40). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Gottlieb, G. (1995). Some conceptual deficiencies in “developmen-
tal” behavior genetics. Human Development, 38, 131–141.
Gump, P. V., & Sutton-Smith, B. (1955). The “It ” in children’s
games. Group, 17, 3–8.
Guthrie, R. (1976). Even the rat was White: A historical view of psy-
chology. New York: Harper & Row.
Hall, S. (2000). In R. Delgardo, & J. Stefancic (Eds.), Critical race
theory: An introduction. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Hall, S. (2002). Race, articulation, and societies structured in domi-
nance. In P. Essed & D.T. Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories:
Text and context (pp. 38– 68). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Hare, B. R., & Castenell, L. A., Jr. (1985). No place to run, no place
to hide: Comparative status and future prospects of Black boys.
In M. B. Spencer, G. K Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Begin-
nings: The social and af fective development of Black children
(pp. 201–214). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Harpalani, V. (1999). A critique of Hoberman’s Darwin’s athletes: In-
valid psychological inferences from a sociohistorical framework.
Unpublished manuscript, University of Pennsylvania, Philadel-
phia, Graduate School of Education.
Harpalani, V., & Spencer, M. B. (2005). Racism. In C. B. Fisher &
R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Applied developmental science: An encyclope-
dia of research, policies, and programs (pp. 905–909). Thousand
Oaks: Sage.
Havighurst, R. J. (1953). Human development and education. New
York: McKay.
Hergenhahn, B. R., & Olson, M. H. (1993). An introduction to theo-
ries of learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Hetherington, E. M., & Kelly, J. (2003). For better or for worse: Di-
vorce reconsidered. New York: Free Press.
Holliday, B. G. (1985a). Developmental imperatives of social ecolo-
gies: Lessons learned from Black children. In H. P. McAdoo &
J. L. McAdoo (Eds.), Black children: Social, educational and
parental environments. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Holliday, B. G. (1985b). Towards a model of teacher-child transac-
tional processes affecting Black children’s academic achieve-
ment. In M. B. Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.),
Beginnings: The social and af fective development of Black children
(pp. 117–130). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Huang, L. N. (1989). Southeast Asian refugee children and adoles-
cents. In J. T. Gibbs & L. N. Huang (Eds.). Children of color
(pp. 278–321). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Ignatiev, N. (1995). How the Irish became White. New York: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul.
Irvine, J. J. (1988). Black students and school failure. New York:
Greenwood Press.
Jackson, P. W., Boostrom, R. E., & Hansen D. T. (1993). The moral
life of schools. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Jaret, C. (1995). Contemporary racial and ethnic relations. New York:
HarperCollins.
Jarrett, R. L. (1994). Living poor: Family life among single parent,
African American women. Social Problems, 41, 30–49.
Jarrett, R. L. (1995). Growing up poor: The family experiences of so-
cially mobile youth in low-income African-American neighbor-
hoods. Journal of Adolescent Research, 10, 111–135.
Joe, S., & Kaplan, M. S. (2002, March). Firearm-related suicide
among young African American males. Psychiatric Services,
53(3), 332–334.
Johnson, D. J. (1988). Racial socialization strategies of parents in
three Black private schools. In D. T. Slaughter & D. J. Johnson
(Eds.), Visible now: Blacks in private schools (pp. 251–267). New
York: Greenwood Press.
Johnson-Powell, G., & Yamamoto, Y. (Eds.). (1997). Transcultural
child psychiatry: A portrait of American’s children. New York:
Wiley.
Kardiner, A., & Ovesey, L. (1951). The mark of oppression: Explo-
rations in the personality of the American Negro. New York: Norton.
Kennell, J., & Klaus, M. (1982). Parent-infant bonding (2nd ed.). St.
Louis: Mosby.
Kennell, J. H., Trause, M. A., & Klaus, M. H. (1975). Evidence for a
sensitive period in the human mother. In Ciba Foundation Sympo-
sium: Vol. 33. Parent-infant interaction (New series, pp. 87–102).
Klaus, M. H., & Kennel, J. H. (1976). Maternal-infant bonding. St.
Louis, MO: Mosby.
Klaus, M. H., & Kennel, J. H. (1976). Maternal-infant bonding: The
impact of early separation or loss on family development. St.
Louis, MO: Mosby.
Klaus, M., & Kennel, J. (1983). Parent-infant bonding. St.
Louis, MO: Mosby.
Klaus, P. H., Kennel, J. H., & Klaus, M. H. (1995). Bonding: Building
the foundations of secure attachment and independence. Reading,
MA: Addison-Wesley.
Koshy, S. (1998). Category crisis: South Asian Americans and ques-
tions of race and ethnicity. Diaspora, 7(3), 285–320.
Kottak, C. P. (1987). Cultural anthropology. New York: Random House.
Ladner, J. A. (1972). Tomorrow’s tomorrow: The Black woman. New
York: Doubleday.

Ladson-Billings, G. (1994). The dream keepers: Successful teachers of
African-American children. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
LaFromboise, T. D., Coleman, H. L., & Gerton, J. (1993). Psycholog-
ical impact of biculturalism: Evidence and theory. Psychological
Bulletin, 114, 395–412.
Lal, S. (2002). Giving children security: Mamie Phipps Clark and
the racializing of child psychology. American Psychologist,
57(1), 20–28.
Lee, C., Spencer, M. B., & Harpalani, V. (2003). Every shut eye
ain’t sleep: Studying how people live culturally. Educational
Researcher, 32, 6–13.
Lesser, G., & Stodolsky, S. (1967). Learning patterns in the disad-
vantaged. Harvard Educational Review, 37, 546–593.
Lesser, G., & Stodolsky, S. (1970). Equal opportunity for maximum
development. In J. S. Coleman (Ed.), Equal educational opportu-
nity: Harvard Educational Review (pp. 127–138). Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Lewin, K. (1935). A dynamic theory of personality. New York:
McGraw-Hill.
Liebow, E. (1968). Tally’s corner: A study of Negro streetcorner men.
Boston: Little, Brown.
Liu, W. T., Yu, E., Chang, C. F., & Fernandez, M. (1990). The mental
health of Asian American teenagers: A research challenge. In
A. R. Stiffman & L. E. Davis (Eds.), Ethnic issues in adolescent
mental health (pp. 92–112). Newbury Park: Sage.
Luthar, S. S. (2003). Resilience and vulnerability: Adaptation in the
context of childhood adversities. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.
Luthar, S. S., & Cicchetti, D. (2000). The construct of resilience: Im-
plications for interventions and social policies. Development and
Psychopathology, 12, 857–885.
MacLeod, J. (1987). Ain’t no makin’ it: Leveled aspirations in a low-
income neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Markus, H. R., & Kitayama, S. (1991). Cultural variation in the
self-concept. In G. R. Goethals & J. Strauss (Eds.), Multidisci-
plinary perspectives on the self (pp. 18–48). New York: Springer-
Verlag.
Matute-Bianchi, M. E. (1986). Ethnic identity and patterns of school
success and failures among Mexican descendants and Japanese-
American students in a California high school: An ethnographic
analysis. American Journal of Education, 95, 233–255.
McArdle, C. G., & Young, N. F. (1970). Classroom discussion of
racial identity or how can we make it without “acting White”?
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 40(1), 135–141.
McIntosh, P. (1989). White privilege: Unpacking the invisible knap-
sack. Peace and Freedom, 10–12.
McLoyd, V. C. (1990). The impact of economic hardship on Black
families and children: Psychology distress, parenting, and socioe-
motional development. Child Development, 61, 311–346.
Mehta, P. (1998). The emergence, conf licts, and integration of the bi-
cultural self. In S. Akhtar & S. Kramer (Eds.), The colors of
childhood (pp. 129–168). Northvale, NJ: Aronson.
Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U.S. 717 (1974).
Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U.S. 70 (1995).
Moore, M. (2002). Stupid white men . . . and other sorry excuses for
the state of the nation! New York: Regan Books.
Moore, M. (Director). (2002). Bowling for Columbine [Motion pic-
ture]. U.S. Columbia Tristar Home Video. Available from
http://www.bowlingforcolumbine.com.
References 891
Nanda, S. (1974). Cultural anthropology. New York: VanNostrand.
Nguyen, L., & Frye, D. (1999). Children’s theory of mind: Under-
standing desire, belief, and emotion with social referents. Social
Development, 8, 70–92.
Obidah, J. E. (2001). In search of a theoretical framework. In R. O.
Mabokela & A. L. Green (Eds.), Sisters of the academy: Emergent
Black women scholars in higher education (pp. 43–54). Sterling,
VA: Stylus Publishing.
Ogbu, J. (1985). A cultural ecology of competence among inner-city
Blacks. In M. B. Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.),
Beginnings: The social and af fective development of Black children
(pp. 45–66). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Ogbu, J. U. (1986). The consequences of the American caste system.
In U. Neisser (Ed.), The school achievement of minority children:
New perspectives (pp. 19–56). Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
Ogbu, J. U. (1987). Variability in minority school performance: A
problem in search of an explanation. Anthropology and Education
Quarterly, 18, 312–334.
Ogbu, J. U. (1990). Minority education in a comparative perspective.
Journal of Negro Education, 59(1), 45–56.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1994). Racial formation in the United States
(2nd ed.). New York: Routledge.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (2002). Racial formation. In P. Essed & D. T.
Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories: Text and context (pp.
123–145). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Oyemade, U. J. (1985). The rationale for Head Start as a vehicle for
the upward mobility of minority families: A minority perspective.
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 55(4) 591–602.
Pettigrew, T. F. (1964). A profile of the Negro American. Princeton,
NJ: Van Nostrand.
Phelan, P., Davidson, A. L., & Cao, H. T. (1991). Students’ multiple
worlds: Negotiating the boundaries of family, peer, and school
cultures. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 22, 224–250.
Piaget, J. (1926). The language and thought of the child. New York:
Harcourt, Brace and World.
Piaget, J. (1967). Six psychological studies. New York: Vintage.
Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 U.S. 537 (1896), pp. 550–551.
Plomin, R., DeFries, J. C., & Loehlin, J. C. (1977). Genotype-
environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of human
behavior. Psychological Bulletin, 84, 309–322.
Prashad, V. (2000). The karma of Brown folk. Minneapolis, MN: Uni-
versity of Minnesota Press.
Riksen-Walraven, J. M. A. (1978). Effects of caregive behavior on
habituation rate and self-efficacy in infants. International Journal
of Behavioral Development, 1, 105–130.
Rimer, S., & Arenson, K. W. (2004, June). Top colleges take more
blacks, but which ones? Retrieved December 6, 2005 from the
New York Times website: http://select.nytimes.com /gst /abstract
.html?res=F00917FC355D0C778EDDAF0894DC404482
Roediger, D. R. (1991). The wages of whiteness: Race and the making
of the American working class. New York: Verso.
Roediger, D. R. (1994). The abolition of whiteness. New York:
Verso.
Roediger, D. R. (2001). Whiteness and ethnicity in the history
of “ White Ethnics” in the United States. In P. Essed & D. T.
Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories: Text and context
(pp. 325–343). Malden, MA: Blackwell.
892 Phenomenology and Ecological Systems Theory: Development of Diverse Groups
Sarat, A. (1997). Race, law and culture: Ref lections on Brown v.
Board of Education. New York: Oxford University Press.
Scarr, S. (1988). How genotypes and environments combine: Devel-
opment and individual differences. In N. Bolger & A. Caspi
(Eds.), Persons in context: Developmental processes—Human de-
velopment in cultural and historical contexts (pp. 217–244). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Scarr, S., & McCartney, K. (1983). How people make their own envi-
ronments: A theory of genotype-environment effects. Child Devel-
opment, 54, 424–435.
Scarr-Salapatek, S. (1971). Race, social class, and IQ. Science,
174, 1285–1295.
Schultz, D. (1976). Theories of personality. Monterey, CA:
Brooks/Cole.
Sethi, S., Lepper, M. R., & Ross, L. (1999). Independence from
whom? Interdependence with whom? Cultural perspectives on in-
groups versus outgroups. In D. Miller & D. Prentice (Eds.), Cul-
tural divides: Understanding and overcoming group conf licts
(pp. 273–301). New York: Sage.
Slaughter, D. T., & Johnson, D. (1988). Visible now: Blacks in private
schools. New York: Greenwood Press.
Spencer, M. B. (1970). The ef fects of systematic social (puppet) and
token reinforcement on the modification of racial and color con-
cept-attitudes in preschool aged children. Unpublished master’s
thesis, University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Spencer, M. B. (1976, August). The competence model as a viable al-
ternative to IQ test gamesmanship. Proceedings of the Association
of Black Psychologists, Chicago.
Spencer, M. B. (1981a). Personal and group identity of Black chil-
dren: An alternative synthesis. Genetic Psychology Monographs,
106, 59–84.
Spencer, M. B. (1981b). Preschool children’s social cognition and
cultural cognition: A cognitive developmental interpretation of
race dissonance findings. Journal of Psychology, 112, 275–286.
Spencer, M. B. (1982). Preschool children’s social cognition and cul-
tural cognition: A cognitive developmental interpretation of race
dissonance findings. Journal of Psychology, 112, 275–286.
Spencer, M. B. (1983). Children’s cultural values and parental child
rearing strategies. Developmental Review, 3, 351–370.
Spencer, M. B. (1984). Black children’s race awareness, racial atti-
tudes and self-concept: A reinterpretation. Journal of Child Psy-
chology and Psychiatry, 25(3), 433–441.
Spencer, M. B. (1985). Cultural cognition and social cognition as
identity factors in Black children’s personal-social growth. In
M. B. Spencer, G. K. Brookins, & W. R. Allen (Eds.), Begin-
nings: The social and af fective development of Black children
(pp. 215–230). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Spencer, M. B. (1988). Self-concept development. In D. T. Slaughter
(Ed.), Perspectives on Black child development: New directions for
child development (pp. 59–72). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Spencer, M. B. (1990). Parental values transmission: Implications for
the development of African-American children. In J. B. Stewart &
H. Cheatham (Eds.), Interdisciplinary perspectives on Black fami-
lies (pp. 111–130). Atlanta, GA: Transactions.
Spencer, M. B. (1995). Old issues and new theorizing about African
American youth: A phenomenological variant of ecological systems
theory. In R. L. Taylor (Ed.), Black youth: Perspectives on their sta-
tus in the United States (pp. 37–70). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Spencer, M. B. (1999a). Social and cultural inf luences on school ad-
justment: The application of an identity-focused cultural ecologi-
cal perspective. Educational Psychologist, 34, 43–57.
Spencer, M. B. (1999b). Transitions and continuities in cultural val-
ues: Kenneth Clark revisited. In R. L. Jones (Ed.), African Ameri-
can children, youth, and parenting (pp. 183–208). Hampton, VA:
Cobb & Henry.
Spencer, M. B. (2001). Identity, achievement orientation and race:
“Lessons learned” about the normative developmental experiences
of African American males. In W. Watkins, et al. (Eds.), Race and
education: The role of history and society in educating African
American students (pp. 100–127). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn
& Bacon.
Spencer, M. B. (2005). Crafting identities and accessing opportunity
post Brown. American Psychologist, 60(8), 821–830.
Spencer, M. B., Brookins, G. K., & Allen, W. R. (Eds.). (1985). Be-
ginnings: Vol. 1. The social and af fective development of Black
children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Spencer, M. B., & Cassidy, E. (2004). A broader view of service
learning: Using a phenomenological approach to frame service
learning among high-school-aged youth. Chapter prepared for the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Spencer, M. B., Cross, Jr., W. E., Harpalani, V., & Goss, T. N.
(2003). Debunking the “acting white” myth and posing new di-
rections for research. In C. C. Yeakey & R. D. Henderson (Eds.),
Surmounting all odds: Education, opportunity, and society in the
new millennium (pp. 273–304). Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
Spencer, M. B., & Dornbusch, S. (1990). Challenges in studying mi-
nority youth. In S. Feldman & G. Elliot (Eds.), At the threshold:
The developing adolescent (pp. 123–146). Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Spencer, M. B., Dupree, D., Cunningham, M., Harpalani, V., &
Munoz-Miller, M. (2003). Vulnerability to violence: A
contextually-sensitive, developmental perspective on African
American adolescents. Journal of Social Issues, 59(1) 33–49.
Spencer, M. B., Dupree, D., & Hartmann, T. (1997). A Phenome-
nological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST): A
self-organization perspective in context. Development and
Psychopathology, 9, 817–833.
Spencer, M. B., Dupree, D., Swanson, D. P., & Cunningham, M.
(1996). Parental monitoring and adolescents’ sense of responsi-
bility for their own learning: An examination of sex differences.
Journal of Negro Education, 65(1), 30–43.
Spencer, M. B., Dupree, D., Swanson, D. P., & Cunningham, M.
(1998). The inf luence of physical maturation and hassles on
African American adolescents’ learning behaviors. Journal of
Comparative Family Studies, 29, 189–200.
Spencer, M. B., Fegley, S., & Harpalani, V. (2003). A theoretical and
empirical examination of identity as coping: Linking coping re-
sources to the self processes of African American youth. Journal
of Applied Developmental Science, 7(3), 181–187.
Spencer, M. B., & Harpalani, V. (2004). Nature, nurture, & the
question of “How?”: A phenomenological variant of ecological
systems theory. In C. Garcia-Coll, K. Kearer, & R. Lerner
(Eds.), Nature and nurture: The complex interplay of genetic and
environmental inf luences on human behavior and development
(pp. 53–77). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Spencer, M. B., & Harpalani, V. (under review). What does “acting
White” actually mean? Racial identity, adolescent development,
and academic achievement among African American youth. In

J. U. Ogbu (Ed.), Minority status, collective identity and school-
ing. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Spencer, M. B., Harpalani, V., Cassidy, E., Jacobs, C., Donde, S.,
Goss, T., et al. (2006). Understanding vulnerability and
resilience from a normative development perspective:Vol. 1. Im-
plications for racially and ethnically diverse youth (pp. 627–672).
In D. Cicchetti & E. Cohen (Eds.), Handbook of Development and
Psychopathology. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Spencer, M. B., Hartmann, T. T., & Dupree, D. (1997). A Phenome-
nological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST): A
self-organization perspective in context. Development and
Psychopathology, 9, 817–833.
Spencer, M. B., & Horowitz, F. D. (1973). Effects of systematic so-
cial and token reinforcement on the modification of racial and
color concept attitudes in Black and in White pre-school children.
Developmental Psychology, 9, 246–254.
Spencer, M. B., & Jones-Walker, C. (2004). Interventions and ser-
vices offered to former juvenile offenders reentering their com-
munities: An analysis of program effectiveness. Journal of Youth
Violence and Juvenile Justice, 1(2), 88–97.
Spencer, M. B., & Markstrom-Adams, C. (1990). Identity processes
among racial and ethnic minority children in America. Child De-
velopment, 61, 290–310.
Spencer, M. B., Noll, E., Stoltzfus, J., & Harpalani, V. (2001). Iden-
tity and school adjustment: Revisiting the “acting White” assump-
tion. Educational Psychologist, 36(1), 21–30.
Spencer, M. B., Silver, L. J., Seaton, G., Tucker, S. R., Cunningham,
M., & Harpalani, V. (2001). Race and gender inf luences on teen
parenting: An identity-focused cultural-ecological perspective. In
T. Urdan & F. Pajares (Eds.), Adolescence and education: General
issues in the education of adolescents (pp. 231–268). Greenwich,
CT: Information Age Publishing.
Spencer, M. B., & Swanson, D. P. (2000). Promoting positive out-
comes for youth: Resourceful families and communities. In
S. Danziger & J. Waldfogel (Eds.), Securing the future
(pp. 182–204). New York: Russell Sage Foundation Press.
Steele, C. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape intellectual
identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613–629.
Steele, C. (2004, April). Endowed lectureship on stereotype threat.
Sponsored by the Provost Office, University of Michigan.
Steele, C. M., & Aronson, J. (1995). Stereotype threat and the intel-
lectual test performance of African-Americans. Journal of Per-
sonality and Social Psychology, 69, 797–811.
Steinberg, L. (1985). Adolescence. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Stevenson, H. C. (1997). Missed, dissed, and pissed: Making
meaning of neighborhood risk, fear and anger management in
urban Black youth. Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, 3,
37–52.
Stoler, A. L. (2002). Racial histories and their regimes of truth. In P.
Essed & D. T. Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories: Text and
context. Malden, MA: Blackwell.
Sullivan, M. (1989). Getting paid: Youth, crime and work in the inner
city. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Swanson, D., Cunningham, M., & Spencer, M. B. (2003). Black males’
structural conditions, achievement patterns, normative needs, and
“opportunities.” Urban Education Journal, 38, 608–633.
Swanson, D. P., & Spencer, M. B. (1999). Developmental and cultural
context considerations for research on African American adoles-
References 893
cents. In H. Fitzgerald, B. M. Lester, & B. Zuckerman (Eds.),
Children of color: Research, health and public policy issues
(pp. 53–72). New York: Garland.
Swanson, D. P., Spencer, M. B., Dell’Angleo, T., Harpalani, V.,
& Spencer, T. (2002). Identity processes and the positive
youth development of African Americans: An explanatory
framework. In G. Noam (Series Ed.) & C. S. Taylor, R. M.
Lerner, & A. von Eye (Eds.), Pathways to positive youth devel-
opment among gang and non-gang youth: New directions
for youth development (No. 95, pp. 73–99). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Swanson, D. P., Spencer, M. B., Harpalani, V., Noll, L., Seaton, G., &
Ginzberg, S. (2003). Psychosocial development in racially and
ethnically diverse groups: Conceptual and methodological
changes in the 21st century. Development and Psychopathology,
15, 743–771.
Swanson, D. P., Spencer, M. B., & Petersen, A. (1998). Identity for-
mation in adolescence. In K. Borman & B. Schneider (Eds.), The
adolescent years: Pt. 1. Social inf luences and educational chal-
lenges, ninety-seventh Yearbook of the National Society for the
Study of Education (pp. 18–41). Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Triandis, H. C. (1989). The self and social behavior in differing cul-
tural contexts. Psychological Review, 96, 506–520.
Trueba, H. T. (1988). Culturally based explanations of minority stu-
dents’ academic achievement. Anthropology and Education Quar-
terly, 19(3), 270–287.
West, C. (2002). A genealogy of modern racism. In P. Essed & D. T.
Goldberg (Eds.), Race critical theories: Text and context. Malden,
MA: Blackwell.
White, R. (1959). Motivation reconsidered: The concept of compe-
tence. Psychological Review, 66, 297–333.
White, R. (1960). Competence and psychosexual development. In
M. R. Riley (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 3–32).
Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
White, S. H. (1996). Foreword. In M. Cole (Ed.), Cultural psychol-
ogy: A once and future discipline (p. ix). Cambridge, MA:
Belknap-Harvard Press.
Wohlwill, J. F. (1985). The conf luence of environmental and devel-
opmental psychology: Signpost to an ecology of development?
Human Development, 23, 354–358.
Wohlwill, J. F., & Heft, H. (1987). The physical environment and the
development of the child. In D. Stokols & I. Altman (Eds.), Hand-
book of environmental psychology (Vol.1, pp. 281–328). New
York: Wiley.
Woodson, C. G. (1919). The education of the Negro prior to 1861: A
history of the education of the colored people of the United States
from the beginning of slavery to the Civil War. Washington, DC:
Associated.
Wright, H. F. (1967). Recording and analyzing child behavior. New
York: Harper & Row.
Youngblood, J., & Spencer, M. B. (2002). Integrating normative iden-
tity processes and academic support requirements for special
needs adolescents: The application of an Identity-Focused Cul-
tural Ecological (ICE) Perspective. Journal of Applied Develop-
mental Science, 6, 95–108.
CHAPTER 16
Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research,
and Applications
PETER L. BENSON, PETER C. SCALES, STEPHEN F. HAMILTON, and ARTURO SESMA JR.
DEFINING POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT 895
POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT IN HISTORICAL
AND SOCIAL CONTEXT 898
THE THEORY OF POSITIVE
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT 901
Human Development 902
Conceptual Models of Positive Development 905
The Theory of Context and Community Inf luence 910
The Theory of Context and Community Change 913
RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR KEY POSITIVE YOUTH
DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESES 914
Overview of Positive Youth Development Research 915
How Much Explanatory Power Is Reasonable
to Expect? 915
Hypothesis One 916
Positive youth development is simultaneously a field
of research and an arena of practice. Linked more by
shared ideals than by formal membership or credentials,
positive youth development includes a growing number of
programs, agencies, foundations, federal grant programs,
policy initiatives, researchers, and youth-serving profes-
sionals committed to promoting competent, healthy, and
successful youth. Collectively, they have generated ideas,
data, and resources. At the same time, they have un-
leashed a wave of energy and action not unlike that of a
social movement, with a multitude of community actors
connecting to a broad set of principles, concepts, and
strategies for increasing youth access to the kinds of rela-
tionships, programs, settings, and activities known (or as-
sumed) to promote healthy development.
Positive youth development is an umbrella term that
covers many streams of work. It is variously a field of
The writing of this chapter was supported by a grant to
Search Institute from The Lilly Endowment.
894
Hypothesis Two 917
Hypothesis Three 920
Hypothesis Four 921
Hypothesis Five 923
Hypothesis Six 926
Hypothesis Seven 928
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH 928
Gender 928
Age 928
Race/ Ethnicity and SES 929
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH 930
CONCLUSIONS 932
REFERENCES 933
interdisciplinary research, a policy approach, a philoso-
phy, an academic major, a program description, and a
professional identity (e.g., youth development worker).
The “idea” of positive youth development reaches into a
number of fields, including child and adolescent devel-
opmental psychology, public health, health promotion,
prevention, sociology, social work, medicine, and educa-
tion. Within the past few years, positive youth develop-
ment has been a focal topic in a wide range of scholarly
journals, including The Annals of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science (January, 2004), Preven-
tion and Treatment (June, 2002), The Prevention Re-
searcher (April, 2004), and the American Journal of
Health Behavior (July, 2003). Two established research
journals, Applied Developmental Science and New Direc-
tions in Youth Development, help to ground the field.
Undergirding positive youth development is an im-
portant and growing line of scientific inquiry, includ-
ing theory, research, and a set of conceptual models
and frameworks that both guide and emerge from the

research. This chapter: (a) defines the concept of posi-
tive youth development; ( b) presents a broad theory of
this sphere of human development; (c) examines empir-
ical support for a series of theory-driven hypotheses;
and (d) proposes implications for theory reformulation,
future research, and applications.
DEFINING POSITIVE
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
As noted, the field of positive youth development en-
compasses a vast territory of disciplines, concepts, and
strategies. One recent review of positive youth develop-
ment (Benson & Pittman, 2001a) suggests four distin-
guishing features of this field. It is comprehensive in its
scope, linking a variety of: (1) ecological contexts (e.g.,
relationships, programs, families, schools, neighbor-
hoods, congregations, communities) to (2) the produc-
tion of experiences, supports, and opportunities known
to (3) enhance positive developmental outcomes. Its pri-
mary organizing principle is promotion (of youth access
to positive experiences, resources and opportunities,
and of developmental outcomes useful to both self and
society). It is, as the term implies, developmental, with
emphasis on growth and an increasing recognition that
youth can (and should be) deliberate actors in the pro-
duction of positive development. And it is symbiotic,
drawing into its orbit ideas, strategies, and practices
from many lines of inquiry (e.g., resiliency, prevention,
public health, community organizing, developmental
psychology).
Damon (2004; Damon & Gregory, 2003) argues that
positive youth development represents a sea change in
psychological theory and research, with observable con-
sequences for a variety of fields including education and
social policy. Three central themes are noted here. In
Damon’s view, positive youth development takes a
strength-based approach to defining and understanding
the developmental process. More precisely, it “empha-
sizes the manifest potentialities rather than the sup-
posed incapacities of young people . . .” (2004, p. 15).
There is more to this statement than initially meets the
eye. It connotes a significant critique of mainstream
psychological inquiry that is quite ubiquitous in the pos-
itive youth development literature. This critique is that
understandings of child and adolescent development
have been so dominated by the exploration and remedia-
tion of pathology and deficit that we have an incom-
Defining Positive Youth Development 895
plete—if not distorted—view of how organisms develop.
This ongoing debate is addressed in more detail in the
next section.
Second, Damon, like many other positive youth de-
velopment advocates, holds up the centrality of com-
munity as both an incubator of positive development as
well as a multifaceted setting in which young people
can exercise agency and inform the settings, places,
people, and policies that in turn impact their develop-
ment. Finally, Damon notes that positive youth devel-
opment, in its efforts to identify the positive attitudes
and competencies that energize healthy developmental
trajectories, is not afraid to identify values, moral per-
spectives, and religious worldviews as constructive de-
velopmental resources even though this “ flies in the
face of our predominantly secular social-science tradi-
tions” (2004, p. 21).
Several other accents or themes are increasingly
prominent in the youth development literature. Two are
particularly germane for positioning this field in intel-
lectual and scientific space. A number of scholars
argue that the definition of developmental success most
deeply entrenched in public policy and practice con-
ceives of health as the absence of disease or pathology.
In recent decades, the dominant framework driving
federal, state, and local interventions with youth has
been that of risk behaviors, including alcohol use,
tobacco use, other drug use, nonmarital pregnancy,
suicide, antisocial behavior, violence, and school drop
out (Benson, 1997; Hein, 2003; National Research
Council & Institute of Medicine [NRCIM], 2002;
Takanishi, 1993). While positive youth development
advocates readily accept that reductions in these
health-compromising behaviors are important markers
of developmental success, there is simultaneously a
growing interest in defining “ the other side of the
coin”—that is, the attributes, skills, competencies, and
potentials needed to succeed in the spheres of work,
family, and civic life. This dichotomy is well captured
in the youth development mantra “problem free” is not
fully prepared (Pittman & Fleming, 1991). Accord-
ingly, an important aspect of current positive youth
development science is the conceptualization and mea-
surement of dimensions of positive developmental suc-
cess. Among these areas of work are efforts to define
indicators of child well-being (Moore, 1997; Moore,
Lippman, & Brown, 2004), thriving (Benson, 2003a;
Lerner, 2004; Lerner et al., in press; Scales & Benson,
2004; Theokas et al., 2004), and flourishing (Keyes,
896 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
2003). Within this inquiry on positive markers of
success, an emerging issue has to do with expanding
the conceptualization of developmental success to in-
clude not only what promotes individual well-being but
also what promotes the social good (Benson & Leffert,
2001; Benson, Mannes, Pittman, & Ferber, 2004;
Damon, 1997; Lerner, 2004).
In turn, this interest in positive indicators covaries
with an emerging accent on reconceptualizing the pop-
ulation target for improving the lives of children and
youth. This is the debate about “at-risk youth” versus
“all youth.” In the early stages of the term’s emer-
gence, positive youth development tended to be posi-
tioned as a strategy—complementary to reducing
risks—for preventing high-risk behaviors, particularly
among that subset of youth particularly susceptible to
the potential harm of poverty and dysfunctional fami-
lies and/or communities. As work moves forward to
expand the notions of health, well-being, and develop-
mental success, and as these ideas merge with histori-
cal and sociological insights about pervasive societal
changes, the positive youth development field increas-
ingly calls for strategic national and community
investments to strengthen the developmental land-
scape more generally (Bumbarger & Greenberg, 2002;
Lerner, 2000; Lorion & Sokoloff, 2003). Ultimately,
we might characterize this issue as whether the na-
tional priority should be to promote “good enough” de-
velopment or to promote optimal development. In more
poetic language, Lorion and Sokoloff (2003) offer that
this choice is between “ fixing” troubled youth and the
view that “all soil can be enriched and all moisture
and sunlight maximally used to nourish all flowers”
(p. 137).
Several attempts have been made to articulate the
core concepts and principles in the positive youth devel-
opment field (Benson & Pittman, 2001a, 2001b; Cata-
lano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 1999;
Hamilton, Hamilton, & Pittman, 2004; NRCIM, 2002).
A synthesis of these reviews suggests considerable con-
sensus on these six principles:
1. All youth have the inherent capacity for positive
growth and development.
2. A positive developmental trajectory is enabled when
youth are embedded in relationships, contexts, and
ecologies that nurture their development.
3. The promotion of positive development is further en-
abled when youth participate in multiple, nutrient-
rich relationships, contexts, and ecologies.
4. All youth benefit from these relationships, contexts,
and ecologies. Support, empowerment, and engage-
ment are, for example, important developmental as-
sets for all youth, generalizing across race, ethnicity,
gender, and family income. However, the strategies
and tactics for promoting these developmental assets
can vary considerably as a function of social location.
5. Community is a viable and critical “delivery system”
for positive youth development.
6. Youth are major actors in their own development and
are significant (and underutilized) resources for creat-
ing the kinds of relationships, contexts, ecologies, and
communities that enable positive youth development.
There are many published definitions of positive
youth development. Indeed, most reviewers of the liter-
ature and many authors of positive youth development
research articles generate new definitions. This prolif-
eration of many definitions—as well as concomitant
lack of consensus on a particular definition—reflects
both the relative newness of the field as well as its pro-
foundly interdisciplinary nature. Each definition fo-
cuses on some combination (and the interactions among
them) of the core constructs displayed in Figure 16.1.
Figure 16.1 suggests that the core ideas in positive
youth development include (A) developmental contexts
(i.e., places, settings, ecologies, and relationships with
the potential to generate supports, opportunities, and re-
sources); (B) the nature of the child with accents on in-
herent capacity to grow and thrive (and actively engage
with supportive contexts); (C) developmental strengths
(attributes of the person, including skills, competencies,
values, and dispositions important for successful en-
gagement in the world); and two complimentary concep-
tualizations of developmental success; (D) the reduction
of high-risk behavior; and (E) the promotion of thriving.
The bidirectional arrows intend to convey the dynamic
nature of person-ecology interactions prominent in re-
cent expositions of positive youth development (Lerner,
2003, 2004).
We know of no definition that encompasses all of this
conceptual territory. But the fullness of these constructs
is evident when integrating a representative sample of
published definitions. Several accent the nature of the
child (B). Damon (2004), for example, offers that “ the
positive youth development perspective emphasizes the
manifest potentialities rather than the supposed inca-
pacities of young people—including young people from
the most disadvantaged backgrounds and those with the
most troubled histories” (p. 17).

Contexts
Work Place
Peers Family
(b)
(a)
Community
Congregrations School
(c)
Programs Neighborhoods
Figure 16.1 Core positive youth development constructs.
Hamilton (1999; Hamilton et al., 2004) noted that
the term has been used in three ways. His first defini-
tion reflects, like Damon, an articulation of the nature
of the child (B in Figure 16.1): “ youth development has
traditionally been and is still most widely used to mean
a natural process: the growing capacity of a young per-
son to understand and act on the environment ” (Hamil-
ton et al., 2004, p. 3). His second definition picks up the
role of contexts (A in Figure 16.1) in the development of
strengths (C): “in the 1990s the term youth develop-
ment came to be applied to a set of principles, a philoso-
phy or approach emphasizing active support for the
growing capacity of young people by individuals, organ-
izations and institutions, especially at the community
level” (Hamilton et al., 2004, p. 4). Finally, youth de-
velopment also refers to a “planned set of practices, or
activities, that foster the developmental process in
young people” (Hamilton et al., 2004, p. 4). These prac-
tices occur within the context portion (A) of Figure
16.1 and can be delivered via programs, organizations,
or community initiatives.
Catalano et al. (1999, 2004) conducted a major re-
view of the positive youth development field with sup-
port from the National Institute of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD). Among its purposes
were to “research and establish both theoretical and
empirical definitions of positive youth development ”
(Catalano et al., 1999, p. ii). Arguing that no compre-
hensive definition of the term could be found, they cre-
Defining Positive Youth Development 897
Person Developmental Success
Reduction in
View of
(d) High-Risk
the Child
Behaviors
Promotion
Developmental of Health
Strengths (e) Well-Being
Thriving
ated a definition that named the objectives of positive
youth development approaches. Hence, positive youth
development seeks to promote one or more of the fol-
lowing: bonding, resilience, social competence, emo-
tional competence, cognitive competence, behavioral
competence, moral competence, self-determination,
spirituality, self-efficacy, positive identity, belief in
the future, recognition for positive behavior, opportu-
nities for prosocial involvement, and prosocial norms.
This definition, then, focuses on describing the territo-
ries of (C) developmental strengths and (E) well-being
in Figure 16.1.
In 2002, the National Research Council and Institute
of Medicine released the influential report, Community
Programs to Promote Youth Development (NRCIM,
2002). Though this report did not offer a clear definition
of the term, its focus was on defining (and advocating
for) two of the constructs in Figure 16.1: “ the personal
and social assets” young people need “ to function well
during adolescence and adulthood” (p. 3) and the fea-
tures of positive developmental settings. These two rep-
resent constructs C and A in Figure 16.1.
Larson (2000) contrasts positive youth development
with developmental psychopathology and suggests the
former is about “ how things go right ” while the latter
focuses on “ how things go wrong.” Hence, his focus is
on positive youth development as a line of inquiry re-
garding “ the pathways whereby children and adoles-
cents become motivated, directed, socially competent,
898 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
compassionate and psycholocally vigorous adults”
(p. 170). The pathways organically link contexts (A), de-
velopmental strengths (C) and developmental success
(D and E). In a similar vein, Lerner’s definition
(Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000) contrasts pathol-
ogy—reducing and asset-building approaches. “Prevent-
ing the actualization of youth risk behaviors is not the
same thing as taking actions to promote positive youth
development (e.g., the inculcation of attributes such as
caring/compassion, competence, character, connection,
and confidence). Similarly, programs and policies that
prevent youth problems do not necessarily prepare youth
to contribute to civil society” (p. 12).
Some recent definitions place additional accent on
the processes and dynamics of designing and mobilizing
developmental contexts (A in Figure 16.1) to enhance
C, D, E, and their intersection. Benson and Saito (2001),
for example, suggested that “ youth development mobi-
lizes programs, organizations, systems and communities
to build developmental strengths in order to promote
health and well-being” (p. 144). Finally, Small and
Memmo (2004) identify a variant on positive youth de-
velopment that places an important accent on mobilizing
youth to shape their contexts and communities. Called
Community Youth Development (Hughes & Curnan,
2000; Perkins, Borden, & Villarruel, 2001; Perkins,
Borden, Keith, Hoppe-Rooney, & Villarruel, 2003), this
approach takes seriously the bidirectional arrow in Fig-
ure 16.1 connecting A with B and C. As we will see in
the section on the theory of youth development, this
bidirectionality is a central feature of developmental
systems theory and in particular, Lerner’s application of
this theory to positive youth development (Lerner, 2003,
2004; Lerner, Brentano, Dowling, & Anderson, 2002).
POSITIVE YOUTH DEVELOPMENT IN
HISTORICAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
Early uses of the term youth development can be found
in the literature on juvenile delinquency. In 1947, the
Texas State Development Council was formed follow-
ing a report from a blue-ribbon commission charging
that the state-run schools for delinquent children were
failing. Embedded in the report was the suggestion that
the causes of delinquency included environmental fac-
tors with the implication that well-entrenched models
of changing behavior by “ fixing the child” were in-
sufficient. This new understanding of the contextual
backdrop to individual development gained further mo-
mentum in a series of monographs from the University
of Chicago’s experimental Community Youth Develop-
ment Program, an initiative designed to identify and or-
ganize community resources to better serve youth with
“special problems” or “special abilities” (Havighurst,
1953).
Federal agencies dealing with juvenile delinquency
expanded on their earlier efforts and took another
important conceptual step. In 1970, the Youth Develop-
ment and Delinquency Prevention Administration
( housed in what was then the Department of Health,
Education, and Welfare) developed a delinquency pre-
vention program based on what keeps “good kids on
track ” rather than the more prevalent question of the
day (“ why do kids get into trouble?”; West, 1974). The
federal answer to the question of why some youth suc-
ceed had four components: a sense of competence, a
sense of usefulness, a sense of belonging, and a sense of
power (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
Administration for Children and Families, 1996, p. 4).
In these state and federal approaches to addressing
“ troubled and troubling youth,” we see the early signs of
two cornerstones of contemporary youth development
approaches: the primacy of context for shaping develop-
ment and development understood in terms of strength
rather than deficit. Though such ideas hardly seem like
intellectual advances now, it is important to note how
these ideas came to challenge historical and deeply en-
trenched therapeutic models.
Subsequently, a number of prominent foundations en-
tered the picture. In addition to major youth develop-
ment grant programs at the Kellogg Foundation, the
Lilly Endowment, and the Kauffman Foundation, the
Carnegie Corporation of New York and the William T.
Grant Foundation sponsored and broadly disseminated
pivotal reports on the developmental trajectories of
American youth. Moving beyond the question of how so-
ciety best deals with its so-called “at-risk youth,” these
influential reports began to document more persistent
and pervasive issues about health and well-being of
American youth. To some extent, the reports expanded
the need for enhancing developmental supports and op-
portunities to include most young people.
In 1985, the Carnegie Corporation launched the
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. The con-
cluding report, Great Transitions: Preparing Adoles-
cents for a New Century, sought to focus the national
spotlight on adolescence (Carnegie Council on Adoles-
cent Development, 1995). The report, like many before
it, lamented not only the high rates of high risk behav-
iors (e.g., alcohol use, illicit drug use, teen pregnancy)
 Positive Youth Development in Historical and Social Context
and exposure to developmental threats (e.g., physical
and sexual abuse) among adolescents, but the emer-
gence of alarming rates for these phenomena among 10-
to 15-year-olds. Unlike other reports on the health of
youth, however, the Carnegie Council proposed solu-
tions based less on services to and treatment of youth
and more on altering the formative contexts of families,
schools, community organizations, and the media.
Among key recommendations were reengaging families
with their adolescent children, designing developmen-
tally attentive schools, and transforming the media into
a socially constructive resource. And in a reaffirmation
of the Carnegie Council’s early report, A Matter of
Time: Risk and Opportunity in the Non School Hours
(Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1992), this 1995
report called for community investment in and expan-
sion of “safe, growth-promoting settings during the
high-risk, after school time when parents are often not
able to supervise their children and adolescents” (Ham-
burg & Takanishi, 1996, p. 387).
Several years earlier, the William T. Grant Founda-
tion released The Forgotten Half: Pathways to Success
for America’s Youth and Young Families (1988). Its
focus was on ages 16 to 24 and the transition from ado-
lescence to adulthood. In its words, “ half of our youth
are in danger of being caught in a massive bind that can
deny them full participation in our society and the full
benefit of their own talents” (p. 1). Like the Carnegie
Council report, The Forgotten Half focused its recom-
mendations on changing community and societal con-
texts. Among its specific recommendations: closer
adult-youth relationships, opportunities to participate
in the life of community in activities valued by adults
(including community service), and quality work expe-
riences that provide skill-building pathways to sustain-
able work.
In combination, these two highly visible reports chal-
lenged the common assumption that the “ youth prob-
lem” was confined to a small percentage of youth
needing special and targeted services to redeem them.
Instead, portraits of youth emerge which suggested that
the developmental journey was fragile for a much larger
percentage of youth. And both reports made bold calls
for systemic change in how communities and their so-
cialization systems connect with young people.
By the 1990s, three ideas generally important in the
youth development field were gaining momentum. These
are: identifying positive, developmental “ building
blocks” which help youth stay on a successful develop-
mental trajectory; attributing causality for “ youth prob-
899
lems” more to environments and contexts than youth
themselves, with a concomitant call for reforming
and/or transforming contexts; and mainstreaming the
need for change (i.e., the percentage of youth needing
change goes far beyond the notion of “at-risk ” youth). A
corollary to these three strands is the oft-repeated idea
that youth are resources to be utilized rather than prob-
lems to be fixed.
Several additional events have added direction and
momentum to the positive youth development move-
ment. The first was a symbolic and galvanizing histori-
cal moment—the gathering of five living U.S. presidents
(Carter, G. H. W. Bush, Clinton, Ford, and Reagan, rep-
resented by Nancy Reagan) with hundreds of influential
delegates—for the President’s Summit on Youth in
Philadelphia. This April, 1997 event offered an accessi-
ble language of positive development—and a passionate
call to action—around five fundamental development re-
sources (or promises). These were: caring adults, safe
places and structured activities, community service, ed-
ucation for marketable skills, and a healthy start. This
1997 event became institutionalized with the formation
of America’s Promise, a not-for-profit community mobi-
lization organization initially led by (Ret.) General
Colin Powell.
While this and other mobilization efforts gave im-
petus to the principles of positive youth development, a
series of publications gave greater intellectual and
scientific attention to the youth development idea.
In 1998, the Youth Development Directions Project
(YDDP) was conceived by the Youth Development
Funders Group at a meeting held at the Ewing Marian
Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City. The purpose was
to take stock of the youth development field and lay out
suggested direction for strengthening science, practice
and policy. A number of organizations, including the
Academy for Educational Development (Center for
Youth Development and Research), Chapin Hall Center
for Children at the University of Chicago, The Forum
for Youth Investment at the International Youth Foun-
dation, Public/ Private Ventures, and Search Institute
participated in a 2-year learning and writing project,
culminating in one of the first efforts to capture the
breadth and status of the field (Benson & Pittman,
2001b; Public/ Private Ventures, 2000).
Moreover, as already noted, influential federal re-
ports had reviewed the field of positive youth develop-
ment. Both focused on the slice of youth development
having to do with the creation of developmentally atten-
tive programs. One, initiated by the Board on Children,
900 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Youth and Families of the National Research Council,
created a Committee on Community-Level Programs
for Youth that evaluated and synthesized the science
of adolescent development with research on the quality
and efficiency of community programs designed to pro-
mote healthy development, and resulted in the influen-
tial report, Community Programs to Promote Youth
Development (NRCIM, 2002). The second was the com-
prehensive review of positive youth development pro-
grams evaluations commissioned by the National
Institute for Child Health and Human Development
(Catalano et al., 1999).
The rise of positive youth development as a field of
science and practice has been fueled by two types of so-
cial analysis. The first documents a series of pervasive
societal changes that inform and shape the processes of
child and adolescent socialization. It is common in pub-
lished treatises on positive youth development strategies
to pinpoint the role of rapid social change in altering
youth access to developmental resources. In this exten-
sive literature, social changes hypothesized to under-
mine the capacity of family and community to generate
developmental resources include: increasing parental ab-
sence as a result of changes in the nature of work and the
dramatic increase in out-of home employment of moth-
ers; the rise of civic disengagement; the loss of shared
ideals about the goals of development; the growing priva-
tization of recreation; increases in age segregation; the
decrease in neighborhood cohesion; teenagers’ discon-
nection from structured programming; the prevalence of
negative stereotypes about youth; and the explosion in
media access by youth (see, e.g., Benson, 1997; Benson,
Leffert, Scales, & Blyth, 1998; Damon, 1997; Dryfoos,
1990; Furstenberg, 2000; Garbarino, 1995; Lerner,
1995; Mortimer & Larson, 2002; Scales, 1991, 2001). In
a particularly cogent analysis of these trends, Bronfen-
brenner and Morris (1998) offered this summary:
The research findings presented here reveal growing chaos
in the lives of families, in child care settings, schools, peer
groups, youth programs, neighborhoods, workplaces, and
other everyday environments in which human beings live
their lives. Such chaos, in turn, interrupts and undermines
the formation and stability of relationships and activities
that are necessary for psychological growth. (p. 1022)
The second social analysis common in the youth de-
velopment literature is a critique of deficit models
prominent in the service professions, policy, and re-
search. Indeed, it is a somewhat common refrain that
models focused primarily on reducing risk behaviors,
for example, are inadequate both theoretically and
strategically. Furthermore, models driven by risk,
deficit, and pathology may unintentionally become part
of the problem (e.g., by negatively labeling youth and/or
fueling unfavorable stereotypes of youth). These ideas
have been discussed in a wide range of positive youth
development publications (Catalano et al., 1999; Lerner,
2004; Pittman, Irby, & Ferber, 2001; Roth & Brooks-
Gunn, 2000; Villarruel, Perkins, Borden, & Keith,
2003). In one particularly important analysis, Larson
(2000) suggests that developmental psychology has
spawned a much stronger tradition for understanding
and treating psychopathology than for understanding
and promoting pathways to developmental success. In
this regard, positive youth development advocates are
sympathetic to positive psychology’s critique of the
dominance of pathology-oriented research and practice
within mainstream psychology (Seligman & Csikszent-
mihalyi, 2000).
The premise that positive youth development repre-
sents a categorically different approach than so-called
deficit, pathology, and risk models deserves deeper ex-
ploration. There is consensus that adolescent psychol-
ogy, and applied youth areas have been dominated, in
recent decades, by explorations of “ youth problems.”
The social historian, Francis Fukuyama (1999), attri-
butes this, in part, to a logical outgrowth of rapid social
change. When social institutions become less stable—as
in the United States beginning in the 1960s—govern-
ments, he noted, inevitably begin to create and measure
indicators of social upheaval, and craft policy and pro-
grams to minimize social and personal problems as-
sumed to emerge from social change (e.g., violence,
alcohol, and other drug use).
Sociologist Frank Furstenberg (2000; Furstenberg,
Modell, & Herschberg, 1976), argues that adolescence
becomes culturally defined as a lifestage when school-
ing replaces work as the major activity during youth.
This, he suggests, occurred in the United States near the
middle of the twentieth century. The advent of full-time
education “establishes a youth-based social world that is
age segregated, partially buffered from adult control,
and relatively turned in on itself ” (2000, p. 897). Not
surprisingly, societies interpret the consequences of this
upheaval in terms of “ youth problems.” Consequently,
and in line with Fukuyama’s analysis, cultural authori-
ties focus major attention on behaviors and styles that
contradict established social norms. And not surpris-

ingly, social scientific studies of youth follow suit, with
a disproportionate focus on problem behaviors (Dry-
foos, 1998; Larson, 2000; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2000;
Steinberg & Lerner, 2004). This dominating theme in
youth research likely reflects the dual consequence of
the cultural zeitgeist and the longer term hospitality in
mainline psychology to the study of pathology (Larson,
2000; Moore et al., 2004; Peterson, 2004). Furstenberg
(2000) provided a cogent description of the implications
of these social and scientific trends for the broader pub-
lic perception of youth:
Such an approach inevitably treats successful adolescents
and young adults as escape artists who manage to dodge
the hazards of growing up, rather than focusing on the
ways that young people acquire and master skills, con-
struct positive identities, and learn how to negotiate so-
cial roles simultaneously in the youth culture and adult
world. (p. 900)
At first glance, it would appear that positive youth de-
velopment represents a theoretical, research and practice
“paradigm shift ” from the prevention field—a multidis-
ciplinary area of inquiry, programming, policy, and
practice with a substantial American history (Wanders-
man & Florin, 2003; Weissberg, Kumpfer, & Seligman,
2003). However, a considerable debate is underway about
the conceptual overlap between prevention and positive
youth development (Benson et al., 2004; Bumbarger &
Greenberg, 2002; Catalano & Hawkins, 2002; Roth &
Brooks-Gunn, 2003; Sesma, Mannes, & Scales, in press;
Small & Memmo, 2004).
Prevention and prevention science are deeply rooted
in public health and epidemiological approaches to dis-
ease prevention (Bloom, 1996; Small & Memmo, 2004),
with a particular focus on crafting interventions before
the onset of significant problems, and with a focus on
populations known to be at risk for such onset (Durlak,
1998; Munóz, Mrazek, & Haggerty, 1996). This form of
prevention has been called primary prevention, in con-
trast to secondary and tertiary prevention (Caplan,
1964), or in more contemporary parlance, universal pre-
vention in contrast to targeted prevention (Weissberg
et al., 2003). At the center of current prevention research
are the concepts of risk factors and protective factors
(Jessor, 1993; Jessor, Turbin, & Costa, 1998; Rutter,
1987). Risk factors are individual and/or environmental
markers which increase the probability of a negative
outcome. Protective factors are safeguards identified in
epidemiological research that help individuals cope suc-
The Theory of Positive Youth Development 901
cessfully with risk. As noted by Rutter (1987), protec-
tive factors operate only when risk is present.
There are important points of overlap and of differ-
ence when comparing positive youth development with
this major risk and protective factor approach to preven-
tion. The two approaches partially agree on develop-
mental goals. That is, both are dedicated to reducing
problem behaviors and negative outcomes. At the same
time, however, positive youth development tends to place
as much or more focus on promoting additional ap-
proaches to health, including thriving skill-building and
competency (Bumbarger & Greenberg, 2002; Pittman &
Fleming, 1991). There is also some overlap in under-
standing the processes and mechanisms involved in the
production of successful development. Some of the so-
called protective factors that buffer risk and reduce neg-
ative outcomes also play a role in the production of
positive outcomes (Catalano, Hawkins, Berglund, Pol-
lard, & Arthur, 2002). Alternatively, positive youth de-
velopment research also identifies a series of additional
supports, opportunities, and developmental assets
whose identification emerges from investigations of en-
vironmental and individual factors that promote compe-
tence, achievement, growth, and thriving (Benson,
2003a; Lerner, 2004; Scales, Benson, Leffert, & Blyth,
2000). Hence, protective factors and the broader range
of developmental resources central to positive youth de-
velopment are not isomorphic.
At another level, however, prevention and positive
youth development are grounded in quite different theo-
retical orientations and—though yoked by common in-
terest in the health of youth—spring forth from quite
different visions of youth potential and the developmen-
tal, ecological, and social processes at play (Damon &
Gregory, 2003; Lerner, 2004).
THE THEORY OF POSITIVE
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
A grand theory of positive youth development requires
the integration of multiple theoretical orientations. In
part, this is because positive youth development is a
“ bridging” field that touches multiple academic disci-
plines and spheres of practice. Three theoretical strands
central to positive youth development are discussed in
this section, with primary emphasis on the first. These
three are: human development, community organization
and development, and social and community change.
902 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Human Development
Central to positive youth development theory is a series
of questions rooted squarely in the discipline of develop-
mental psychology. The overarching goals of this theory
are to explain: the capacity of youth to change and to
change in a direction that fosters both individual well-
being and the social good; how and under what condi-
tions contextual and ecological factors contribute to this
change (and how these factors are informed or influ-
enced by the developing person); and, the principles and
mechanisms that are at play in maximizing the dynamic
and developmentally constructive interplay of context
and individual.
The articulation of a developmental theory of posi-
tive youth development is itself an ongoing and dy-
namic process emerging several decades after the
birthing of positive youth development as a field of
practice (Benson & Saito, 2001; Hamilton & Hamilton,
2004; Larson, 2000; Zeldin, 2000). Zeldin (2000) pro-
vides an important analysis of how the science of youth
development emerged:
[I]n hindsight, it is clear that positive youth development,
as a philosophy of service and as a field of study was initi-
ated and grounded in the expertise of practitioners, pri-
marily those working in nonprofit, community-based,
youth-serving organizations. Research was used primarily
to offer “empirical justification” for exemplary practice
that was already occurring in communities. (p. 3)
An important step in growing the science of positive
youth development was a “call to action” made by a team
of researchers and leaders of youth development organi-
zations (Zeldin, 1995). Facilitated by the Academy for
Educational Development, this 1995 document chal-
lenged academicians—particularly those engaged in the
study of adolescence—to focus research on strength-
based models of adolescent development, identify and
study positive youth outcomes, and identify “ the day-to-
day developmental opportunities and supports that allow
young people to become competent and compassionate
individuals connected to their communities” (Zeldin,
2000, p. 3).
The “golden age” of positive youth development re-
search began in the mid-1990s, with burgeoning litera-
tures on topics such as civic engagement, service
learning, connectedness, generosity, purpose, empower-
ment, and leadership. In the past few years, work posit-
ing the theoretical foundations of positive youth
development has begun. This historical progression of
practice, to research, to theory may not be the idealized
scientific progression, but it is important here to iden-
tify how this evolutionary pattern critiques the hereto-
fore irrelevance of developmental psychology to the
massive number of people and organizations trying to
innovate strength-based youth work in the United States.
As Larson (2000) put it, youth development evolved sep-
arately from development psychology “partly because
we psychologists have had little to offer ” (p. 171). Al-
ternatively, this progression may be an exemplar of the
kind of citizen-scholar partnership needed to promote
civil society (Lerner et al., 2000).
Essential to positive youth development theory is
a generous view of human capacity and potential.
Grounded initially in the views and values of profes-
sionals and practitioners working with youth, this vi-
sion of human nature identified the possibility of active
and constructive contribution to the development of
self, community, and society. As noted earlier in this
chapter, such a view is often characterized in youth de-
velopment circles by describing young people as re-
sources to be nurtured versus problems to be managed.
This view is an important starting point for a theory of
positive youth development, for it brings to the fore the
notion that the individual—and not just the environ-
ment—is a prime actor in the shaping of positive devel-
opmental trajectories.
Damon (2004), in an important essay titled “What Is
Positive Youth Development ” argues that this positive
vision of youth potential has implications for research,
education, and social policy. He also sees this human na-
ture assumption supported by three relatively recent
lines of inquiry: the research on resilience (Garmezy,
1983); the capacity of newborns to demonstrate empa-
thy (Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Hoffman, 2000); and the
universal capacity for moral awareness and prosocial be-
havior (Feshbach, 1983; Madsen, 1971). Damon also as-
serts that this human capacity for competence and
contribution is at play when seeking to explain how
young people “learn and thrive in the diverse settings
where they live.”
The essence of positive youth development theory is
explaining how such potentiality expresses itself. The
theory requires an appreciation of the dynamic inter-
play of person and context. Accordingly, the theory is
most at home in a family of theoretical approaches con-
stituting the large metatheory known as developmental
systems theory (Ford & Lerner, 1992; Gottlieb, 1997).

This metatheory includes several crucial assumptions
and components that, in combination, positions human
development in relational and contextual space, and that
stand in contrast to earlier developmental theories that
split development into such polarities as nature-nurture,
biology-culture and individual—society (Lerner, 1998;
Overton, 1998).
Although positive youth development theory is predi-
cated on key concepts in developmental systems theory,
it includes several other core ideas having to do with the
orchestration of bidirectional context-person relation-
ships in order to maximize growth and development.
While positive youth development can happen naturally
(as in the adage that “positive youth development is what
happens when families have a good day”), such adaptive
development regulations (Lerner, 1998, 2004) can be en-
couraged and engineered by the ways contexts are de-
signed and the ways youth are engaged in that design.
Central to the theory of positive youth development
are conceptions of the developing person, the contexts in
which the person is embedded and the dynamic inter-
action between the two. Following Lerner’s lead (1984,
1998, 2002, 2003), all of the multiple levels of organiza-
tions engaged in human development—from biology and
personality disposition to relationships, social institu-
tions, culture, and history—are fused into an integrated
system. Development has to do with changes in the rela-
tions among and between these multiple levels of organ-
izations. Consonant with systems thinking in biology,
persons—through their dynamic interaction with devel-
opmental contexts—experience pattern and order via
the process of self-organizing. This key dynamic of self-
organization means that “pattern and order emerge from
the interactions of the components of a complex system
without explicit instructions, either in the organization
itself or from the environment. Self-organization—
processes that by their own activities change them-
selves—is a fundamental property of living things”
(Thelen & Smith, 1998, p. 564). At one level, this pro-
posed dynamic interaction of nature and nurture is a
dramatic departure from earlier models of human devel-
opment which created a split between the two (Lorenz,
1965; Skinner, 1938). At another level, however, the
concept of self-organization introduces, as Lerner sug-
gested (1976, 2003) a “ third source” of development:
the organism itself. Schneirla’s (1957, 1959) concepts of
circular functions and self-stimulation were important
illustrations of the organism’s centrality and active par-
ticipation in development.
The Theory of Positive Youth Development 903
An articulation of this point suggests that individual
development cannot be explained by heredity or envi-
ronment alone (Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter, 1998).
Evidence for this comes from studies where “geneti-
cally identical individuals are reared in unusually uni-
form environments but nonetheless differ markedly in
phenotypic types” (Gottlieb et al., p. 253). While indi-
vidual differences—stemming presumably from neither
genes nor contexts—can be a nuisance to theorists pre-
ferring reductionist understandings of development,
such so-called “noise” or “randomness” points to the
“ third source” of development central in developmental
system theories.
Positive youth development theory includes another
dynamic feature of the organism that is consonant with
the process of self-organization but not readily inferred
from it. And this is the concept of how persons act on
their contexts. Indeed, one of the core tenets in develop-
mental systems theory is the bidirectional nature of in-
fluences on development. That is, the “individual is both
the active producer and the product of his or her on-
togeny . . .” (Brandtstädter, 1998, p. 800). Action theo-
ries of human development seek to explain these dual
developmental regulation processes of the action of con-
texts on individuals and the action of individuals on
their contexts. This process by which organisms engage,
interact with, and alter their developmental contexts
(e.g., peer group, family, school, and neighborhood) is
not only a pivotal theoretical notion for positive youth
development, but is also “ the essential intellectual chal-
lenge for developmental science” (Lerner, 2003, p. 228).
What processes guide how youth engage and act on
their contexts? There are a series of developmental
processes particularly salient during adolescence.
Among these are identify formation and allied issues
around self-appraisal, meaning-making, and autonomy.
Because of the centrality of these issues during adoles-
cence, positive youth development theory argues that
adolescents bring particular energy to their relational
and social world. Their activity—as “co-producers” of
their development—is guided by three intertwined
processes, each of which is rooted in theoretical tradi-
tions from within the broader “ family” of developmen-
tal systems theories. Indeed, we think of these three as
prime features of the “engine” of development. And in
combination, the three make possible a purposeful
search for positive (i.e., developmentally rich) contexts.
Brandtstädter’s action theory of development empha-
sizes the role of intentionality in guiding and regulating
904 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
one’s engagement with social and symbolic environ-
ments (1998, 1999). His assumption is that persons re-
flect on, learn from, and use feedback from their social
engagements creating behavioral intentions that guide
subsequent behavior. While this proposed dynamic has
currency across the life span, it is a hallmark of adoles-
cence. There are a range of possible constraints on how
the person self-regulates internal engagements with her
or his social and symbolic worlds. As Brandtstädter sug-
gests “ these constraints lie partly or even completely
outsides one’s span of control, but they decisively struc-
ture the range of behavioral and developmental options”
(1998, p. 808).
In addition to intentionality, there are selection and
optimization processes that also inform how persons
interact with their environments. Aligned with Baltes
and his colleagues (Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Baltes,
Dittmann-Kohli, & Dixon, 1984; Baltes, Lindenberger,
& Staudinger, 1998), positive youth development theory
posits that youth select from a range of developmental
supports and opportunities a subset that has psychologi-
cal and social advantage for prioritized personal goals.
Selection, then, has to do with both one’s preferences
(e.g., to learn to play the flute, to find friends, to exper-
iment with drama) and the ecologies one chooses to be
the primary crucibles for development. Optimization is
“ the process of acquiring, refining, coordinating, and
applying goal-relevant means or resources” toward the
selected targets (Lerner, 2002, p. 224). Critical issues in
the applied youth development world include: how well
communities provide meaningful opportunities for opti-
mization; and how well communities make it possible
for youth to create optimization opportunities (e.g., to
begin a new sports or arts program, or to attach oneself
to an appropriate mentor).
The self-regulation of context engagement—even
when buoyed with an internal press guided by intention-
ality, selection, and optimization—creates something of
a conundrum for those on whom the constraints on ac-
tion appear sizable. These constraints, which are well
articulated in a number of life span and life course the-
ories (e.g., Elder, 1974, 1980, 1998, 1999; Nesselroade,
1977; Schaie, 1965), can have strong salience during
adolescence. Youth, after all, both seek control and are
controlled, with many agents in their lives who, by
virtue of position and power, can either suppress or en-
courage exploration, selection, and optimization.
Among this army of socialization agents are parents,
neighbors, teachers, youth workers, coaches, clergy, em-
ployees, and peers. Positive youth development theory
posits that adolescents will strive to find and/or create
optimizing settings even when their degrees of freedom
are limited. These settings may be countercultural
and/or deemed by society to be out-of-bounds. This
axiom is supported by the work of Heckhausen and her
colleagues (Heckhausen, 1999; Heckhausen & Krueger,
1993; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995). As in the model of
selection, optimization, and compensation (Baltes &
Baltes, 1990), she is concerned with the dialectic be-
tween possibility (i.e., plasticity) and constraint. She ar-
gues that “primary control” (or the process of acting on
the environment in order to make it more congruent with
ones needs) is a dominating human striving, particularly
during adolescence and young adulthood.
Lerner (1998, 2002, 2003, 2004; Lerner, Anderson,
Balsano, Dowling, & Bobek, 2003; Lerner et al., 2002)
has been particularly productive and influential in con-
necting core ideas in developmental systems theories to
the emerging field of positive youth development. His
overarching view is that “changes across the life span
are seen as propelled by the dynamic relations between
the individual and the multiple levels of the ecology of
human development (family, peer group, school, com-
munity, culture), all changing interdependently across
time ( history)” (Lerner et al., 2002, pp. 13–14). His
thinking about three core concepts—temporal embed-
dedness, plasticity, and developmental regulation—is
central to the formation of positive youth development
theory and deepens the assumptions of person-context
interactions described earlier.
Temporal embeddedness refers to the potentiality,
across the entire life span, for change in person-context
relations. This potentiality—yoked with our earlier dis-
cussion of the principles of self-organization and the ac-
tive participation by the individual in shaping one’s
contexts—liberates us from the idea that biology, envi-
ronment, or the combination of the two, is destiny.
Positive youth development—as theory and practice—
works in the optimistic arena offered by temporal em-
beddedness and by the relative plasticity (i.e., the
potential for systemic change) that derives from it. That
is, temporality and relative plasticity mean that, “ the
potential to enhance human life” always exists (Lerner
et al., 2002, p. 14).
Finally, Lerner links the concept of developmental
regulation to the promise of positive youth development.
By so doing, he gives the theory a way to understand
how individuals manage or shape their relations with

multiple contexts. Developmental systems theories de-
rive concepts of developmental regulation from the idea
of relative plasticity. As persons actively regulate their
development, developmental change occurs in the mu-
tual exchange between person and context. Adaptive
( healthy) developmental regulation occurs when there is
a balance between individual capacity or strengths and
the “growth-promoting influences of the social world”
(Lerner, 2004, p. 44).
Positive youth development, then, occurs in the fu-
sion of an active, engaged, and competent person with
receptive, supportive, and nurturing ecologies. The con-
sequences of these balanced interactions—particularly
when they are frequent and sustained—can be seen at
both the individual and social level. Among these hy-
potheses are the advancement of individual thriving and
the reduction of health-compromising behaviors (Ben-
son, 1997; Benson et al., 1998; Lerner, 2004; Lerner &
Benson, 2003; Scales, Benson, et al., 2000). A common
vocabulary in positive youth development for describing
these effects is the five Cs: competence, confidence,
connection, character, and caring (or compassion;
NRCIM, 2002; Lerner, 2004; Lerner et al., 2000; Roth &
Brooks-Gunn, 2003) has written extensively about a
“6th C” fueled by adaptive developmental regulations:
contribution. In his frame, the six Cs are essential not
only for individual well-being but also for the creation
of healthy and civil society.
Several recent lines of inquiry are congruent with
this thinking. The goodness-of-fit model, for example,
demonstrates the adaptive consequences of good
matches between individual competencies and needs
with the demands, features, and responsiveness of devel-
opmental settings, such as families and schools (Bogen-
schneider, Small, & Tsay, 1997; Chess & Thomas, 1999;
Galambos & Turner, 1999; Thomas & Chess, 1977).
Similarly, Eccles and her colleagues (Eccles, 1997; Ec-
cles & Harold, 1996), employing a stage-environment fit
model, demonstrate how embeddedness in developmen-
tally appropriate environments such as schools influ-
ences motivation and academic achievement.
As we note later in this chapter, the issue of diversity
is central to positive youth development. Spencer and her
colleagues (Spencer, 1995, 1999; Spencer, Dupree, &
Hartmann, 1997) provide a particularly important re-
finement and extension of the kinds of ecological and
systems dynamics shaping the theory of youth develop-
ment. Central to her phenomenological variant of ecolog-
ical systems theory (PVEST), Spencer uses the concept
The Theory of Positive Youth Development 905
of identity formation and of how self-appraisal processes
regarding one’s standing in multiple contexts (e.g.,
schools) inform the processing of bidirectional person-
context transactions. Phenomenological variant of eco-
logical systems th, then, integrates issues of historical
and cultural context (e.g., race and gender stereotypes,
minority status) into normative developmental processes.
This theory has been extensively utilized to understand
the development of African American youth. New work
is underway to understand the historical and cultural
contexts informing the development of Latino/ Latina
youth (Rodriguez & Morrobel, 2004).
Conceptual Models of Positive Development
A series of conceptual models have emerged to identify
the positive developmental experiences that enhance
the fusion of person and context. A rich vocabulary has
developed to describe these development-enhancing in-
gredients. Among these are supports, opportunities,
developmental nutrients, developmental strengths, and
developmental assets.
One important research-based tradition informing
these conceptualizations is that of resilience. Formal in-
quiry into resilience, or the development of positive adap-
tation in the context of significant adversity (Masten,
2001), took root during the 1960s and 1970s. In an effort
to better understand maladaptive behavior, psychologists
and psychiatrists studied children believed to be at risk
for pathology (e.g., children of a parent with schizophre-
nia), and observed that some children were developing
normally (Masten & Coatsworth, 1998). These early ef-
forts at understanding “invulnerables” (Werner & Smith,
1989) focused on personal qualities of the child, such as
self-esteem or high intelligence (Anthony, 1974). Eventu-
ally researchers came to understand that resilience was
not a trait inherent in the child, but rather was a function
of the child? environment interaction. This more ecologi-
cal approach led to the identification of three broad sets
of protective factors implicated in fostering resilience:
(1) those within a child (cognitive abilities, easy tem-
perament); (2) within the family (organized family envi-
ronment, close parent-child relationships); and (3) within
the broader social ecology (effective schools, relationship
with a caring adult; Luthar, Cicchetti, & Becker, 2000;
Masten & Garmezy, 1985).
The primary mechanism through which resilience ap-
proaches attempt to facilitate positive development is via
intervention and prevention programs. One exemplar of
906 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
this approach is Hawkins’ social development model
(Hawkins & Catalano, 1996). This model asserts that
children who experience developmentally appropriate op-
portunities for active involvement in their families,
schools, and communities, and are recognized for their
efforts are more likely to form positive bonds and attach-
ments that inhibit deviant or problem behavior (Catalano
et al., 2003). According to these authors, the following
salient protective factors are necessary for prevention:
Community Protective Factors
• Opportunities for prosocial community involvement
• Rewards for prosocial community involvement
School Protective Factors
• Opportunities for prosocial school involvement
• Rewards for prosocial school involvement
Family Protective Factors
• Opportunities for prosocial family involvement
• Rewards for prosocial family involvement
• Family attachment
Peer and Individual Protective Factors
• Religiosity
• Belief in a moral order
• Social Skills
• Prosocial Peer Attachment
• Resilient Temperament
• Sociability
Within the community of scholars self-identifying as
youth development researchers, considerable attention
has been given to defining and conceptualizing develop-
ment-enhancing processes, with a growing number of
publications dedicated to synthesizing the many frame-
works (Benson & Saito, 2001; NRCIM, 2002; Roth &
Brooks-Gunn, 2000; Small & Memmo, 2004). Several
publications have been influential in guiding practice
and policy. Pittman and her colleagues (Pittman, Irby, &
Ferber, 2000; Pittman, Irby, Tolman, Yohalem, & Fer-
ber, 2001) identified seven essential developmental re-
sources: stable programs; basic care and services;
healthy relationships with peers and adults; high expec-
tations and standards; role models, resources and net-
works; challenging experiences and opportunities to
participate and contribute; and high-quality instruction
and training. Connell, Gambone, and Smith (2001) posit
three major developmental resources: the ability to be
productive, the ability to connect, and the ability to nav-
igate. Zeldin (1995; Zeldin, Kimball, & Price, 1995)
identifies access to safe places, challenging experiences,
and caring people.
The concept of developmental assets emerged in 1990
(Benson, 1990, 1997, 2002, 2003a) and has triggered
considerable research and a community change process
used in 700 cities in the United States and Canada. The
framework of developmental assets (see Table 16.1) is a
theory-based model linking features of ecologies (exter-
nal assets) with personal skills and capacities (internal
assets), guided by the hypothesis that external and inter-
nal assts are dynamically interconnected “ building
blocks” that, in combination, prevent high risk health
behaviors and enhance many forms of developmental
success (i.e., thriving).
As described in a series of publications (Benson,
1997, 2002; Benson et al., 1998), the framework estab-
lishes a set of developmental experiences and supports
that are hypothesized to have import for all young people
during the 2nd decade of life. However, it has also been
hypothesized that developmental assets reflect develop-
mental processes that have age-related parallels in in-
fancy and childhood (Leffert, Benson, & Roehlkepartain,
1997; Mannes, Benson, Kretzmann, & Norris, 2003;
Scales, Sesma, & Bolstrom, 2004).
The framework synthesizes research in a number of
fields with the goal of selecting for inclusion those de-
velopmental resources that: (a) have been demonstrated
to prevent high risk behavior (e.g., substance use, vio-
lence, dropping out of school), enhance thriving, or build
resilience; ( b) have evidence of generalizability across
social locations; (c) contribute balance to the overall
framework (i.e., of ecological and individual-level fac-
tors); and (d) for which it can be demonstrated that com-
munities have the capacity to effect their acquisition.
Because the model, in addition to its theoretical and re-
search purposes, “is also intended to have practical signif-
icance for mobilizing communities” (Benson, 2002,
p. 127), the assets are placed in categories that have con-
ceptual integrity and that can be described easily to the
people of a community. They are grouped into 20 external
assets ( health-promoting features of the environment) and
20 that are internal (skills, values, competencies, and self-
perceptions). The external assets are grouped into four
categories: (1) support, (2) empowerment, (3) boundaries
and expectations, and (4) constructive use of time. The
TABLE 16.1 The Framework of Developmental Assets
Category External Assets
1. Family support
2. Positive family communication
3. Other adult relationships
Support
4. Caring neighborhood
5. Caring school climate
6. Parent involvement in schooling
7. Community values youth
8. Youth as resources
Empowerment
9. Service to others
10. Safety
11. Family boundaries
12. School boundaries
13. Neighborhood boundaries
Boundaries and expectations
14. Adult role models
15. Positive peer inf luence
16. High expectations
Category Internal Assets
21. Achievement motivation
22. School engagement
Commitment to learning 23. Homework
24. Bonding to school
25. Reading for pleasure
26. Caring
27. Equality and social justice
28. Integrity
Positive values
29. Honesty
30. Responsibility
31. Restraint
32. Planning and decision making
33. Interpersonal competence
34. Cultural competence
Social competencies
35. Resistance skills
36. Peaceful conf lict resolution
907
Definition
Family life provides high levels of love and support.
Young person and her or his parent(s) communicate positively, and
young person is willing to seek advice and counsel from parents.
Young person receives support from three or more nonparent
adults.
Young person experiences caring neighbors.
School provides a caring, encouraging environment.
Parent(s) are actively involved in helping young person succeed in
school.
Young person perceives that adults in the community value youth.
Young people are given useful roles in the community.
Young person serves in the community one hour or more per week.
Young person feels safe at home, school, and in the neighborhood.
Family has clear rules and consequences and monitors the young
person’s whereabouts.
School provides clear rules and consequences.
Neighbors take responsibility for monitoring young people’s
behavior.
Parent(s) and other adults model positive, responsible behavior.
Young person’s best friends model responsible behavior.
Both parent(s) and teachers encourage the young person to do
well.
Definition
Young person is motivated to do well in school.
Young person is actively engaged in learning.
Young person reports doing at least one hour of homework every
school day.
Young person cares about her or his school.
Young person reads for pleasure three or more hours per week.
Young person places high value on helping other people.
Young person places high value on promoting equality and
reducing hunger and poverty.
Young person acts on convictions and stands up for her or his
beliefs.
Young person “ tells the truth even when it is not easy.”
Young person accepts and takes personal responsibility.
Young person believes it is important not to be sexually active or to
use alcohol or other drugs.
Young person knows how to plan ahead and make choices.
Young person has empathy, sensitivity, and friendship skills.
Young person has knowledge of and comfort with people of
different cultural /racial /ethnic backgrounds.
Young person can resist negative peer pressure and dangerous
situations.
Young person seeks to resolve conf lict nonviolently.
(continued)
908 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
TABLE 16.1 Continued
Category External Assets
37. Personal power
38. Self-esteem
Positive identity
39. Sense of purpose
40. Positive view of personal future
Source: From All Kids Are Our Kids: What Communities Must Do to Raise Caring and Responsible Children and Adolescents, by P. Benson,
1997, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
internal assets are placed in four categories: (1) commit-
ment to learning, (2) positive values, (3) social competen-
cies, and (4) positive identity. The scientific foundations
for the eight categories and each of the 40 assets are de-
scribed in a series of publications (Scales & Leffert,
1999, 2004; Scales et al., 2004).
The 2002 report from The National Research Council
and Institute of Medicine, Community Programs to Pro-
mote Positive youth Development (NRCIM, 2002), used
the concept of assets to describe the experiences,
supports, and opportunities “ which facilitate both suc-
cessful passage through” adolescence and “optimal tran-
sition into the next phase of life—adulthood” (p. 67).
Parallel to Search Institute’s distinction between exter-
nal and internal assets, this national report used the lan-
guage of “personal” and “social” assets. The authors
used three types of empirical studies to identify assets:
“studies linking the personal and social assets to indica-
tors of positive current development, studies linking
these characteristics to indicators of future positive
adult development, and experimental studies designed to
change the asset under study” (p. 82).
The committee of scholars charged with creating this
report then identified 28 personal and social assets. Un-
like Search Institute’s developmental asset taxonomy,
the 28 indicators are all personological in nature and do
not include the same balance of contextual factors and
individual-level factors. Nonetheless, there is consider-
able overlap between the two taxonomies. Table 16.2
displays the NRCIM taxonomy of personal and social as-
sets. It should be noted, however, that the committee
also created a conceptual model of the “ features of pos-
itive developmental settings.” These provide some paral-
lel thinking to the concept of external assets. These
“ features” will be discussed in the next section.
Embedded in both the developmental asset model and
the National Research Council report are three explicit
hypotheses, each of which will be evaluated later in this
Definition
Young person feels he or she has control over “ things that happen
to me.”
Young person reports having high self-esteem.
Young person reports that “my life has a purpose.”
Young person is optimistic about her or his personal future.
chapter. The first has to do with the additive or cumula-
tive nature of the elements called assets. The assump-
tion is that “ the more assets, the better.” The National
Research Council Report frames it this way: “adoles-
cents with more personal and social assets . . . have a
greater chance of both current well-being and future
success” (NRCIM, 2002, p. 42). Benson and his col-
leagues (Benson, 2003a; Benson et al., 1998; Benson,
Scales, & Mannes, 2003) refer to the longitudinal ex-
pression of this principle as the “ vertical pile up” of as-
sets. Both streams of thought also contend that this
principle of accumulated assets generalizes to multiple
forms of behavior—from prevention of high risk behav-
ior to the enhancement of positive outcomes such as
school success (Benson et al., 2003; NRCIM, 2002;
Scales & Roehlkepartain, 2003).
Closely related is the idea of the “pile up” of sup-
portive contexts. That is, positive development is also
enhanced when many settings collaborate—whether in-
tentional or not—in generating the kinds of supports
and opportunities known to promote assets. In the
words of the National Research Council (2002),
Research shows that the more settings that adolescents ex-
perience reflecting these features, the more likely they
are to acquire the personal and social assets linked to both
current and future well-being. (p. 43)
Scales and Roehlkepartain (2004) have recently called
this the principle of “ horizontal pile up.” This concept is
similar to the idea of developmental redundancy
(Benson, 1997; Benson et al., 1998). Recent work in the
sociology of adolescence also speaks to this dynamic
(Furstenberg, 2000).
A second hypothesis addresses the nature of assets
as relevant universally, although often experienced or
expressed differently across diversities. Among youth
development scholars, it is commonly assumed that
the elements in the conceptual models of nutrients/
 The Theory of Positive Youth Development 909

TABLE 16.2 Personal and Social Assets That Facilitate Positive

Youth Development
Physical development:
–Good health habits
–Good health risk management skills
Intellectual development:
–Knowledge of essential life skills
–Knowledge of essential vocational skills
–School success
–Rational habits of mind—critical thinking and reasoning skills
–In-depth knowledge of more than one culture
–Good decision-making skills
–Knowledge of skills needed to navigate through multiple cultural
contexts
Psychological and emotional development:
–Good mental health including positive self-regard
–Good emotional self-regulation skills
–Good coping skills
–Good conf lict resolution skills
–Mastery motivation and positive achievement motivation
–Confidence in one’s personal efficacy
–“Planfulness”—planning for the future and future life events
–Sense of personal autonomy/responsibility for self
–Optimism coupled with realism
–Coherent and positive personal and social identity
–Prosocial and culturally sensitive values
–Spirituality or a sense of a “larger ” purpose in life
–Strong moral character
–A commitment to good use of time
Social development:
–Connectedness—perceived good relationships and trust with
parents, peers, and some other adults
–Sense of social plane/integration—being connected and valued by
larger social networks
–Attachment to prosocial /conventional institutions, such as school,
church, nonschool youth programs
–Ability to navigate in multiple cultural contexts
–Commitment to civic engagement
Source: From Community Programs to Promote Youth Development: Com-
mittee on Community-Level Programs for Youth, by the National Research
Council and Institute of Medicine, J. Eccles and J. A. Gootman (Eds),
Board on Children, Youth and Families, Division of Behavioral and Social
Sciences and Education, 2002, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

resources/assets have currency for youth in all social lo-
cations. This claim is particularly clear in both the Na-
tional Research Council report and the research
undergirding the developmental asset model. At the same
time, however, both models testify to the diversity of
methods and procedures for promoting assets, and to the
importance of creating strategies of asset-building that
are crafted with deep sensitivity to the experience, wis-
dom and capacity of people within particular racial, eth-
nic, religious, and economic groups (Hamilton et al.,
2004).
The third assumption is one that arguably is the
strongest point of theoretical consensus across scholars,
research programs, and practitioners within the positive
youth development field. This is the belief that assets
are enhanced when contexts and settings are configured
910 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
and organized in specific ways. Context matters and
contexts can be changed. This principle can be suc-
cinctly stated as:
personal and social assets are enhanced by positive devel-
opmental settings. (NRCIM, 2002, p. 43)
Not surprisingly, then, there is a considerable re-
search tradition on how, and under what conditions,
contexts and ecologies promote positive development.
This body of work shifts the unit of analysis from the
person to contexts, environments, and communities.
Accordingly, it draws us into a number of fields beyond
developmental psychology in which such inquiry is
more at home. We suggest that a theory of person, con-
text, and their intersection such as suggested earlier
in this chapter is a necessary but not sufficient set
of ideas for delineating the territory, scope, and
uniqueness of positive youth development. The major
lacuna in our discussion to this point is the idea of in-
tentional change. At the heart of positive youth devel-
opment thinking and research is the question of how
the healthy/ balanced/adaptive fusion of person and
context can be enhanced. It is this idea—this possibil-
ity of creating change—that has fueled practice for
several decades and, more recently, is fueling research
and policy.
A theory of positive youth development, then, is in-
complete without incorporating the concept of inten-
tional change. Without doing so, we have a theory of
adolescent development—not positive youth develop-
ment. Intentional change is the purposeful effort to en-
hance the fusion of person and context in a healthy
direction. Because of the dynamic bidirectionality of
this interaction, there are three major points of potential
intervention. The three of these, in combination, in-
crease the probability of adaptive developmental regula-
tion. These are:
1. Increasing the developmental-attentiveness of contexts
(to increase their capacity to nurture, support, and
constructively challenge the developing person).
2. Enhancing the skills and competencies of youth (to fur-
ther enable their “natural” capacity to engage with,
connect, change, and learn from their social contexts).
3. Creating processes and opportunities to invite youth to
actively exercise and utilize their capacity to engage
with and change their social contexts. In practice and
research, this form of intentional change travels under
Theory of
Human
Development
Theory of Theory of
Context and Context and
Community Community
Influence Change
Figure 16.2 A comprehensive theory of positive youth
development.
such concepts as youth leadership, service learning,
youth empowerment, and youth engagement.
A comprehensive approach to positive youth-develop-
ment requires the integration of three theories: of human
development (which is the primary focus of this chap-
ter), of context and community influence, and of how
contexts and communities change. These three are dis-
played in Figure 16.2.
The Theory of Context and Community Inf luence
There is an extensive and growing literature on the fea-
tures and dynamics of developmentally supportive con-
texts. It is here that we reference the major contributions
of Bronfenbrenner (1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
1998). His ecological theory of development has been
instrumental in shaping the theory, research, and prac-
tice of positive youth development. If we were to posit
the canon of youth development, the list would begin
with The Ecology of Human Development (1979). In this
work, he provides a highly influential definition that not
only supports a critical notion in current developmental
systems theory but also shaped a generation of scholar-
ship. In his words:
The ecology of human development involves the scientific
study of progressive, mutual accommodation between an
active, growing human being and the changing properties
of the immediate settings in which the developing person
lives, as this process is affected by relations between
these settings, and by the larger contexts in which the set-
tings are embedded. (p. 21)

Among Bronfenbrenner’s many contributions is his
conceptual formulation of the nature and dynamics of
developmental contexts. He portrays the nested systems
that influence development as interdependent; their in-
fluence is interactive; none stands or has its effects
alone. What happens in a microsystem, such as a class-
room, is influenced by tax policies and by the media, but
those elements of the macrosystem are themselves inter-
preted through and influenced by microsystems. An
important implication for youth development is that ef-
fective efforts to enhance assets must change more than
one system and level of system. Changing schools or
even families will be less effective than changing multi-
ple systems (or settings).
Wynn (1997) and her colleagues conceive of the com-
munity institutions influencing youth development as
“sectors” and focus on “primary supports” as a strong
but under-appreciated influence. Primary supports are
voluntary; youth choose to participate and make choices
about what they will do and how. Primary supports af-
ford young people opportunities to take initiative and to
participate actively, in contrast to the passivity charac-
terizing the role of student. Exemplars of primary sup-
ports include “arts and after school programs; organized
sports; community service and youth entrepreneurship
opportunities; and the offerings of parks, libraries, mu-
seums, and community centers” (p. 1).
Consistent with Bronfenbrenner’s idea of the impor-
tance of links among systems, Wynn (1997) claims that
primary supports function best when they reinforce and
link other sectors, especially families, schools, health-
care, and other services. Critical to effective primary
supports are: high expectations; group problem solving;
concrete products and performances; prospects for ad-
vancement and expanded opportunities; adults acting as
caregivers, catalysts and coaches; membership; avail-
ability and continuity; respect and reciprocity; and adult
investment (pp. 5–7).
There are a growing number of such conceptual models
for identifying developmental contexts that are potential
sources for positive youth development (see, e.g., Benson
& Saito, 2001; Benson et al., 2003; Gambone, Klem, &
Connell, 2002; Hamilton & Hamilton, 2004; Pittman
et al., 2000). An important line of theory and research is
also emerging to explain how, and under what conditions,
such contexts inform positive development. Several
themes are particularly central to positive youth develop-
ment theory. Bronfenbrenner and Morris (1998) identify
two of these themes. Development occurs as a person in-
The Theory of Positive Youth Development 911
teracts with “people, objects and symbols” in what they
call “proximal processes,” which are “ the primary en-
gines of development ” (p. 996). Caring relationships are
critical, not only in the family, but in all the settings youth
occupy. Likewise, youth need a range of challenging ac-
tivities in multiple settings. Both the people and the activ-
ities foster development best when they provide an
optimum balance of challenge and support. According to
Bronfenbrenner and Morris, the most powerful activities
and relationships are predictable and enduring.
The classic account of how relationships promote de-
velopment and learning is Vygotsky’s (1978) “zone of
proximal development.” According to Vygotsky, devel-
opment, in the sense of growing competence, occurs
when the developing person is assisted by someone who
is already competent in accomplishing tasks she or he
cannot do unaided. With experience, this assistance be-
comes unnecessary and the person can perform indepen-
dently. Several cognitive scientists have elaborated this
notion, using the metaphor of “scaffolding” that is grad-
ually withdrawn (e.g., Bruner, 1983; Rogoff, 1990). Al-
though the metaphor is faulty (implying that scaffolding
holds up a building until it is capable of standing on its
own), the idea is sound: the assistance of someone who
is more advanced enables youth to gain competence, es-
pecially if that person is skilled at knowing when to help
and when not to. Bronfenbrenner (1979), acknowledging
Vygotsky, hypothesized that:
Learning and development are facilitated by the participa-
tion of the developing person in progressively more com-
plex patterns of reciprocal activity with someone with
whom that person has developed a strong and enduring
emotional attachment and when the balance of power
gradually shifts in favor of the developing person. (p. 60)
Benson et al. (2003) enumerated five aspects of rela-
tionships germane to positive youth development. First,
supportive relationships with both immediate and ex-
tended family members have been shown, in multiple
studies and multiple demographic settings, to enhance
developmental strengths and provide a protective buffer
against risk (Rhodes & Roffman, 2003). Second, sup-
portive relationships with nonparental adults can be
equally compelling in advancing positive development,
particularly during adolescence (Scales, Benson, &
Mannes, 2002; Scales & Leffert, 2004; Scales, Leffert,
& Vraa, 2003). Third, the number of supportive adult
relationships may provide an additive impact: As the
912 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications

number of nurturing relationships increase, probabili-
ties for the presence of developmental strengths such as
caring values, self-esteem, and a positive view of one’s
future also may increase (Benson, 1997). An additional
axiom about nonparental adults has to do with the sus-
tainability of relationships. It is reasonable to hypothe-
size that the strength-building capacity of nonparental
adult connections increases proportionately with the
length of the relationship.
Fourth, exposure to positive peer influence—de-
fined, for example, as peer modeling of prosocial and
achievement values—can both advance developmental
strengths and inhibit risk behaviors (Leffert et al., 1998;
Scales, Benson, et al., 2000). Finally, the developmental
advantage of relationships is enhanced by three factors:
their quality, their quantity, and their sustainability.
The second theme identified by Bronfenbrenner and
Morris (1998) has to do with the importance and cer-
tainty of activity. Csikszentmihalyi (1990) has com-
pellingly made the case that certain kinds of activities
instigate development in his work on “ flow” or “ the psy-
chology of optimal performance.” Csikszentmihalyi has
documented the phenomenon of flow in people like rock
climbers, dancers, and others who engage in highly
challenging activities that reward them with a sense of
successfully negotiating challenges that require intense
concentration. This work helps to explain why some ac-
tivities contribute more to building youths’ assets than
others. Activities such as playing chess, playing a musi-
cal instrument, or planning and carrying out a commu-
nity service project build developmental assets more
than watching television or gossiping with friends.
In another important statement of how activity con-
tributes to positive development, Larson (2000) posits
that the development of initiative is critical. Combining
intrinsic motivation and deep attention, initiative can
emerge from well-designed structured activities within
sports, arts, and related youth development programs.
The themes of relationships and developmentally ap-
propriate activity are “ front and center ” in most concep-
tual models seeking to describe the essential features of
positive developmental contexts (Gambone & Arbreton,
1997; McLaughlin, Irby, & Langman, 1994; Quinn,
1999; Roth & Brooks-Gunn, 2000, 2003). In a synthesis
of this research, NRCIM (2002) identified eight features
of programs, hypothesized to “expand the opportunities
for youth to acquire personal and social assets” (p. 8).
These are listed in Table 16.3. As noted earlier, these

TABLE 16.3 Features of Positive Developmental Settings

Feature Descriptors
Physical and Safe and health-promoting facilities, practice that increases safe peer group interaction and decreases unsafe
psychological safety or confrontational peer interactions
Appropriate structure Limit setting, clear and consistent rules and expectations, firm-enough control, continuity and predictability,
clear boundaries, and age-appropriate monitoring
Supportive relationships Warmth, closeness, connectedness, good communication, caring, support, guidance, secure attachment, and
responsiveness.
Opportunities to belong Opportunities for meaningful inclusion, regardless of one’s gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation or
disabilities; social inclusion, social engagement and integration; opportunities for sociocultural identity
formation; and support for cultural and bicultural competence
Positive social norms Rules of behavior, expectations, injunctions, ways of doing things, values and morals, and obligations for
service
Support for efficacy Youth-based, empowerment practices that support autonomy, making a real difference in one’s community,
and mattering and being taken seriously; practices that include enabling, responsibility granting, and meaningful challenge;
practices that focus on improvement rather than on relative current performance levels
Opportunity for Opportunities to learn physical, intellectual, psychological, emotional, and social skills; exposure to
skill building intentional learning experiences; opportunities to learn cultural literacies, media literacy, communication
skills, and good habits of mind; preparation for adult employment and opportunities to develop social and
cultural capital
Integration of family, school, Concordance; coordination and synergy among family, school and community.
and community efforts
Source: From Community Programs to Promote Youth Development: Committee on Community-Level Programs for Youth, by the National Re-
search Council and Institute of Medicine, J. Eccles and J. A. Gootman (Eds), Board on Children, Youth and Families, Division of Behavioral
and Social Sciences and Education, 2002, Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

eight features of positive development settings have
some conceptual overlap with the external assets in the
developmental asset framework (Benson, 1997; Benson
et al., 2003; Scales & Leffert, 1999, 2004).
The theory of positive youth development posits that
development is enhanced when contexts are configured
and organized in ways consonant with these develop-
mental principles. As already suggested, closely
aligned with the “contexts can be changed” axiom is
the principle of “ horizontal pile-up.” This latter con-
cept refers to the reinforcing, simultaneous experience
of ecological assets across the different context of a
young person’s total ecology, such as family, neighbor-
hood, school, peer group, after-school programs, and
other co-curricular organizations. As suggested by
Benson et al. (2003):
Such multiple and redundant exposure to developmentally
rich ecologies fortifies the social space within which
young people can perceive themselves to be safe, sup-
ported and capable. Young people who experience such re-
dundancy ought to be even more likely than young people
without such a horizontal pile-up of assets to enjoy protec-
tion from risk and to thrive. (p. 387)
This idea of “developmental redundancy” helps to
fuel an additional and important concept in positive
youth development: the viability of community as a set-
ting for generating both ecological and internal assets.
This question of how communities inform development
has become a vibrant area of inquiry (Benson et al.,
1998; Blyth, 2001; Booth & Crouter, 2001; Comer,
1980; Comer, Haynes, Joyner, & Ben-Avie, 1996; Con-
nell et al., 2001; Earls & Carlson, 2001; Hughes & Cur-
nan, 2000; Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993; Mannes
et al., 2003; Sampson, 2001; Spencer, 2001).
Using community as a unit of analysis, researchers
have posited a number of community processes and dy-
namics inferred to be important for creating the kinds of
relationships and developmentally rich contexts that
promote positive development. Scales and his colleagues
(Scales et al., 2001, 2002, 2003) identify pro-child so-
cial norms in which engagement with children and ado-
lescents is expected and supported. Some theorists posit
the viability of shared ideals and expectations that unite
multiple socializing systems in common purpose (Ben-
son, 1997; Damon, 1997). Zeldin (2002) points to the
role of adults’ sense of community as an important pre-
cursor to engagement with youth. And several identify
the role of strategic alignment among community ser-
The Theory of Positive Youth Development 913
vices delivery systems (Dorgan & Ferguson, 2004; Dry-
foos, 1990; Mannes et al., 2003).
The construct of social capital elucidates why com-
munity mobilization is important and points to some av-
enues for action. Coleman (1990, p. 304) describes
social capital as contained in human relationships.
Human capital includes a person’s competencies. Just
like human capital and financial capital, social capital
makes it possible for people to be productive, to accom-
plish tasks. Coleman points out that social capital is
greater in social networks with a high degree of “clo-
sure,” meaning that many people know each other, com-
municate, and trust each other (pp. 319–320).
Sampson and his colleagues (Sampson, 2001; Samp-
son, Morenoff, & Earls, 1999; Sampson, Raudenbush, &
Earls, 1997) have identified community mechanisms
that facilitate the generation of social capital. Chief
among these is the idea of collective efficacy, which sig-
nifies “an emphasis on shared beliefs in a neighbor-
hood’s conjoint capability for action to achieve an
intended effect, and hence an active sense of engage-
ment on the part of residents” (Sampson, 2001, p. 10).
Benson and his colleagues (Benson, 1997; Benson et al.,
1998) have suggested that one important source of col-
lective efficacy is a shared community vocabulary of
developmental assets aligned with a publicly shared un-
derstanding of the capacity of social contexts to effect
their acquisition.
The Theory of Context and Community Change
The third formulation in a comprehensive theory of pos-
itive youth-development focuses on the processes,
strategies, and tactics that can directly or indirectly alter
contexts and community. This is the least developed of
the three theoretical foundations of the theory we envi-
sion. One recent review of the science on “ how change
occurs” has argued that a compelling question emerging
from new discoveries about the dynamic and bidirec-
tional sources of positive development has to do with:
the processes and procedures of increasing access to de-
velopmental nutrients/assets on a rather massive scale.
And truth be told, though all architects of developmental
nutrient models are deeply interested in application, the
science of how change occurs is in its infancy. We have in-
vested much more intellectual and research energy in
naming the positive building blocks of development and
demonstrating their predictive utility for enhancing health
and academic outcomes than in studying the complex
914 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
array of strategies and procedures for moving the develop-
mental needle forward. (Benson, 2003b, p. 214)
Thinking about such change is a complex enterprise.
Because positive youth-development has a pronounced
interest in application, a comprehensive theory of change
is needed to guide both research and the change-making
efforts already underway in hundreds of communities,
organizations, and systems. Tying this theory and re-
search agenda to the previous section on context and
community influences suggests some of the concepts hy-
pothesized to be central to this inquiry. Among these are
building shared vision; activating collective and per-
sonal efficacy; promoting social trust; reframing how
citizens view youth; mobilizing adult-youth relation-
ships; creating effective cross-sector collaborations; and
enhancing relationships and developmentally appropri-
ate activities within socializing systems and programs.
Many points of entry into this complex arena of
change have been proposed. Among these are social
policy (Blum & Ellen, 2002; Halfon, 2003); social
norms (Scales et al., 2003); community building
(Hyman, 2002; Mannes et al., 2003); schools (Gambone
et al., 2002); neighborhoods (Sampson, 2001); families
(Simpson & Roehlkepartain, 2003); the mobilization of
adults as change activists (Rhodes & Roffman, 2003);
and the mobilization of youth as change activists (Earls
& Carlson, 2002).
Recently, two conceptual frames have been proposed
to help guide theory and research on change. First,
Granger (2002) suggested two overarching constructs:
intervention strategies to enhance the will to change and
intervention strategies to enhance the capacity to
change. For the latter, he posits five key strategies:
human capital creation, redistribution strategies, in-
vestment strategies, social capital creation, and effi-
ciency strategies.
Second, Benson et al. (2003) proposed five interlock-
ing spheres of intervention. Grounded in organizational
systems theory, this model suggests that change in any
one sphere impacts each of the others. This assertion
bears theoretical affinity with core tenets in develop-
mental systems theory. This five-fold model is in the
service, theoretically, of creating a “developmentally at-
tentive community” (p. 389). Such a community is
envisioned as one that marshals and activates the asset-
building capacity of its residents ( both adults and
youth), and sectors (family, neighborhoods, schools,
youth organizations, laces of work, congregations). A de-
velopmentally attentive community is also characterized
by indirect influences that support and sustain these
more direct resident and sector influences. These influ-
ences include policy, financial resources, and social
norms that promote adult engagement with the young
(Scales et al., 2001, 2003).
In turn, Benson et al. (2003) propose that the strate-
gic targets for such communities are vertical pileup (in
which youth develop many developmental assets), hori-
zontal pileup (in which youth experience asset-building
in multiple contexts), and developmental breadth (ex-
tending, by purpose and design, the reach of asset-build-
ing energy to all children and adolescents, not only those
judged to be at “risk ” and served by traditional “preven-
tion” programs).
Accordingly, the five synergistic strategies they posit
for community change are:
1. Engage adults: Community adults build sustained,
asset-building relationships with children and youth,
both within and beyond family.
2. Mobilize youth engagement: Adolescents use their
asset-building capacities with peers and with younger
children and in activities that help enhance the qual-
ity of their community.
3. Activate sectors: Families, neighborhoods, schools,
congregations, and youth organizations activate their
asset-building potential.
4. Invigorate programs: A community infrastructure of
quality early childhood, after-school, weekend, and
summer programs is available and used by children
and youth.
5. Inf luence civic decisions: Financial, leadership, media,
and policy resources are mobilized to support and sus-
tain the transformation needed for areas 1, 2, 3, and 4
to emerge.
RESEARCH SUPPORT FOR KEY POSITIVE
YOUTH DEVELOPMENT HYPOTHESES
The theory and practice of positive youth development
suggests several of key hypotheses. Later in this section,
we introduce and examine empirical support for seven
hypotheses, and offer perspectives on the implications
of these principles both for understanding and promot-
ing positive youth development. Here, however, it is im-
portant to provide an overview of the nature and power
of the research base pertinent to these hypotheses.
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
Overview of Positive Youth Development Research
The research base supporting these hypotheses is plen-
tiful, although uneven. The literature measuring devel-
opmental resources is typified by variable-centered
methods, a focus on isolated variables, use of cross-sec-
tional samples, and linear-additive theory and analytic
strategies. What is needed are person-centered meth-
ods, a focus on patterns or clusters of variables, use of
longitudinal samples, and dynamic nonlinear theory
and analytic strategies (Lerner, Lerner, De Stefanis, &
Apfel, 2001).
Developmental outcomes for youth also encompass
processes that are as important as if not more important
than outcomes reflecting status points in time (e.g., cur-
rent use of alcohol, how much community service one
contributes). Processes include reorganization (Sroufe,
1979), being able to permanently make transitions
(Baltes & Freund, 2003), and being on a path to a hope-
ful future (Lerner et al., 2002; Scales & Benson, 2004).
Status outcomes may not adequately capture the nested
interactions of person and contexts over time, for exam-
ple, person-family and family community (Lerner, Fre-
und, De Stefanis, & Habermas, 2001).
Further, the literature says relatively little about the
interaction of the combination of nutrients or resources
young people experience. Most studies focus on just a
handful of assets (especially parental /family assets and
school orientation assets, with some emphasis on peers,
and more recently, on extracurricular and positive youth
development program activities), and at best, how this
handful may interact.
We illuminate the research support for the positive
youth development hypotheses by focusing on a small
number of outcomes for which positive youth develop-
ment theory is best explicated, and that appear to have
strong research bases and broad constituencies of re-
searchers, practitioners, and policymakers dealing with
them: Alcohol and other drug use; violence/anti-social
behavior; school success; and civic engagement. Much
but not all of the research cited herein pertains to those
four exemplar outcomes.
How Much Explanatory Power Is
Reasonable to Expect?
Hundreds of studies, cited in this chapter and in compre-
hensive reviews (Scales & Leffert, 2004; Scales et al.,
2004), provide persuasive evidence (Miller & Thoresen,
915
2003) for the broad theoretical connection between de-
velopmental assets and developmental outcomes, both
concurrently and longitudinally. This is especially true
when considering as an independent variable the cumu-
lative number of assets young people experience, or
comparing those young people with relatively higher
and lower levels of assets.
There is relative persuasiveness and consistency of
positive findings in the literature on the explanatory
power of positive youth development concepts. But
what level of explanation is reasonable to expect devel-
opmental assets or nutrients to provide for complex
outcomes? Luthar et al. (2000), for example, observe
that studies whose findings rest on main effects often
report effects of 10% to 20% for individual protective
factors. When interaction effects are necessary to ex-
plain the workings of such assets, effect sizes are far
smaller, in the 2% to 5% range. With both advocacy
and empirical work in recent years reflecting a shift
from merely documenting the impact of developmental
nutrients to studying the processes and interactions
that suggest how those nutrients contribute to out-
comes (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Heatherington, &
Bornstein, 2000; Davey, Eaker, & Walters, 2003;
Luthar et al., 2000), it may be expected that the size of
many reported effects will be disappointingly, but un-
derstandably, limited.
Ecological and developmental systems theory have
become the predominant frames of theoretical reference
for the study of child and adolescent development
(Lerner et al., 2002). Moreover, individual development
and broader community and social change processes in-
creasingly are linked in positive youth development
frameworks (Benson et al., 1998, 2003; Connell & Ku-
bisch, 2001; Hawkins & Catalano, 1996). These theoret-
ical formulations imply that effects derived from
studies shaped by those theories and frameworks may be
quite modest, a conclusion supported in a recent review
by Wandersman and Florin (2003). All these factors
make it quite challenging scientifically to capture broad
community change in the service of positive youth de-
velopment (Berkowitz, 2001).
With the preceding comments providing perspective
on the state-of-the-art in positive youth development re-
search, we turn now to illustrating the evidence for each
of the major positive youth development hypotheses, we
can derive from our prior discussion of the theoretical
and practitioner bases of the concept of positive youth
development.
916 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Hypothesis One
The first hypothesis is termed the contextual change hy-
pothesis, and consists of two assumptions. First, contexts
can be intentionally altered to enhance developmental
success. And second, changes in these contexts change
the person.
There is abundant evidence that ecological contexts
can be changed to promote positive youth development,
as well as a wealth of data about why such approaches
have those positive effects. In most of this research, re-
searchers have documented (usually, but not always) the
efficacy of intervention or prevention programs in pro-
viding youth with experiences that facilitate develop-
mental outcomes. For example, from their review of 60
evaluations of youth development programs, Roth,
Brooks-Gunn, Murray, and Foster (1998) concluded:
[Y]outh development programs are best characterized by
their approach to youth as resources to be developed rather
than as problems to be managed, and their efforts to help
youth become healthy, happy, and productive by increasing
youths’ exposure to the external assets, opportunities and
supports. (p. 427)
The Social Development Research Group at the Uni-
versity of Washington conducted one of the most wide-
ranging reviews of positive youth development programs
(Catalano et al., 2004). They identified 161 programs
and discussed in detail 25 that were well-evaluated and
showed significant effects on behavioral outcomes. The
programs had to have one or more of the following ob-
jectives about building developmental assets or nutri-
ents: Promote bonding; foster resilience; promote social
competence; promote emotional competence; promote
cognitive competence; promote behavioral competence;
promote moral competence; foster self-determination;
foster spirituality; foster self-efficacy; foster clear and
positive identity; foster belief in the future; provide
recognition for positive behavior; provide opportunities
for prosocial involvement; and foster prosocial norms. In
addition, the programs had to address either multiple as-
sets, or a single nutrient but across the multiple social
domains of family, school, or community. Programs that
addressed only a single asset in a single domain were ex-
cluded. Competence, self-efficacy, and prosocial norms
were addressed in all 25 programs, and most programs
dealt with at least 8 of the 15 nutrients. Most programs
used positive outcome measures as well as reduction of
problem behavior in their evaluations. Nineteen of the
25 programs demonstrated significant effects on posi-
tive youth development outcomes, including improve-
ments in interpersonal skills, quality of peer and adult
relationships, self-control, problem solving, cognitive
competence, self-efficacy, commitment to school, and
academic achievement. In addition, 24 of the 25 showed
significant reductions in problem behaviors such as alco-
hol and other drug use, school problems, aggressive be-
havior, violence, and risky sexual behavior.
In a review of more than 1,200 studies of outcomes in
prevention programs for children and adolescents,
Durlak (1998) identified eight common protective fac-
tors across programs successful in preventing behavior
problems, school failure, poor physical health, and preg-
nancy among young people: Social support; personal
and social skills; self-efficacy; good parent-child rela-
tionships; positive peer modeling; high quality schools;
effective social policies; and positive social norms. The
resilience literature also suggests from the finding of
“synchronous evidence” from multiple studies using dif-
fering measurements, that there are three critical kinds
of protective factors: Close relationships with caring,
supportive adults, often in primary care-giving roles; ef-
fective schools; and positive relationships with proso-
cial adults in the wider community (Luthar et al., 2000).
In a meta-analysis of 177 primary prevention pro-
grams designed to prevent behavioral and mental health
problems among children and adolescents, Durlak and
Wells (1997) reported that most kinds of primary pre-
vention programs (whether person- or environment-cen-
tered, and whether universal or targeted) contributed
both to reducing problems and increasing competencies.
However, only 15% of these programs attempted to
change children’s environments, despite the emphasis of
context in the major developmental systems and ecologi-
cal theories that are the foundation of the positive youth
development field.
Developmental theories suggest that, because of the
fusion of person and context, variations or alterations in
developmental context should be associated with varia-
tions or alterations in developmental outcomes. For ex-
ample, theories regarding the development of anti-social
behavior and violence typically posit several differing
trajectories. Children who are chronically high in anti-
social behavior from childhood through adolescence, for
example, are seen as having biological or genetic vulner-
abilities that manifest themselves in attention and con-
centration problems, which are associated both with
early school failure and peer rejection (Moffitt, 1993).
Poor parenting may also contribute to this pathway.
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
Those developing higher levels of antisocial behavior
later in childhood or adolescence are seen as being in-
fluenced more by association with deviant peers
(Dishion, Andrews, & Crosby, 1995; Patterson, Reid, &
Dishion, 1992). A study of several hundred urban,
mostly African American males followed from first
grade through seventh grade found evidence supporting
such differing pathways (Schaeffer, Petras, Ialongo, Po-
duska, & Kellam, 2003). Theoretically then, it is plausi-
ble that early efforts to improve family related assets,
social competencies, and school success all could have
an ameliorative effect on the development of antisocial
behavior trajectories. Indeed, Furlong, Paige, and Osher
(2003) note such evidence findings linking violence pre-
vention with children’s connection to caring adults, so-
cial /emotional skills, and appropriate instruction and
academic supports that promote a sense of competence
and school success.
Similarly, in a study of school success, Gutman,
Sameroff, and Eccles (2002) showed that developmental
assets may have both a promotive ( helpful for all youth)
and a protective function ( helpful for some youth under
conditions of risk). In their study of more than 800
seventh-grade African American students, these re-
searchers found that consistent discipline and parental
school involvement were related to higher GPAs and bet-
ter attendance for all youth, but not to math test scores.
Peer support was a helpful resource, but only for math
test scores, and then only for students who also were ex-
posed to multiple risks such as low maternal education
and family income. Parent promotion of democratic de-
cision making was related to higher GPAs and math test
scores for students who experienced multiple risks, but
it was high-risk students whose parents did not promote
democratic decision making who had the greater school
success. The researchers reasoned that parents adapt
their parenting practices to the risk level of the environ-
ment, with greater parental control more beneficial
when children are living in high-risk environments.
In a study of high school students, McLellan and
Youniss (2003) used the framework of identity develop-
ment theory to describe the developmental role played
by different kinds of community service, that is, differ-
ing service contexts. In their view, service provides ac-
cess to different “ transcendent systems of meaning”
that enable young people to connect themselves with
historical, religious, ethnic, or political traditions “of
which they can legitimately feel a part ” (p. 57). Young
people were more likely to volunteer if they were in net-
works in which their parents and friends did service,
917
and if they were connected to youth organizations and
religious institutions. That is, service was less an indi-
vidual and spontaneous act and more the result of a web
of asset-building relationships and norms that together
elevated service to a shared social expectation.
One of the most impressive studies illustrating the
power of changed contexts on personal change and de-
velopmental success is the evaluation of Big Broth-
ers/ Big Sisters conducted by Public/ Private Ventures
(Tierney, Grossman, & Resch, 1995). The investigators
fashioned a true experiment by randomly assigning half
of those awaiting placement to a delayed-treatment con-
trol group while seeking placements for the other half.
Those in the treatment group demonstrated several ad-
vantages over the control group, including lower likeli-
hood of beginning to use drugs and alcohol or to have
hit another person, along with better attitudes toward
school, better grades, and attendance. In addition, they
reported improved relations with family and peers. The
causal pathway of mentoring’s effects on school perfor-
mance appears to have been through improved relations
with parents (Rhodes, Grossman, & Resch, 2000).
In summary, intentional efforts to change contexts
to improve developmental success among young people
largely have been shown to be effective. A cluster of
intervention components including strengthened adult-
youth relationships, social norms around desired behav-
ior, development of social competencies, and provision
of youth opportunities appears especially critical.
Hypothesis Two
The youth action hypothesis is the second hypothesis.
The three components that comprise it are: (1) Youth ac-
tion impacts contexts and the person. When youth take
action to improve the contexts in which they live, the im-
pact is enhanced because such action (properly guided
and including reflection) is developmentally enhancing
and, when successful, makes the target context(s) more
beneficial to the actors and to other youth; (2) The im-
pact is cumulative because youth who take action are
more likely than those who do not to take action in the
future, which again enhances their personal develop-
ment and the contexts they have changed; their example
also encourages other youth to take action; and (3)
Processes for strengthening youth impact on context and
self—youth participation and leadership—can be de-
signed and implemented.
Systems and ecological models of development hold
that individuals are both the products and producers of
918 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
their environments, and that it is the relation between
the individual and environment that influences develop-
ment (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Hamilton et al.,
2004; Lerner, 2002; Zeldin, 2004). As Hamilton et al.
(2004, p. 15) note: “Human beings develop through ac-
tive engagement with their environment; by making
choices and shaping that environment, they also direct
their own development.” Two related processes may be
at work. Young people’s engagement may in fact alter
how other people relate to them, and young people tak-
ing action to improve their contexts may subjectively ap-
praise those contexts more favorably.
Youth engagement extends beyond merely providing
opportunities for youth, but is rather a part of an intri-
cate dialectic that itself characterizes positive out-
comes, or thriving (Lerner, Dowling, & Anderson,
2003). Lerner hypothesizes that when this bidirectional
process occurs under conditions of “ building a civil so-
ciety”—that is, when the ideals of equity, democracy,
social justice, and personal freedoms are supported—
and when youth see themselves as part of an activity or
issue that is larger than themselves, this in turn impels
both healthy individual development as well as salutary
effects for the community (Lerner, Dowling, et al.,
2003; see also Nakamura, 2001; Pancer, Rose-Krasnor,
& Loiselle, 2002).
‘Youth engagement’ is a multidimensional term, and
loosely refers to activities and constructs such as posi-
tive citizenship, volunteering, prosocial acts in the com-
munity, involvement, participation, community service,
and youth voice (O’Donoghue, Kirshner, & McLaugh-
lin, 2002; Zaff & Michelsen, 2002). Central to all of
these terms is meaningful participation in an activity
that links the individual, through action and commit-
ment, to the broader context (Nakamura, 2001; Pancer
et al., 2002). It is this last component—where the indi-
vidual “ transcends self-interest ” (Lerner, Dowling,
et al., 2003; p. 176)—that separates youth engagement
from other extracurricular activities in which the youth
may partake.
The interplay of person and context means not only
that change in context changes the person, but that young
people’s actions inevitably alter the developmental con-
texts they experience, with related consequences, posi-
tively or negatively, for their developmental well-being
(and as well, the positive development of their commu-
nity—see below). For example, exploring the theoretical
importance of “engagement ” in living, Hunter and Csik-
szentmihalyi (2003) studied a diverse national sample
of 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th graders. They compared ado-
lescents who were “chronically interested” as they went
about their lives, versus adolescents who reported being
habitually bored. The interested, engaged adolescents
had significantly higher global self-esteem, internal
locus of control, and optimism about their future, and
significantly less pessimism than the bored adolescents.
Hunter and Csikszentmihalyi (2003) reasoned that,
over time, engaged adolescents will develop more inter-
nal resources of confidence and enthusiasm—more
“psychological capital”—than their disengaged peers,
because they view themselves as more effective agents
in constructing the flow of their lives. Moreover, their
openness and interested connection to their experiences
may both partly arise from their social capital in the
form of adults’ enhancing and guiding their interests,
and also help create further social capital, as their very
interested nature attracts others to them. Ryff and
Singer (1998) also ascribe high importance to the effect
that individuals’ perceptions of events or circumstances
have on psychological coping and how “physiological
cascades unfold” (p. 13) based on perceptions.
These theoretical descriptions of social and psycho-
logical capital, and the processes that link them, are
quite analogous to Benson et al.’s (1998) formulation of
“external” and “internal” developmental assets being
key “ building blocks of success.” Similar too is Lerner,
Wertlieb, and Jacobs (2003) elaboration of the recipro-
cal individual-context relations that are the heart of de-
velopmental systems theory.
Dworkin, Larsen, and Hansen (2003) also provide a
theoretical explanation of how youth participation in
one kind of developmental context—extracurricular or
community-based activities—might positively influ-
ence development through young people’s actions. They
postulated that such activities facilitate six different
developmental processes: Identity exploration; the de-
velopment of initiative (“ the capacity to direct atten-
tion and effort over time toward a challenging goal,”
p. 18) and goal-directed behavior; growth in emotional
competencies; formation of new and varied peer net-
work connections; development of social skills; and
the acquisition of social capital through developing
relationships with nonfamily adults. Dworkin et al.
concluded that a common thread connecting these
processes is that the young people participating in
youth programs were developing a sense of agency and
seeing themselves as producers of their own develop-
ment. This empirical conclusion provides support for
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
one of the basic tenets of both ecological and especially
developmental systems theory, that children and youth
help to construct their contexts and do not simply “in-
teract ” with them (Lerner, 2002).
Masten et al. (1999) used multiple methods to follow
a group of 200 urban 8- to 12-year-olds for 10 years, in-
vestigating pathways to resilience. Individuals were re-
silient if they were adequately competent in academic
achievement, conduct, and peer relations even when ex-
periencing high adversity. They experienced positive
adaptational systems much like those of low adversity
and competent peers, namely, adequate IQ, high parent-
ing quality, high self-worth, and a cheerful, energetic
outlook. Consistent with positive youth development
Hypothesis 2, competence in childhood longitudinally
predicted positive changes in parenting quality during
adolescence, and parenting quality in childhood longi-
tudinally contributed to positive changes in peer social
competence during adolescence. Children’s own behav-
iors changed the kind of family context they experi-
enced, as reflected in parenting, and through that path
altered another developmental context, that of later
peer relations.
When youth provide community service, they partic-
ipate in an activity that explicitly is intended to alter
both person and context. For example, Metz, McLellan,
and Youniss (2003) studied 367 mostly European
American, middle-class, public high school students in
Boston, examining how different kinds of community
service facilitated civic development (e.g., concern
with poverty, intention to vote, demonstrating for a
cause, future volunteering) over the course of a school
year. Both social cause service (remedying a social
problem) and standard service (from coaching to raking
leaves) were associated with greater future intentions
to serve than was not participating in service. However,
social cause service during the school year was associ-
ated with greater concern for social issues and uncon-
ventional civic involvement than was standard service
or no service.
Eccles and Barber (1999) examined the effects of
10th-grade prosocial activity involvement (church in-
volvement and/or participating in volunteer and commu-
nity service) on concurrent and future (2 years later)
risk behaviors and academic outcomes. Students en-
gaged in prosocial activities drank alcohol and used
marijuana less at both time points than did students not
engaged in these activities. In addition, involved stu-
dents also had higher concurrent and future grade point
919
averages than did their noninvolved peers, even after
controlling for initial levels of outcome.
Scales, Blyth, Berkas, and Kielsmeier (2000) com-
pared, over the course of a school year, social responsi-
bility and academic success among middle-school
students engaged in service-learning projects and a con-
trol group of students. Youth action had significant ef-
fects on young people’s social contexts: Youth in
service-learning projects were more likely to maintain
concern for others’ welfare than were control students.
Moreover, service-learning students, especially girls,
also declined significantly less then did control students
in their frequency of talking with parents about school, a
contextual effect (parent involvement) related to positive
academic achievement.
In a study by Allen, Philliber, Herrling, and Kuper-
minc (1997), almost 700 high school students were ran-
domly assigned to a treatment group, which consisted of
structured volunteer community service time as well as
a related classroom-based curriculum, or to a control
group. Students involved in volunteer activities had sig-
nificantly lower rates of course failure, school suspen-
sions, and rates of pregnancy (ever been for females,
responsible for pregnancy for males) than did the con-
trol group.
In a study of 972 urban, predominantly non-European
American seventh and eightg graders, O’Donnell and
colleagues (1999) found that students who participated
in community service reported significantly less vio-
lence than did control students, after controlling for ini-
tial levels of violence, gender, ethnicity, and socially
desirable responses. Students who had only a violence-
prevention curriculum did not differ from controls at the
6-month follow-up, suggesting that participation in com-
munity service was critical to the changes in behavior.
These studies illustrate the significance of different
kinds of youth engagement on changes in developmental
outcomes over time. In particular, given that in many
cases these effects held after controlling for potential
selection-effect confounds (Atkins & Hart, 2003), these
results suggest that all youth, regardless of background,
can benefit from these kinds of experiences.
Youniss and colleagues (Yates & Youniss, 1996;
Youniss, McLellan, & Yates, 1997) offer a more spe-
cific model for how youth participation actively facili-
tates not only a sense of identity, but specifically, civic
identity. They argue that “participatory action” during
adolescent identity formation infuses one’s sense of
self with a civic component; this civic component then
920 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
becomes an inextricable part of how an adolescent sees
himself or herself (Youniss et al., 1997).
Youniss proposes three related consequences of youth
engagement that work to influence identity formation.
First, participating in community activities “allows
youth to see society as a construction of human actors
with political and moral goals rather than as a distant,
preformed object ” (Youniss et al., 1997). Second, by
virtue of engaging in these kinds of activities, youth
build a sense of agency regarding their own abilities to
influence their surrounding contexts. Third, community
involvement instills in youth a sense of responsibility for
welfare of the community and its members (see also
Lerner, Dowling, et al., 2003). These processes have
lifelong effects on the attitudes individuals hold and the
actions they take. Support for this hypothesis is pro-
vided in Youniss et al. (1997). Retrospective accounts
indicated that participation in youth organizations dur-
ing adolescence increased the likelihood of civic behav-
iors (e.g., membership in local civic, church, service,
and professional groups) 15 years later in adulthood.
This is interpreted as indicating that youth engagement
acts as a gateway to future civic involvement (Tolman &
Pittman, 2001).
The research thus shows the positive impact that
youth action has on both person—young people them-
selves—and social context. However, most of this re-
search concerns community service or service-learning
programs, which represent only one kind of “ youth ac-
tion” or leadership. One review of more than 800 studies
concluded that youth “empowerment,” broadly con-
strued, is a relatively less represented area of research
in positive youth development (Scales & Leffert, 2004).
Hypothesis Three
The covariation hypothesis states that the Person factors
(e.g., achievement motivation) and context factors (e.g.,
caring school climate or school boundaries) covary and
are mutually reinforcing. That is, ecological factors and
individual attributes tend to be directly related. Increas-
ing assets of one kind tends to increase the other.
Developmental theory posits that person and context
truly are mutually interactive. Thus, developmental as-
sets “in” the person, such as social competencies or pos-
itive identity, should be found operating together with
developmental assets “outside” the person in their vari-
ous contexts (e.g., family, schools, peers, community) to
promote developmental well-being and thriving. In sup-
port of this hypothesis, studies consistently find con-
stellations of developmental nutrients, including both
internal and external factors, to be associated with vari-
ous outcomes. For example, Dukes and Stein (2001)
measured several protective factors, including: self-
esteem, positive school attitudes, prosocial activities
( homework, clubs, service), purpose in life, and proso-
cial bonds (attitudes toward police officers). Outcomes
included drug use, delinquency, and weapons posses-
sion. A second-order factor comprising the assets pre-
dicted significantly fewer of those problem behaviors
among a sample of 13,000 6th to 12th grade students in
Colorado. Similarly, in the Add Health study, lower
levels of violence were significantly predicted by par-
ent-family connectedness, parental expectations for ed-
ucation (weakly), and school connectedness. However,
parent-adolescent activities or self-esteem did not pre-
dict lower levels of violence (Resnick et al., 1997).
Leffert et al. (1998) studied a sample of nearly
100,000 youth from more than 200 U.S. communities.
They reported that a cluster of four assets—positive
peer influence, peaceful conflict resolution, school en-
gagement, and safety—added 30% to the explained vari-
ance of engagement in violence, compared to the 8%
explained by demographics.
Crosnoe, Erickson, and Dornbusch (2002) studied a
diverse sample of adolescents from nine California and
Wisconsin high schools. They reported that “protection”
against delinquency and substance use existed among
adolescents who experienced warm relations with par-
ents, came from relatively well-organized households,
valued academic achievement, were engaged at school,
felt close to teachers, and performed well in school.
Catterall (1998) analyzed subsamples from the
National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 to ex-
plore the concepts of commitment resilience and aca-
demic resilience among 8th graders followed through
10th grade. Commitment resilience was the recovery by
10th grade of confidence in graduating among those
who in 8th grade had “any degree of doubt ” about grad-
uating. Academic resilience was the significantly better
performance in English of 10th-grade students who in
8th grade had C or lower grades in that subject. Both
kinds of resilience were fostered by a similar constella-
tion of positive assets. These assets included family in-
volvement in and supports for schooling (e.g., books in
the home, a place for studying, rules about TV watching
[for academic resilience only]), teacher responsiveness
( listening and being interested in students), fairness of
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
school discipline policies, and student involvement in
school and extracurricular activities.
These studies illustrate the commonly observed link-
age of both person and context factors in positive youth
development. Some assets, such as school bonding, also
well exemplify the often tenuous distinction between
“internal” and “external” resources. School bonding is a
particularly important developmental asset, having been
linked to positive outcomes such as reduced substance
use, antisocial behavior, risky behaviors such as early
sexual initiation, delinquency and, most substantially,
academic performance. Four dimensions of school
bonding have been identified: Attachment to school
(youth care about their school), attachment to personnel
(connection to school adults), school commitment (the
priority of school for youth), and school involvement
(participation in school activities). In the social devel-
opment model, involvement is seen more as a contributor
to school bonding than a result of it (Maddox & Prinz,
2003), but that the construct comprises both internal and
external dimensions underscores the covariation of per-
son and context influences on development.
Hypothesis Four
The fourth hypothesis, termed the “pile-up” hypothesis,
states that the total number of positive experiences
(i.e., a pile-up of assets) is concurrently related to both
positive and negative outcomes. Moreover, assets are
functionally equivalent; it is the number of assets that
matters, not specific assets or combinations of assets,
because context-person fusion creates an infinite diver-
sity of combinations of assets that “matter most.” Re-
search provides considerable support for the first part of
this hypothesis, the “pile-up” effect associated with
greater numbers of assets. But there is also considerable
evidence that specific assets or clusters of assets matter
more or less for specific youth (see also below under
the universality/diversity hypothesis), and depending
on the developmental outcome the assets are hypothe-
sized to predict.
The accumulation of developmental strengths repeat-
edly has been shown to add value over the positive ef-
fects of a lesser number of strengths. As discussed in
Benson et al. (2003) there are two manifestations of this
pile-up, horizontal and vertical. Horizontal pile-up is
reflected in cross-sectional studies that document an
increased association of assets and outcomes at a
single point in time when the young person experiences
921
greater numbers of those assets. Horizontal pile-up also
implies contextual breadth, if not synergy, in the experi-
ence of assets, as when the accumulation of assets expe-
rienced in multiple ecological contexts (e.g., family,
school, community, peer) is more strongly associated
with positive outcomes than are assets experienced in
only one context.
Jessor, Van Den Bos, Vanderryn, Costa, and Turbin’s
(1995) longitudinal study of seventh to ninth graders was
one of the first to demonstrate, not only that an accumu-
lation of risk factors was associated with greater prob-
lem behavior, but that a greater accumulation of
protective factors was associated with fewer problem be-
havior. Implicit in their Protective Factor Index was the
representation of multiple contexts, including school,
friends, family, and community elements. Gutman and
Midgely (2000) documented the multiplicative effects of
developmental assets on the academic achievement of
African American students living in poverty and making
the transition to middle school. Students with either
family ( high parental involvement) or school protective
factors (perceived teacher support, or feelings of school
belonging) had higher GPAs in sixth grade than class-
mates who did not experience those nutrients. But stu-
dents who had both family and school assets had higher
GPAs than students who had only family or school assets
but not both.
In a sample of more than 100,000 youth, Benson,
Scales, Leffert, and Roehlkepartain (1999) found that
each successive increase in a young person’s quartile
asset level, from asset-depleted (0 to 10 assets) to asset-
rich (31 to 40 assets) was associated with significantly
more adolescent thriving (e.g., school success, overcom-
ing adversity) and significantly less risk behavior (e.g.,
problem alcohol use, early sexual intercourse).
A subsequent analysis of a more diverse sample of
217,000 middle and high school students from more
than 300 U.S. communities revealed the same evidence
of horizontal pile-up (Developmental assets, 2001).
Young people with 0 to 10 assets report an average of 4.1
high-risk behavior patterns; those with 11 to 20 assets
report 2.3 risk patterns; those with 21 to 30 assets report
an asset of just 1 high-risk behavior pattern; and asset-
rich youth, and with 31 to 40 assets, report an average of
just .3 high-risk patterns.
Hollister-Wagner, Foshee, and Jackson (2001) stud-
ied how developmental assets (protective factors in their
terminology) might promote resilience to aggression
among adolescents. In their study of rural eighth and
922 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
ninth graders, the protective factors investigated were
importance of religion, self-esteem, closeness to one
adult, relationship competence, constructive communi-
cation skills, and constructive anger response. For fe-
males, but not for males, the researchers found that with
each increase in the simple number of protective factors,
the relationship between risk factors (e.g., having been
hit, witnessing parental violence) and reports of beating
up one’s peers weakened. Eighth and ninth-grade girls
who had all six protective factors were about three times
less likely as girls with only two, and four times less
likely as girls with no protective factors, to report beat-
ing up someone.
Relationships with adults in school and community
settings also provide valuable sources of protection from
risk. For example, in the National Longitudinal Study on
Adolescent Health, Resnick et al. (1997) reported that
young people who experienced closer connections to
their families and schools were significantly less likely
than other adolescents to engage in a variety of risk-tak-
ing behaviors. Each of the contexts (family and school)
by itself explained relatively modest portions (5% to
18%) of the variance across outcomes such as emotional
distress, violence, and substance use. But when the ef-
fects of the other context (family or school) and assets in
still other contexts (e.g., religious involvement) were in-
cluded, the contribution of these assets to outcome vari-
ance increased by more than 50%.
In another report utilizing the Add Health data (U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services, 1999), the
extent of several positive behaviors among 7th to 12th
graders was noted, such as getting B or higher averages,
involvement in extracurricular activities, and religious
involvement once a month or more. The more positive
behaviors in which students engaged, the fewer the num-
ber of risk behaviors in which they engaged.
Cumulative environmental risk has been shown to be
predictive of internalizing and externalizing problems,
not only as the absolute number of risks increases, but as
the number of social domains (e.g., family, peer, school,
neighborhood) being high-risk increases (Gerard &
Buehler, 2004). Sanders’s (1998) study of more than
800 urban African American students in the eighth
grade lends further support to the hypothesis that, anal-
ogous to the findings for risk, strengths piling up across
ecological domains magnify the protective and thriving
effects of positive experiences in single contexts.
He reported that when all three support contexts—
family, school, and church—were combined, the effect
on academic self-concept (which most strongly pre-
dicted actual achievement) and achievement ideology
were stronger than the unique effects of any of the indi-
vidual contexts (the combined effect on school conduct
was comparable to the individual effect from teacher
support). This finding suggested that “ when students re-
ceive support from the family, church, and school simul-
taneously, the effects on their attitudes about self and
the importance of schooling are magnified” (Sanders,
1998, p. 402).
The effects of positive experience across multiple
contexts can be seen as well in Scales, Benson, et al.’s
(2000) study of the relations among developmental
assets and thriving indicators. For example, among
European American 6th to 12th graders, achievement
motivation alone explained 19% of the variance in
school success (self-reported grades). But school en-
gagement, time in youth programs, time at home, plan-
ning and decision making, parent involvement in school,
and self-esteem added another 12% of variance (Scales,
Benson, et al., 2000). The Search Institute findings are
consistent with those reported by Eccles, Early, Frasier,
Belansky, and McCarthy (1997). In their study of mid-
dle school students, the explained variance of adolescent
outcomes was “substantially increased” when all the
contexts studied (family, school, and peers) were added
into regressions, leading the researchers to conclude that
positive experiences across contexts add “linearly and
independently” to contribute to positive development.
Brody, Dorsey, Forehand, and Armistead (2002)
studied the contribution of supportive parenting and
classroom processes to the psychological adjustment of
African American elementary and middle school stu-
dents living in poverty in the South. For both grade co-
horts, they found that students experiencing high
parenting ( high monitoring and a supportive, involved
mother-child relationship) or classroom quality ( high
levels of organization, clarity of rules, and involvement
of students) had better adjustment than students experi-
encing low quality in both contexts. However, students
experiencing high quality in both contexts had the best
adjustment, as reflected in the highest self-regulation
scores, and lowest externalization and depression scores.
Similar findings, among fifth and sixth graders, are
reported by Paulson, Marchant, and Rothlisberg (1998)
in a study of the effect of children having assets across
contexts. Children with the highest achievement per-
ceived a consistency and congruence of parenting and
teaching styles, accompanied by high parental involve-
ment in school and a caring school climate. The assets
provided by family and school enabled those children to
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
enjoy more positive outcomes than children who experi-
enced assets in only one of those contexts.
A test of the social development model (Catalano &
Kosterman, 1996) found an acceptable fit to predicting
drug use among 590 17- and 18-year-olds on the basis of
variables measuring prosocial and antisocial influences
from fifth grade through middle school. In addition to
prior drug use, the model includes such protective fac-
tors as: perceived opportunities and rewards for proso-
cial involvement ( knowing where to go to join clubs,
participating in family decisions, having lots of chances
for extracurricular activities), reported involvement in
prosocial activities (including church attendance and
membership in community groups), social competen-
cies, attachment and bonding to prosocial others, and
belief in the moral order (e.g., importance of telling the
truth, whether it is okay to cheat). All the path coeffi-
cients for protective factors to drug use were significant
and in the expected direction.
In a study of 12,500 9th to 12th graders from the
original Add Health study pool of 7th to 12th graders,
Zweig, Phillips, and Lindberg (2002) reported that stu-
dents with higher levels of protective factors (e.g., deci-
sion-making skills, participation in physical activities)
consistently had significantly lower levels of behaviors
such as sexual activity, alcohol use, binge drinking,
other drug use, fighting, and suicidal behaviors.
Similarly, Jessor et al. (1998) examined risk and pro-
tection especially among disadvantaged students, with
disadvantage defined by low parental occupational sta-
tus, low parental education, and single-parent family
structure. The outcome variables of interest were school
engagement, low problem behavior, and a composite of
the two, labeled “Making It.” They reported that a pro-
tective factor index contributed about as much to vari-
ance in the successful outcomes as did a risk factor index.
For example, risk contributed 32% to the composite mea-
sure of Making It, compared to 26% for protection.
Benson and Roehlkepartain (2004) studied the rela-
tion of assets to substance use among a cross-sectional
sample of more than 217,000 6th to 12th graders. They
reported that young people with low levels of develop-
mental assets (0 to 10 of the 40 assets) were from 2.4 to
4.4 times more likely to engage in different kinds of al-
cohol, tobacco, and other drug use than were students at
average or higher levels of assets (21 or more assets).
The effects of assets were stronger than that of SES or
living in a single-parent family.
The pile-up effect is seen for other outcomes as well.
For example, the overall level of evidence (Miller &
923
Thoresen, 2003) for the theoretical connection between
assets and greater school success appears to be persua-
sive, supported by scores of peer-reviewed studies. How-
ever, this conclusion pertains only when a number of
assets and other factors (e.g., teachers’ collective effi-
cacy) are operating together; rarely do single assets or
other factors (excepting near tautologies such as previ-
ous grades predicting future grades) account for consid-
erable variance in school success outcomes (Wang,
Hartel, & Walberg, 1990). Benson et al. (1999), for ex-
ample, reported that in a sample of nearly 100,000 6th to
12th graders, each quartile increase in students’ levels
of 40 developmental assets (i.e., from 0 to 10, 11 to 20)
was associated with a significant improvement in self-
reported grades.
Similarly, Scales and Benson (2004) created a proso-
cial orientation measure by combining several items
tapping adolescents’ attitudes toward helping others,
and several items asking about intentions to help those
in need, working to improve their school, or tutoring or
coaching younger children over the next year. They then
examined the concurrent relation to prosocial orienta-
tion and the number of developmental assets adolescents
reported. In a racially/ethnically diverse sample of more
than 5,000 6th to 12th graders, they found that each in-
crease in the quartile level of the asset domains studied
(0 to 2, 3 to 5, 6 to 8, or 9 to 12 assets) was associated
with a significant increase in the mean score on proso-
cial orientation. They also found that, controlling for
grade in school, race/ethnicity, and parental education,
both boys and girls with above average levels of proso-
cial orientation were nearly four times more likely to re-
port actual volunteer service of at least 1 hour per week
in the past year.
Overall, the empirical evidence is consistent and
strong for the theoretical relation between the number
of assets that adolescents experience and the positive
developmental outcomes of both greater thriving and
lessened risk behaviors.
Hypothesis Five
The longitudinal hypothesis is defined as the fusion of
context /person dynamics in the presence of high levels
of developmental assets results over time in (a) lessened
risk behaviors; ( b) increased academic achievement;
(c) increased contribution; and (d) higher levels of other
thriving indicators.
Numerous studies have demonstrated the contribu-
tion that developmental assets make to positive youth
924 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
outcomes not only concurrently but also over time. For
example, more than 30 longitudinal studies showing
these relations are cited in comprehensive reviews of re-
search on developmental assets in adolescence (Scales &
Leffert, 2004) and middle childhood (Scales et al.,
2004). Although in all cases, the studies focus on only
one or a small number of assets, not the entire range of
40 assets identified by Search Institute, the results are
nevertheless consistent: The experience of developmen-
tal assets contributes significantly to the likelihood of
subsequent protection from high-risk behaviors and pro-
motion of thriving.
For example, Moore and Glei (1995) found that young
people who as children and adolescents participated sig-
nificantly more than their peers in school clubs were es-
pecially likely to report positive outcomes in young
adulthood (ages 18 to 22). Outcomes included closer re-
lationships with their parents, and greater involvement
in community affairs or volunteer work.
In a small (N = 100) sample of racially/ethnically di-
verse adolescents from low-income families, Way and
Robinson (2003) found, as predicted, that the asset of
positive school climate contributed to higher levels of
self esteem at 2 years later, over and above the positive
effects of family and friend support. Masten et al.
(1999) followed a sample of urban 8- to 12-year-olds for
10 years. They showed that even after controlling for IQ
and socioeconomic status (SES), the quality of parenting
in mid-adolescence predicted academic, conduct, and
social competence in late adolescence. Perhaps more
striking, the quality of parenting in childhood predicted
social competence 10 years later in late adolescence.
Pettit, Bates, and Dodge (1997) reported similar lon-
gitudinal results in their 7-year study of more than 500
Tennessee and Indiana families with kindergartners.
The quality of supportive parenting children received as
kindergartners (e.g., parental warmth and involvement,
proactive teaching, calm discussion) contributed a small
(1% to 3%) but unique amount of variance to the predic-
tion of their functioning in both kindergarten and grade
six, including whether they exhibited problem behav-
iors, were socially skillful, and performed well in
school. This study was notable for showing that the pres-
ence of positive parenting, not merely the absence of
harsh parenting, plays an important role in contributing
to child well-being in both the short- and longer-term.
Moreover, as for studies reflecting horizontal pile-
up, experiencing assets in multiple contexts also is de-
velopmentally advantageous over time. Cook, Herman,
Phillips, and Settersten (2002) reported in their study
of changes in early adolescent development that the ef-
fects of individual contexts on development were gener-
ally quite modest. However, the additive effects of
adolescents’ multiple positive contexts were consider-
able, a result in alignment with other research showing
the value of young people experiencing “redundancy”
of developmental assets across their ecologies (Benson
et al., 2003).
Ultimately, the most important “outcome” of positive
development is more postive development. The findings
of the Iowa Youth and Families Project are illustrative.
The researchers (Conger & Conger, 2002) reported that
the assets of nurturant and involved parenting experi-
enced in seventh grade helped young people have fewer
emotional and behavioral problems and function more
competently during adolescence, even when dealing
with family economic adversity. But young people who
experienced those family assets during adolescence also
were themselves more competent parents and more suc-
cessful in their romantic relationships years later in
early adulthood (5 years posthigh school).
Gambone et al. (2002) created indices to measure
several optimal adolescent developmental outcomes
(young people are productive, connected, and can navi-
gate through their worlds effectively), and several opti-
mal young adult outcomes (individuals are on a path to
economic self-sufficiency, have healthy family and so-
cial relationships, and are involved in the community).
About half of youth were doing well overall in young
adulthood, but 69% of those with optimal developmental
milestones in high school subsequently did very well,
with a 41% greater chance of experiencing such optimal
young adult outcomes. Moreover, young people who had
optimal levels of the developmental nutrients early in
high school were much more likely to have the positive
developmental milestones later in high school. For ex-
ample, youth who had supportive relationships with par-
ents, teachers, and friends early in high school were
100% more likely to have optimal developmental out-
comes later in high school.
Analysis by Search Institute (2004) of a longitudinal
sample of 370 students in St. Louis Park, Minnesota,
from when they were in 7th to 9th grades to when they
were in 10th to 12th grades, showed that, in general, the
more assets students reported in 1998, the less they re-
ported risk-taking behavior patterns (e.g., driving and
alcohol problems, school problems) and the more they
reported indicators of thriving (e.g., delayed gratifica-
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
tion, physical health) in 2001 (unpublished analyses
for this chapter; for study details see Scales, Benson,
Roehlkepartain, Sesma, & van Dulmen, in press; Scales
& Roehlkepartain, 2003). These results were largely
maintained even when controlling for earlier levels of
the outcome variables. Additional perspective came
from using a more person-centered analysis. Students
who stayed stable or went up .5 SD in their assets over
those 3 years had significantly fewer problem alcohol
use or school problems, and more informal helping,
leadership, overcoming adversity, and school success
than students who declined .5 SD in their assets.
Moreover, both concurrently and longitudinally, each
quartile increase in assets was associated with signifi-
cantly higher GPA, and the longitudinal relations held
even when controlling for the effects of earlier GPA
(Scales & Roehlkepartain, 2003). The difference in
mean GPA between asset-rich students (31 to 40 assets)
and asset-depleted students (0 to 10 assets) was equiva-
lent to the difference between a B+ and a C average. In
addition, growth curve analysis showed a small but sig-
nificant relationship between increase in assets and in-
crease in GPA, such that mean GPA increased about 1⁄ 5 th
of a grade point over time for each increase of one asset.
In a small study of 95 inner-city sixth to eighth
graders (about 60% non-European American), Dubow,
Arnett, Smith, and Ippolito (2001) reported that the
asset of positive expectations for the future, as assessed
in September, significantly predicted lower levels of a
problem behavior index in June, including using alcohol.
In addition, higher initial levels of perceived problem-
solving efficacy and family support predicted increases
over the school year in positive expectations for the fu-
ture. In another example, the social development model
was applied to promote children’s bonding to school in
Seattle. Children who received a program in Grade 5
emphasizing the development of social competencies
and bonding to school experienced, by age 21, signifi-
cantly more responsible sexual behavior, including fewer
partners and less sexually transmitted diseases, than
peers not exposed to the program (Lonczak, Abbott,
Hawkins, Kosterman, & Catalano, 2002).
Benson and Roehlkepartain (2004) also conducted
longitudinal analyses on a sample of middle school stu-
dents who reported abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, or
drug (ATOD) use in 1997. Those who continued to ab-
stain in high school 4 years later, compared to those who
began ATOD use, had significantly higher levels of as-
sets in both 1997 and 2001, especially in the categories
925
of support, and boundaries and expectations. These re-
sults offer an additional provocative suggestion of the
role of developmental assets in protecting young people
from ATOD risks.
Participation in youth programs was found in both
the Scales, Benson, et al. (2000) and Scales and
Roehlkepartain (2003) Search Institute studies to be
linked to school success. In a study focusing on the role
of such extracurricular programs on posthigh school
educational achievement, Mahoney, Cairns, and Farmer
(2003) utilized the Carolina Longitudinal Study to
follow nearly 700 students annually from 4th grade
through 12th grade, interviewing them again when the
young people were 20. They found that consistency of
extracurricular participation was significantly associ-
ated with both interpersonal competence over time, as
well as with educational aspirations in late adolescence,
and both of those factors were linked to educational sta-
tus (whether in postsecondary education or not) at age
20. The researchers explained the theoretical basis for
such results by noting that the peer and adult relation-
ships and skills associated with sustained extracurricu-
lar activity participation promote social acceptance,
positive social identity development, less depressed
mood and anti-social behavior, school engagement, and
higher educational expectations.
In an analysis of several waves of data from the Na-
tional Education Longitudinal Study of 1988, Zaff,
Moore, Papillo, and Williams (2003) reported that vol-
unteering 2 years after high school was significantly
more likely among students who enjoyed key develop-
mental assets from grades 8 to 12, such as having high
levels of parental support and monitoring, positive peer
influences, and attendance at religious services. More-
over, if students consistently participated in extracurric-
ular activities during grades 8 to 12—regardless of
whether those activities were sports, schools clubs, or
community clubs—they were twice as likely to volunteer
and to have voted in local or national elections 2 years
after high school as students with only occasional ex-
tracurricular participation.
The overall pattern of these results suggests that de-
velopmental strengths provide some unique proportion
of influence over time in addition to their much more
substantial impact on concurrent developmental out-
comes. In both their strong concurrent relations and
small to moderate longitudinal relations, they provide
support for the theoretical proposition that developmen-
tal assets positively affect developmental trajectories.
926 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Hypothesis Six
The Community Hypothesis is based on the notion that
community is a viable focus for understanding and pro-
moting dynamics crucial for maximizing context /person
relationships. By analogy to public health, the largest
improvements in positive youth development will occur
in response to interventions/initiatives that are aimed at
changing communities more so than those aimed at indi-
viduals. How the community is defined depends on the
target(s) of the intervention /initiative.
The inadequacy of individual treatment is related to
the principles of public health and prevention. Despite
dramatic improvements in medical treatment, Kreipe,
Ryan, and Seibold-Simpson (2004, p. 104) point out that
“Improved sanitation, work environments, and immu-
nization programs as well as safety measures . . . have
done more to improve health than one-to-one medical
treatment.”
Similarly, community mobilization to promote posi-
tive youth development must address not only formal
organizations and programs but also informal norms
and relationships. Studies show that youth do better in
communities where adults share some basic values,
norms, and expectations, including understandings
about what kind of behavior is acceptable and what to
do when someone crosses the line (Damon, 1997;
Sampson et al., 1997).
In this section, we refer to community as the inter-
locking systems of contexts, ecologies, and settings that
moderate developmental growth. Accordingly, there are
within this broad conception a wide range of influences
on development, including family, neighborhood, school,
playground, and congregation, the relationships inside
and beyond these settings, and the policy, business and
economic infrastructure of a community.
Tolan, Gorman-Smith, and Henry (2003) conducted a
6-year longitudinal study of several hundred African
American and Latino adolescent males and their pri-
mary caretakers. As predicted by bioecological theory
(Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998), they reported a com-
plex relationship among community structural charac-
teristics, neighborhood processes, parenting practices,
and youths’ violent behavior. Neighborhood concen-
trated poverty and high crime levels were found to pre-
dict the extent of perceived neighborhood problems and
neighborliness, as well as directly to predict parenting
practices, such that high poverty and crime were related
to more restrictive parenting, which reduced violence by
limiting youths’ gang involvement.
Scales and Roehlkepartain (2003) found that for
every point higher students scored in 1998 on a develop-
mental assets factor reflecting connection to commu-
nity, they were three times more likely than other
students to be in the high GPA group (B+ or higher) in
2001. Assets in that factor included youth programs, re-
ligious community, service to others, creative activities,
reading for pleasure, other adult relationships, and adult
role models. The results of this study are provocative in
suggesting how a multiplicity of assets reflecting the de-
velopmental attentiveness of “community” may favor-
ably affect young people’s school success.
Similarly, Greenberg et al. (2003) reviewed a wide
range of evidence that suggests the most effective
school-based prevention and youth development data are
those that “enhance students’ personal and social as-
sets” and improve the school-community environment
(p. 467). The focus of effective approaches is not on nar-
row programs addressing a single issue—programs that
often may be disruptive more than beneficial—but com-
prehensive efforts that try simultaneously to build stu-
dents’ health, character, citizenship and community
connection, school orientation, and academic perfor-
mance. The American Psychological Association’s Task
Force on Prevention, Promoting Strength Resilience,
and Health in Young People, also endorses a broad ap-
proach that coordinates problem-prevention with efforts
to build young people’s competence, relationships with
others, and contributions to the community (Weissberg
et al., 2003).
Echoing the research presented earlier as relevant to
the first positive youth development hypothesis (i.e.,
that contexts are modifiable, and that these changes in
contexts have consequences for youths’ developmental
outcomes), a core of strategies repeatedly appears in re-
ports of successful efforts. These include: building stu-
dents’ social-emotional learning repertoire, providing
frequent opportunities for student participation, such as
through community service, fostering caring, support-
ive relationships among students, teachers, and parents,
and consistently rewarding positive social, health, and
academic behaviors through school-parent-community
collaborations.
Much of the source for the impact of community
comes from adults outside young people’s own families.
Recent research has documented clearly the value of
formal mentoring relationships for young people
(DuBois, Holloway, Valentine, & Cooper, 2002; Rhodes
et al., 2000). The more global influence of “other adult
assets” that occur quite naturally in young people’s
 Research Support for Key Positive Youth Development Hypotheses
lives, such as with neighbors, is potentially more far-
reaching but has been less well studied. The limited evi-
dence suggests that only 15% of young people report
experiencing a “rich” level of relationships with adults
other than parents (Scales, 2003; Scales et al., 2002).
But the climate of social expectations is crucial.
Sixty-two percent of U.S. adults with strong social ex-
pectations for involvement are highly engaged with
other people’s children, versus 41% for those who feel
only moderate expectations, 22% for those with mild
expectations, and just 9% for those with weak social
expectations for involvement (Scales, 2003). Conse-
quently, although studies regularly demonstrate the ef-
fect of “community” as a source of developmental
assets, potentiation of the full range of possible posi-
tive community impact on youth development requires
attention to changing existing social norms about adult-
youth engagement.
Some of the more ambitious efforts to intervene at
the level of community have been initiated by national
foundations. The Kellogg Youth Initiative Partnerships
(KYIP) were launched in 1987 to assist three Michigan
communities in expanding beyond investment in “ fixing
young people’s problems” to community collaborations
engaged in promoting youth potential. Combining ser-
vice integration with youth development principles and a
focus on school reform, the Annie E. Casey Foundation
in 1987 launched New Futures, a 5-year demonstration
project in five cities with high percentages of high-risk
youth. In 1995, with funding from a consortium of foun-
dations, Public/ Private Ventures (P/ PV) launched its
Community Change for Youth Development Initiative
(CCYD). The CCYD provided communities with a set
of research-based core principles and with strategies for
implementing them. Among the principles were adult
support and guidance and structured activities during
nonschool hours.
None of these initiatives reported large and consis-
tent effects in terms of outcomes for youth. However,
new programs, organizations, and leaders demon-
strated enduring impact. For example, 5 years after
New Futures funding was ended, investigators (Hahn &
Lanspery, 2001) attributed “change that abides” to the
“ripeness” of the communities for change, including
leadership, a widespread recognition of problems, and
utilization of other resources and initiatives with com-
patible goals.
In a similar vein, a report from the Kellogg Founda-
tion (n.d.) after the 1st decade of KYIP stressed the
critical importance of engaging the community. Such
927
engagement critically includes youth themselves. And
from the lessons of CCYD, Gambone et al. (2002) have
articulated and demonstrated a convincing rationale for
evaluating the opportunities such an initiative creates for
youth rather than focusing solely on impact or outcomes
for individual youth. The “community action framework
for youth development ” (Connell et al., 2001) embeds
such opportunities in a theory of change that can be the-
oretically and empirically linked to desired outcomes,
some intermediate-term and some long-term.
In a particularly useful analysis of community initia-
tives, Dorgan and Ferguson (2004) examined factors crit-
ical to the success (or lack of it) in the New Futures
initiative and the New York City Beacons project (com-
munity centers operating in public school buildings).
Though the two initiatives had similar aspirations, they
were directed by quite different theories of change and
implementation strategies. The authors credit the partic-
ular success of the Beacons project to a clear, understand-
able, and politically compelling emphasis on co-locating
services, supports and opportunities in neighborhood
schools to create “safe havens” for youth. In addition, the
Beacons’ focus on professionals working directly with
youth and on the grassroots support of volunteers, par-
ents, and neighborhood residents led to faster achieve-
ment of goals than the New Futures approach of creating
collaboratives to plan and coordinate youth services and
programs city-wide.
A somewhat different theory of change undergirds
Search Institute’s national Healthy Community • Healthy
Youth movement. With 600 communities currently en-
gaged (Benson, 2003a), this change strategy invites com-
munities to create multiple innovative “experiments” to
transform contexts and ecologies with a particular eye
to mobilizing asset-building adult and peer relation-
ships. A number of studies are completed or ongoing in
capturing both how transformative change is made and
the connection of these changes to adolescent health and
well-being (Mannes, Lewis, Hintz, Foster, & Nakkula,
2002; Whitlock & Hamiltion, 2003). A longitudinal
study in St. Louis Park, Minnesota provides suggestive
evidence that sustained community-wide engagement
with asset-building has population-level effects on sev-
eral measures of well-being (Roehlkepartain, Benson, &
Sesma, 2003).
These studies generally support the broad hypothesis
that describes “community” as an important focus of pos-
itive youth development efforts. However, much research
is needed to better understand how specific conceptual-
izations of “community” operate to positively influence
928 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications

young people, and how those effects may vary as a func- Gender
tion of varying realities of person-context fusion.
Studies consistently find that females report higher
levels of most developmental assets than do males,
Hypothesis Seven with the exception of self-esteem (see reviews by
Scales & Leffert, 2004; Scales et al., 2004). The con-
The Universality/ Diversity Hypothesis proposed that
sistency of such findings across studies and measures
there are developmental supports and opportunities that
provides evidence for the validity of this basic conclu-
enhance developmental success for all youth; strategies
sion. However, these systematic differences may be
and tactics for promoting them vary. Moreover, be-
produced by a lack of measures tapping potential as-
cause all youth need developmental assets, many com-
sets that may be more common among young men (e.g.,
munity-level interventions will benefit all or almost all
assertiveness, competitiveness). Reported gender dif-
youth. However, youth with few or no assets may re-
ferences in some assets also may be a result of system-
quire interventions targeted to them and their specific
atic response biases from young people responding in
needs. One of the functions of those extraordinary in-
gender-typed ways (e.g., girls’ greater reporting of
terventions is to enable those youth to benefit from
prosocial attitudes and behaviors—Eisenberg & Fabes,
more universal interventions.
1998). Apart from frequency differences, however, nu-
There are likely variations in the degree to which
merous studies suggest that assets may operate some-
developmental assets can explain developmental out-
what differently for males and females.
comes, and in which assets may be most critical in pro-
Huebner and Betts (2002) used social control theory
moting specific outcomes, depending on differences
to frame a study of 911 7th to 12th graders from a min-
among young people’s contexts and developmental
ing community in the southwest. They found that both
histories. But studies (e.g., reviews in Montemayor,
attachment bonds (connections to parents, unrelated
Adams, & Gullotta, 2000; Scales et al., 2004; Scales &
adults, and peers) and involvement bonds (time in
Leffert, 2004) suggest significant theoretical and prac-
school and nonschool activities, including time in reli-
tical insights relevant for most if not all groups of
gious activities, volunteering, and clubs or organiza-
young people in looking at their development through a
tions) predicted less delinquency and greater academic
strength-based lens.
achievement (self-reported grades). Involvement bonds
However, compared to the literature on developmen-
predicted delinquency more for males than females,
tal strengths and young people of differing gender, age,
and attachment bonds predicted grades more for fe-
racial /ethnic groups, and socioeconomic status, there is
males than for males.
a dearth of empirical work on relating developmental
Hollister-Wagner et al. (2001) studied resiliency with
strengths to other dimensions of diversity, such as sex-
regard to aggression ( beating up a peer). In a large sam-
ual orientation, family background, or differing expo-
ple of rural eighth and ninth graders, they found support
sure to violence. Goldfried and Bell (2003), for example,
for the role of protective factors in reducing violence for
describe literature on sexual minorities as essentially
females, but not males. The researchers reasoned that
“ignored” in mainstream psychology and adolescent de-
exposure to aggressive models, and social reinforcement
velopment. The available evidence suggests that at least
for aggression, is sufficiently stronger for males that
some developmental strengths, such as self-esteem and,
protective factors, although still positive, have a weaker
particularly, family support, seem to diminish or elimi-
influence on them.
nate differences in mental or behavioral health problems
among both sexual majority and minority youth (Blum,
Beuhring, & Rinehart, 2000).
Age

High school students consistently are found to report

YOUTH DEVELOPMENT RESEARCH
We next briefly describe illustrative research pertaining
to positive youth development as reflected across gen-
der, age, SES, and race/ethnicity.
fewer developmental assets than do middle school stu-
dents. For example, in a cross-sectional sample of more
than 217,000 6th to 12th graders, whose average number
of 40 assets was 19.3, 6th graders reported 23.1 assets,
8th graders reported 19.6, and 10th graders reported

17.8 (Benson, 2001). Asset levels were somewhat higher
among 11th and 12th graders (to 18.1 and 18.3 assets,
respectively), but still remained lower than asset levels
among the younger students. Similarly, in a study of
more than 5,000 6th to 12th graders in a mid-sized
Western city, Scales, Leffert, et al. (2003) reported that
6th to 8th graders reported significantly more exposure
than 9th to 12th grade students to most assets, including
positive relationships with unrelated adults and consis-
tency of expectations for behavior. In a longitudinal
study of 370 students, Roehlkepartain et al. (2003) re-
ported that asset levels declined sharply across 6th to
8th grade, bottomed out between 9th to 11th grades, and
evidenced a slight rebound in the 12th grade. In another
analysis of the same longitudinal sample, Scales and
Roehlkepartain (2003) reported that 41% of these stu-
dents decreased at least .5 standard deviations in their
assets from middle school through high school. Another
34% stayed relatively stable, and only 24% increased at
least .5 standard deviations in asset levels over the mid-
dle school to high school period.
Similarly, Scales et al. (2004) found that fourth and
fifth graders reported more assets than did sixth graders
(26.6. and 26, respectively, versus 24.7 for sixth
graders). Only for safety did sixth graders report higher
levels than fourth to fifth graders. Although longitudi-
nal data are not yet available to confirm that those grade
differences result from declining assets as cohorts age,
the longitudinal results for older youth suggest that this
interpretation is warranted.
Race/ Ethnicity and SES
Drawing on seven national, state, and local studies with
racially/ethnically diverse adolescent samples, Rowe,
Vazsonyi, and Flannery (1994) argued that developmen-
tal processes appeared similar across racial /ethnic
categories in effects on outcomes such as IQ, achieve-
ment, and social adjustment. The variables investi-
gated included parental involvement and monitoring,
self-efficacy, school self-esteem, parents’ school en-
couragement, family communication, and attachment to
teachers. The covariance matrices of the associations
between these developmental influences and outcomes
had significant and similar goodness-of-fit indexes
across African American, Asian, Hispanic, and Euro-
pean American adolescents. The degree of similarity
between racial /ethnic groups was no less than the de-
gree of similarity found in comparing covariance matri-
Youth Development Research 929
ces of random halves of a single racial /ethnic group,
which would be expected to be highly similar.
Rowe et al. (1994) did not investigate precisely how
assets and outcomes were related across racial /ethnic
groups. Although developmental assets in general
appear to have comparable positive relations with devel-
opmental outcomes for most groups of youth, how par-
ticular assets function to promote positive outcomes
may well vary depending on which dimensions of diver-
sity are examined. For example, Bean, Bush, McKenry,
and Wilson (2003) studied the relation of components of
authoritative parenting to academic achievement (self-
reported grades) among 155 African American and
European American high school students. They found
that parental support, behavioral control, and psycholog-
ical control had significantly different relations with
grades, depending on parents’ race and gender. For
African American students, maternal support was sig-
nificantly related to academic achievement, but the
other components were not, and none of the parenting
components was significant for African American fa-
thers. But for neither European American mothers nor
fathers was support a significant contributor to achieve-
ment. For European American students, fathers use of
greater behavioral control, and mothers use of greater
behavioral control and less psychological control, were
significant predictors of academic success.
Sesma and Roehlkepartain (2003) examined develop-
mental assets and outcomes among 217,277 6th- through
12th-grade students (including 69,731 youth of color) sur-
veyed in 318 U.S. communities during the 1999/2000
school year. Across all racial /ethnic groups, greater num-
bers of developmental assets were associated with fewer
risk behavior patterns and more thriving indicators. These
relations held even after controlling for socioeconomic
status. For example, across all racial /ethnic groups, young
people who engaged in none of 10 high-risk behavior pat-
terns averaged experiencing about 23 assets, whereas
those who reported engaging in 5 or more of the 10 risk
patterns said they experienced 15 or fewer of the develop-
mental assets.
At the same time, there were racial /ethnic differ-
ences. For example, boundaries and expectations assets
(e.g., family rules, neighborhood social controls, and
adult role models) were important for all youth in help-
ing them avoid anti-social behavior, but were found to
have especially strong preventive associations for Amer-
ican Indian, Multiracial, and European American youth
(Sesma & Roehlkepartain, 2003).
930 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Scales, Benson, et al. (2000) also reported that spe-
cific clusters of assets could explain from 19% to 32% of
the variance in self-reported grades, over and above de-
mographics, among six different racial /ethnic groups of
students. The assets of achievement motivation, school
engagement, time in youth programs, time at home, and
personal power meaningfully contributed to variance in
grades for three or more of the six racial /ethnic groups.
In an interview study with 45 male African American
gang members and 50 similar youth connected to commu-
nity organizations, Taylor et al. (2003) found that the
nongang youth reported significantly more positive devel-
opmental experiences. However, across nine categories of
positive attributes that reflect developmental assets, an
average of 28% of the gang members scored above the
mean for the nongang youth, suggesting that a reservoir of
developmental strengths may exist among even “deviant ”
youth assets that supports their positive growth. For ex-
ample, more than one-third of the gang youth had more
positive relations with family and with school or educa-
tion than the nongang youth, and a fifth had more positive
role models than did nongang youth. In a 1-year longitudi-
nal analyses of this sample, Taylor et al. (2002) also
reported a sizeable correlation (.67, p ≤ .01) between
change in developmental assets from Time 1 to Time 2,
and changes in individual growth in positive personal and
social functioning. These findings point to two tentative
conclusions: (1) that the developmental assets that support
positive outcomes are not entirely absent even for young
people who currently are “embedded in a behavioral and
social milieu marked by risks (e.g., gang violence, drugs,
and poor familial support) [and] . . . ambient problems of
poverty and racism” (p. 513), and (2) that enhancing de-
velopmental assets may facilitate positive trajectories for
a subset of such challenged youth.
In another study of several hundred gang and nongang
adolescents, Li et al. (2002) also found, as expected, that
gang members on average reported fewer resilience fac-
tors in their lives. But like Taylor et al. (2003), Li et al.
also reported that gang and nongang youth were not sig-
nificantly different on a number of those contributors to
resilience, including social problem-solving skills, self-
esteem, physical activity, and academic performance.
That is, both these studies suggest that individual and
ecological characteristics that promote health and thriv-
ing exist among a substantial proportion of seemingly
“lost ” young people, representing a potentially valuable
target of community actions to build better developmen-
tal paths for all young people.
There is little research on developmental assets
among mixed-race or multiracial adolescents. A recent
report drawing on the national Add Health dataset fo-
cused solely on risk behaviors, and concluded that
mixed-race adolescents, regardless of which racial /eth-
nic groups were combined, tended to have higher inci-
dences of health and behavioral risks than single race
youth. Although impossible to confirm with those data,
the researchers speculated that the results were consis-
tent with a theoretical explanation pointing to mixed-
race status increasing the stress those young people
faced (Udry, Li, & Hendrickson-Smith, 2003).
In one study of positive development that included
self-described Multiracial youth, Scales, Benson, et al.
(2000) reported that clusters of developmental assets
had significant explanatory power for concurrent indi-
cators of thriving among 6,000 middle and high school
youth across racial /ethnic groups (American Indian,
African American, Asian, Hispanic, Multiracial, and
European American). For example, aggregating the in-
dicators into an index of thriving, clusters of the assets
explained from 47% of variance among American
Indian youth to 54% among Multiracial youth, over
and above gender, grade, and level of maternal educa-
tion. There were some differences across groups. For
example, experiencing supportive relationships with
adults other than parents was an important contributor
to the thriving index for Multiracial, American Indian,
and European American youth, but reading for pleasure
was more important among African American and
Hispanic youth. However, a core of assets was impor-
tant across groups. Time spent in youth programs, cul-
tural competence, self esteem, personal power (a
construct akin to self-efficacy), achievement motiva-
tion, and planning and decision-making skills each
meaningfully contributed to variance for at least two of
seven thriving indicators across at least three out of six
racial /ethnic groups.
DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
Although the past 10 years have seen a proliferation of
conceptual models seeking to articulate the necessary
ingredients for positive development and subsequent em-
pirical tests of these models, on balance the state of our
knowledge is disproportionately low compared with the
state of our unknowns. Our knowledge-base is relatively
strong in the following areas:

• Taxonomies of factors that are correlated with posi-
tive outcomes.
• Cross-sectional research results affirming associations
among relationships, opportunities, social norms, and
positive developmental outcomes.
• Knowledge that effective programs have the capacity
to promote short-term changes in youth behaviors.
Lacunae in our knowledge base regarding developmental
assets include the following:
• Theories of change that articulate how youths, adults,
and community systems move toward greater devel-
opmental attentiveness.
• Explorations of the transactional nature of commu-
nity-youth change; that is, examinations of both how
community efforts ( both informal and program-
matic) affect youth, as well as how youth in turn af-
fect and help shape their ecology.
• Empirical understanding of the significance of “in-
formal, natural, and nonprogrammatic capacity of
community” (Benson & Saito, 2001, p. 146).
• Understanding of the variability in the delivery of de-
velopmental assets across diverse communities and
groups of people. While we can specify the necessary
ingredients, we still do not well understand how those
ingredients “ work ” in culturally diverse settings.
• Understanding of how broad, expansive models of
community involvement and engagement interact with
more focused programmatic approaches (i.e., does
the presence of the former moderate the efficacy of
the latter?).
In addition, the empirical literature offers to date
only limited answers to the following more specific the-
oretical questions:
• How is the theory connecting assets to thriving out-
comes the same as that linking assets to risk reduc-
tion outcomes, and how is it different? Relatedly, are
“internal” asset categories such as positive values or
positive identity more properly thought of as indica-
tors of well-being, that is, as outcomes?
• Is the role of developmental assets global, or depend-
ent on the outcome of interest?
• Is the effect of assets invariant across contexts, or
does social domain make a difference in how assets
affect outcomes? For example, do the same assets that
Directions for Future Research 931
explain delay of gratification in the school domain
also explain delay of gratification in the peer domain?
• Is there such a thing as too much of particular devel-
opmental assets, such that they no longer are assets
and even become deficits or risk factors (e.g., family
support becoming enmeshment, or high expectations
becoming a factor that lessens perceived feelings of
competence)?
• Are there ceiling effects not yet revealed in the re-
search? For example, a close relationship with at least
one caring adult is clearly important, and probably
having that with several adults is better, but what does
a dozen such relationships add that five or six does not?
Whitlock (2003) reported, for instance, that youth re-
porting 9 or 10 of 10 possible developmental supports
did not have greater school connectedness than youth
reporting 7 or 8 of those supports. But developmental
supports showed a continued linear relationship with
community connectedness, that is, a ceiling effect was
not observed for community connectedness.
• If all assets are not equal in their promotive and pro-
tective valence, then what are the bases on which
some assets are considered more important than oth-
ers, if not for all young people, then for some youth in
some situations for some outcomes?
• Do some assets function as “gateways” more than
others, making it more likely that young people will
experience additional assets that collectively pro-
mote positive developmental outcomes? Scales and
Roehlkepartain (2004), for example, found that stu-
dents who provided community service in middle
school were significantly more likely to be “asset-
rich” in high school than were students who did not
contribute service.
• Are some assets more critical for healthy develop-
ment at differing developmental points or stages? For
example, are high expectations from teachers and
parents more critical in middle school and early ado-
lescence, when increases in challenges to competency
beliefs are common, than in later adolescence? Simi-
larly, does the asset of cultural competence become
more important as children age and encounter in-
creasingly more diverse peers and adults?
• In a related sense, do some assets have more impact
during key developmental transitions than at other
times? For example, are young people feeling valued
and that they have useful roles more important assets
during the transition from elementary to middle
932 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
school and the transition from middle school to high
school than they are at other times during early and
later adolescence?
• How many of developmental assets does one need,
over what period of time, to contribute meaningfully
toward particular desired outcomes?
In addition to these questions, there exist issues re-
garding the design of research within which the ques-
tions may be addressed. Approaches such as the theory
of change strategy for evaluating comprehensive positive
youth development initiatives have been discussed for
some time (see Connell & Kubisch, 2001; Connell, Ku-
bisch, Schorr, & Weiss, 1995). But only a limited number
of examples show such technology actually being ap-
plied, and a broad consensus does not exist about what
reasonable outcomes for community initiatives may be
(Berkowitz, 2001; Spilka, 2004).
Moreover, although the research to date shows prom-
ising results, the existing literature focuses almost
exclusively on assessing the effects of community inter-
ventions on adolescent problem behaviors such as alco-
hol and other drug use, adolescent pregnancy, and
antisocial behavior. Few positive outcomes other than
academic success tend to be measured in community, as
contrasted with program, initiatives (Greenberg et al.,
2003; Wandersman & Florin, 2003).
MacDonald and Valdivieso (2001) also observed that
deficit-oriented measures prevail in national tracking
systems. They described numerous possible positive
constructs and measures that are being or could be ap-
plied in gathering data across four critical domains:
young people themselves, parent and nonparent adults,
organizations that serve young people, and community-
level data on policies, resources, and services.
Weissberg et al. (2003) also note that despite an im-
pressive literature now suggesting the effectiveness of
strength-based approaches to prevention and youth de-
velopment, there is a continuing need for evaluations of
multiyear, comprehensive youth development initiatives
that target multiple outcomes. Especially needed are in-
vestigations of the mediating and moderating influences
on program or initiative effects, and how strength-based
approaches work similarly or differently across diversi-
ties of geography and circumstance. Finally, they noted
the need for more standardized measures of core youth
development outcomes, so that results across different
studies can more readily be compared.
The lack of common positive measures of develop-
ment decried by Weissberg et al. (2003) is not unique to
youth development. Ryff and Singer (1998) struck a sim-
ilar chord in talking about research on “ health” among
older adults. Such research, they argued, routinely de-
fines health by emphasizing the absence of negatives,
such as being unable to dress and feed oneself, at the ex-
pense of inquiring about the positive indicators of pur-
pose and engagement in life that actually may better
predict health outcomes. To more accurately understand
health, they argued, questions should be asked about
what persons did today “ that was meaningful or fulfill-
ing,” or whether they “love and care for others” (p. 21).
Several recent efforts have emerged in response to both
the relative lack of emphasis on measuring positive out-
comes, and the lack of a common core of measures to be
used across positive youth development studies. For exam-
ple, Search Institute, the Institute for Applied Research in
Youth Development at Tufts University, and the Fuller
Theological Seminary, with strategic consultation from
Stanford University and the Thrive Foundation for Youth,
recently embarked on a multiyear “ Thriving Indicator
Project ” with the goal of producing effective measure-
ment tools and resources on thriving that would be widely
used and developed from a foundation of deep science.
Initial activities have included a comprehensive re-
view of the literature on thriving and related concepts,
and interviews with scholars, positive youth develop-
ment practitioners, youth, and their parents that elicited
their views on what describes a thriving youth (King
et al., in press). A group of core dimensions of thriving
is emerging (e.g., Theokas et al., in press) that will then
serve as a lens to help focus development of thriving
measurement tools to be used in clinical, programmatic,
community change, and national tracking applications.
A similar effort, with the goal of developing and em-
bedding common measures of positive youth development
outcomes in state and federal data tracking systems, is
being led by Child Trends. Scholars and policymakers are
recommending reliable, valid, and relatively brief mea-
sures in areas such as prosocial orientation, religiosity,
and social competencies (Moore & Lippman, 2004) that
could help track developmental strengths and contribute
to a long-term re-shaping of child and youth policy.
CONCLUSIONS
Despite differences in terminology and comprehensive-
ness, the similarities across models of positive youth de-
velopment are apparent, and a substantial body of
research supports the hypotheses emerging from the

melding of positive youth development practice and a
variety of developmental and other theories. Positive
youth development is both caused and indicated by
whether a young person experiences adequate supports
and opportunities. Doing so consistently and in multiple
settings is particularly important. These experiences
help them develop key competencies, skills, values, and
self-perceptions that adaptively self-regulating persons
need in order to successfully shape and navigate life
over time.
There are multiple sources of those developmental
nutrients or assets, including the proactive influence of
young people on their own environments. Not just ge-
netic heritage, not just family, not just schools, congre-
gations, peers, or any other influence create a young
person’s developmental path, but all do so operating to-
gether, interactively, to form a system larger than the
sum of those parts. In practical terms, the research find-
ings that support this conclusion lead to two inevitable
implications.
First, isolated programs working to change individual
youth without changing the environments in which they
live may have some limited, short-term success, but can-
not be expected to support significant long-term positive
development, or especially, to radically alter the devel-
opmental path of particularly vulnerable young people.
Multiple contexts of young people’s lives need to be
strengthened simultaneously to promote the systemic
supports needed for sustained and widespread positive
development among all youth.
Second, the nesting of young people in families and
schools within neighborhoods and communities and
wider society means that a long-term commitment to
significant community mobilization around common
norms, values, and goals related to positive youth devel-
opment is essential. No less an effort will attain the
breadth, depth, and permeation of culture with both
formal and informal daily life to profoundly change the
developmental odds for a critical mass of America’s
young people.
Though research supports the efficacy of positive
youth development as an approach for changing these de-
velopmental odds, it is also clear that other approaches
are necessary. Poverty, family violence, and abuse are
among a litany of risks that jeopardize development. It is
likely that reducing risks and promoting assets can be
complimentary strategies for enhancing positive devel-
opmental outcomes. Theory and research is needed to
better understand the interplay of risks and assets. In ad-
dition, it is important to identify how combinations of
References 933
risk reduction and asset-building intervention strategies
work for youth in various social locations.
One of the major contributions of positive youth de-
velopment theory and research is the identification of the
multiple contexts and settings that inform developmental
trajectories. As an applied field, positive youth develop-
ment and its advocates face crucial decision points about
how and where to create intentional change. Though the
development of and/or enrichment of programs is the pri-
mary locus of intervention, theory and research also
identify a much wider range of possibilities. Access to
developmental assets could also be advanced by, for ex-
ample, transforming socializing systems (e.g., schools
and neighborhoods) or mobilizing adults to create sus-
tained relationships with community youth.
It is here in this complex space of community and so-
cietal change where new thinking is particularly needed.
As noted at several points in this chapter, the least de-
veloped part of positive youth development theory is
that having to do with how intentional change can best
be understood (and practiced). The complexity of this
issue (as well as the societal importance of promoting
positive development) requires an interdisciplinary ap-
proach, integrating multiple fields in common pursuit of
how to enhance the dynamic fusion of ecological- and
individual-level strengths.
This interdisciplinary research agenda should ini-
tially focus on developmental contexts as the unit of
analysis with inquiry into the strategies that enhance
the capacity and will of schools, neighborhoods,
families, and congregations to nurture developmental
strengths. And such inquiry will necessarily lead to im-
portant research issues regarding the orchestration of
change at multiple levels, including the strategies for
creating developmentally attentive communities. Con-
sonant with the theory of positive development, we hy-
pothesize that the most successful transformation in
contexts and community will occur when youth are at
the forefront in planning and implementing the change
initiative.
REFERENCES
Allen, J. P., Philliber, S., Herrling, S., & Kuperminc, G. P. (1997).
Preventing teen pregnancy and academic failure: Experimental
evaluation of a developmentally based approach. Child Develop-
ment, 68, 729–742.
Anthony, E. J. (1974). The syndrome of the psychologically vulner-
able child. In E. J. Anthony & B. J. Cohler (Eds.), The invulnera-
ble child (pp. 103–148). New York: Guilford Press.
934 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Atkins, R., & Hart, D. (2003). Neighborhoods, adults, and the devel-
opment of civic identity in urban youth. Applied Developmental
Science, 7, 156–165.
Baltes, P. B., & Baltes, M. M. (1990). Psychological perspectives on
successful aging: The model of selective optimization with com-
pensation. In P. B. Baltes & M. M. Baltes (Eds.), Successful
aging: Perspectives from the behavioral sciences (pp. 1–34). New
York: Cambridge University Press.
Baltes, P. B., Dittmann-Kohli, F., & Dixon, R. A. (1984). New per-
spectives on the development of intelligence in adulthood: Toward
a dual-process conception and a model of selective optimization
with compensation. In P. B. Baltes & O. G. Brim (Eds.), Life-span
development and behavior (Vol. 6, pp. 33–76). Orlando, FL: Aca-
demic Press.
Baltes, P. B., & Freund, A. M. (2003). Human strengths as the or-
chestration of wisdom and selective optimization with compensa-
tion. In L. G. Aspinwall & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), A psychology
of human strengths: Fundamental questions and future directions
for a positive psychology (pp. 23–36). Washington, DC: American
Psychological Association.
Baltes, P. B., Lindenberger, U., & Staudinger, U. M. (1998). Life-
span theory in developmental psychology. In W. Damon & R. M.
Lerner (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology (pp. 1029–1143).
New York: Wiley.
Bean, R. A., Bush, K. R., McKenry, P. C., & Wilson, S. M. (2003).
The impact of parental support, behavioral control, and psycho-
logical control on the academic achievement and self-esteem of
African American and European American adolescents. Journal
of Adolescent Research, 18, 523–541.
Benson, P. L. (1990). The troubled journey: A portrait of 6th to 12th
grade youth. Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute.
Benson, P. L. (1997). All kids are our kids: What communities must do
to raise caring and responsible children and adolescents. San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Benson, P. L. (2002). Adolescent development in social and commu-
nity context: A program of research. New Directions for Youth De-
velopment, 95, 123–147.
Benson, P. L. (2003a). Developmental assets and asset-building com-
munity: Conceptual and empirical foundations. In R. M. Lerner
& P. L. Benson (Eds.), Developmental assets and asset-building
communities: Implications for research, policy, and practice
(pp. 19–43). New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Benson, P. L. (2003b). Toward asset-building communities: How does
change occur. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson (Eds.), Develop-
mental assets and asset-building communities: Implications for re-
search, policy, and practice (pp. 213–221). New York: Kluwer
Academic/ Plenum Press.
Benson, P. L., & Leffert, N. (2001). Childhood and adolescence: De-
velopmental assets. In N. J. Smelser & P. G. Baltes (Eds.), Inter-
national encyclopedia of the social and behavioral sciences
(pp. 1690–1697). Oxford, England: Pergamon Press.
Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., Scales, P. C., & Blyth, D. A. (1998). Be-
yond the “ village” rhetoric: Creating healthy communities for
children and adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 2(3),
138–159.
Benson, P. L., Mannes, M., Pittman, K., & Ferber, T. (2004). Youth
development, developmental assets and public policy. In R. M.
Lerner & L. Steinberg (Eds.), Handbook of adolescent psychology
(2nd ed., pp. 781–814). New York: Wiley.
Benson, P. L., & Pittman, K. (2001a). Moving the youth development
message: Turning a vague idea into a moral imperative. In P. L.
Benson & K. J. Pittman (Eds.), Trends in youth development: Vi-
sions, realities, and challenges (pp. vii–xii). Norwell, MA:
Kluwer Academic.
Benson, P. L., & Pittman, K. (2001b). Trends in youth development:
Visions, realities, and challenges. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic.
Benson, P. L., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2004). Preventing alcohol, to-
bacco, and other drug use: Rethinking the role of community.
Search Institute Insights and Evidence, 2(1), 5.
Benson, P. L., & Saito, R. N. (2001). The scientific foundations of
youth development. In P. L. Benson & K. J. Pittman (Eds.),
Trends in youth development: Visions, realities, and challenges
(pp. 135–154). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic.
Benson, P. L., Scales, P., Leffert, N., & Roehlkepartain, E. (1999).
The fragile foundation: The state of developmental assets among
American youth. Minneapolis, MA: Search Institute.
Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., & Mannes, M. (2003). Developmental
strengths and their sources: Implications for the study and prac-
tice of community building. In R. M. Lerner, F. Jacobs, & D.
Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmental science: Vol.
1. Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family development
through research, policies and programs—Applying developmental
science for youth and families: Historical and theoretical founda-
tions (pp. 369–406). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Berkowitz, W. (2001). Studying outcomes of community-based coali-
tions. American Journal of Community Psychology, 29, 213–239.
Bloom, M. (1996 ). Primary prevention practices. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Blum, R. W., Beuhring, T., & Rinehart, P. M. (2000). Protecting
teens: Beyond race, income, and family structure. Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota, Center for Adolescent Health.
Blum, R. W., & Ellen, J. (2002). Work group V: Increasing the capac-
ity of schools, neighborhoods, and communities to improve ado-
lescent health outcomes. Journal of Adolescent Health, 31(Suppl.
6), 288–292.
Blyth, D. A. (2001). Community approaches to improving outcomes for
urban children, youth, and families. In A. Booth & A. C. Crouter
(Eds.), Does it take a village? Community ef fects on children, ado-
lescents, and families (pp. 223–227). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Bogenschneider, K., Small, S. A., & Tsay, J. C. (1997). Child, parent,
and contextual inf luences on perceived parenting competence
among parents of adolescents. Journal of Marriage and the Fam-
ily, 59, 345–362.
Booth, A., & Crouter, A. C. (2001). Does it take a village? Com-
munity ef fects on children, adolescents, and families. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Brandtstadter, J. (1998). Action perspectives on human development.
In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
book of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human de-
velopment (5th ed., pp. 807–863). New York: Wiley.
Brandtstadter, J. (1999). Action and self-development: Theory and re-
search through the lifespan. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Brody, G. H., Dorsey, S., Forehand, R., & Armistead, L. (2002).
Unique and protective contributions of parenting and classroom
processes to the adjustment of African American children living
in single-parent families. Child Development, 73(1), 274–286.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cam-
bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. (1998). The ecology of develop-
mental processes. In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M.
Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoreti-
cal models of human development (5th ed., pp. 993–1028). New
York: Wiley.

Bruner, J. S. (1983). Child’s talk: Learning to use language. New
York: Norton.
Bumbarger, B., & Greenberg, M. T. (2002). Next steps in advancing
research on positive youth development. Prevention and Treat-
ment, 5(16).
Caplan, G. (1964). Principles of preventive psychiatry. New York:
Basic Books.
Carnegie Corporation of New York. (1992). A matter of time: Risk
and opportunity in the non-school hours. Waldorf, MD: Carnegie
Council on Adolescent Development.
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development. (1995). Great transi-
tions: Preparing adolescents for a new century. New York:
Carnegie Corporation of New York.
Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L., Ryan, J. A., Lonczak, H. S., &
Hawkins, J. D. (1999). Positive youth development in the United
States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth devel-
opment programs. Seattle, WA: Social Development Research
Group.
Catalano, R. F., Berglund, M. L., Ryan, J. A. M., Lonczak, H. S., &
Hawkins, J. D. (2004). Positive youth development in the United
States: Research findings on evaluations of positive youth devel-
opment programs. Annals of the American Academy of Political
and Social Science, 591, 98–124.
Catalano, R. F., & Hawkins, J. D. (2002). Response from authors to
comments on “Positive youth development in the United States:
Research findings on evaluations of positive youth development
programs.” Prevention and Treatment, 5(article 20).
Catalano, R. F., Hawkins, J. D., Berglund, M. L., Pollard, J. A., &
Arthur, M. W. (2002). Prevention science and positive youth de-
velopment: Competitive or cooperative frameworks? Journal of
Adolescent Health, 31, 230–239.
Catalano, R. F., & Kosterman, R. (1996). Modeling the etiology of
adolescent substance use: A test of the social development model.
Journal of Drug Issues, 26(2), 429–456.
Catalano, R. F., Mazza, J. J., Harachi, T. W., Abbott, R. D., Haggerty,
K. P., & Fleming, C. B. (2003). Raising healthy children through
enhancing social development in elementary school: Results after
1.5 years. Journal of School Psychology, 41(2), 143–164.
Catterall, J. S. (1998). Risk and resilience in student transitions to
high school. American Journal of Education, 106(2), 302–334.
Chess, S., & Thomas, A. (1999). Goodness of fit: Clinical applica-
tions from infancy through adult life. Philadelphia: Brunner/
Mazel.
Coleman, J. S. (1990). Foundations of social theory. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press.
Collins, W. A., Maccoby, E. E., Steinberg, L., Heatherington, E. M., &
Bornstein, M. (2000). Contemporary research on parenting: The
case for nature and nurture. American Psychologist, 55, 218–232.
Comer, J. (1980). School power. New York: Free Press.
Comer, J. P., Haynes, N. M., Joyner, E. T., & Ben-Avie, M. (1996).
Rallying the whole village: The Comer process for reforming edu-
cation. New York: Teachers College Press.
Conger, R. D., & Conger, K. J. (2002). Resilience in Midwestern fam-
ilies: Selected findings from the first decade of a prospective,
longitudinal study. Journal of Marriage and Family, 64, 361–373.
Connell, J. P., Gambone, M. A., & Smith, T. J. (2001). Youth develop-
ment in community settings: Challenges to our field and our ap-
proach. In P. L. Benson & K. J. Pittman (Eds.), Trends in youth
development: Visions, realities, and challenges (pp. 291–307).
Boston: Kluwer Academic.
References 935
Connell, J. P., & Kubisch, A. C. (2001). Community approaches to
improving outcomes for urban children, youth, and families: Cur-
rent trends and future directions. In A. Booth & A. C. Crouter
(Eds.), Does it take a village? Community ef fects on children, ado-
lescents, and families (pp. 177–201). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Connell, J. P., Kubisch, A. C., Schorr, L. B., & Weiss, C. H. (1995).
New approaches to evaluating community initiatives: Concepts,
methods, and contexts. Washington, DC: Aspen Institute.
Cook, T. D., Herman, M. R., Phillips, M., & Settersten, R. A., Jr.
(2002). Some ways in which neighborhoods, nuclear families,
friendship groups, and schools jointly affect changes in early ado-
lescent development. Child Development, 73, 1283–1309.
Crosnoe, R., Erickson, K. G., & Dornbusch, S. (2002). Protective
functions of family relationships and school factors on the deviant
behavior of adolescent boys and girls: Reducing the impact of
risky friendships. Youth and Society, 33(4), 515–544.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal expe-
rience. New York: Harper-Collins.
Damon, W. (1997). The youth charter: How communities can work to-
gether to raise standards for all our children. New York: Free Press.
Damon, W. (2004). What is positive youth development? Annals of the
American Academy of Political and Social Science, 591(1), 13–24.
Damon, W., & Gregory, A. (2003). Bringing in a new era in the field
of youth development. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson (Eds.), De-
velopmental assets and asset-building communities: Implications
for research, policy, and practice (pp. 47–64). New York: Kluwer
Academic/ Plenum Press.
Davey, M., Eaker, D. G., & Walters, L. H. (2003). Resilience
processes in adolescents: Personality profiles, self-worth, and
coping. Journal of Adolescent Research, 18(4), 347–362.
Dishion, T. J., Andrews, D. W., & Crosby, L. (1995). Antisocial boys
and their friends in adolescence: Relationship characteristics, qual-
ity and interactional processes. Child Development, 66, 139–151.
Dorgan, K. A., & Ferguson, R. F. (2004). Success factors in commu-
nity-wide initiatives for youth development. In S. F. Hamilton &
M. A. Hamilton (Eds.), The youth development handbook: Com-
ing of age in American communities (pp. 271–300). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dryfoos, J. G. (1990). Adolescents at risk: Prevalence and prevention.
New York: Oxford University Press.
Dryfoos, J. G. (1998). Safe passage: Making it through adolescence in
a risky society. New York: Oxford University Press.
DuBois, D. L., Holloway, B. E., Valentine, J. C., & Cooper, H. (2002).
Effectiveness of mentoring programs for youth: A meta-analytic
review. American Journal of Community Psychology, 30, 157–197.
Dubow, E. F., Arnett, M., Smith, K., & Ippolito, M. F. (2001). Predic-
tors of future expectations of inner-city children: A 9-month
prospective study. Journal of Early Adolescence, 21(1), 5–28.
Dukes, R., & Stein, J. (2001). Effects of assets and deficits on the so-
cial control of at risk behavior among youth. Youth and Society,
32(3), 337–360.
Durlak, J. A. (1998). Common risk and protective factors in success-
ful prevention programs. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry,
68(4), 512–520.
Durlak, J. A., & Wells, A. M. (1997). Primary prevention mental
health programs: A meta-analytic review. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 25(2), 115–153.
Dworkin, J. B., Larson, R., & Hansen, D. (2003). Adolescents’ ac-
counts of growth experiences in youth activities. Journal of Youth
and Adolescence, 32, 17–26.
936 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Earls, F., & Carlson, M. (2001). The social ecology of child health
and well-being. Annual Review of Public Health, 22, 143–166.
Earls, F., & Carlson, M. (2002). Adolescents as collaborators: In
search of well-being. In M. Tienda & W. J. Wilson (Eds.), Youth in
cities: A cross-national perspective (pp. 58–83) . New York: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Eccles, J. S. (1997). User-friendly science and mathematics: Can it
interest girls and minorities in breaking through the middle
school wall. In D. Johnson (Ed.), Minorities and girls in school:
Ef fects on achievement and performance: Vol. 1. Leaders in psy-
chology (pp. 65–104). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Eccles, J. S., & Barber, B. L. (1999). Student council, volunteering,
basketball, or marching band: What kind of extracurricular in-
volvement matters? Journal of Adolescent Research, 14(1), 10–43.
Eccles, J. S., Early, D., Frasier, K., Belansky, E., & McCarthy, K.
(1997). The relation of connection, regulation, and support for au-
tonomy to adolescents’ functioning. Journal of Adolescent Re-
search, 12, 263–286.
Eccles, J. S., & Harold, R. D. (1996). Family involvement in chil-
dren’s and adolescents’ schooling. In A. Booth & J. F. Dunn
(Eds.), Family-school links: How do they af fect educational out-
comes? (pp. 3–34). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Eisenberg, N., & Fabes, R. A. (1998). Meta-analysis of age and sex
differences in children’s and adolescents’ prosocial behavior. In
W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & N. Eisenberg (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
book of child psychology: Vol. 3. Social, emotional, and personality
development (5th ed., pp. 701–778). New York: Wiley.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1974). Children of the great depression. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1980). Adolescence in historical perspective. In J.
Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 3–46).
New York: Wiley.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1998). The life course and human development. In
W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Hand-
book of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human de-
velopment (5th ed., pp. 939–991). New York: Wiley.
Elder, G. H., Jr. (1999). Children of the great depression: Social change
in life experience (25th anniv. ed.). Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Feshbach, N. (1983). Sex differences in empathy and social behavior
in children. In N. Eisenberg (Ed.), The development of prosocial
behavior (pp. 11–47). New York: Academic Press.
Ford, D. H., & Lerner, R. M. (1992). Developmental systems theory:
An integrative approach. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Fukuyama, F. (1999). The great disruption: Human nature and the re-
constitution of social order. New York: Free Press.
Furlong, M., Paige, L. Z., & Osher, D. (2003). The Safe Schools/
Healthy Students (SS/HS) Initiative: Lessons learned from imple-
menting comprehensive youth development programs. Psychology
in the Schools, 40, 447–456.
Furstenberg, F. F., Jr. (2000). The sociology of adolescence and youth
in the 1990s: A critical commentary. Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 62, 896–910.
Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Modell, J., & Herschberg, T. (1976). Social
change and transitions to adulthood in historical perspective.
Journal of Family History, 1(1), 7–32.
Galambos, N., & Turner, P. (1999). Parent and adolescent tempera-
ment and the quality of parent-adolescent relations. Merrill-
Palmer Quarterly, 45, 493–511.
Gambone, M. A., & Arbreton, A. J. A. (1997). Safe havens: The con-
tributions of youth organizations to healthy adolescent develop-
ment. Philadelphia: Public/ Private Ventures.
Gambone, M. A., Klem, A. M., & Connell, J. P. (2002). Finding out what
matters for youth: Testing key links in a community action frame-
work for youth development. Philadelphia: Youth Development
Strategies and Institute for Research and Reform in Education.
Garbarino, J. (1995). Raising children in a socially toxic environment.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Garmezy, N. (1983). Stress, coping and development in children. New
York: McGraw-Hill.
Gerard, J. M., & Buehler, C. (2004). Cumulative environmental risk
and youth problem behavior. Journal of Marriage and the Family,
66, 702–720.
Goldfried, M. R., & Bell, A. C. (2003). Extending the boundaries of
research on adolescent development. Journal of Clinical Child and
Adolescent Psychology, 32, 531–535.
Gottlieb, G. (1997). Synthesizing nature-nurture: Prenatal roots of
instinctive behavior. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Gottlieb, G., Wahlsten, D., & Lickliter, R. (1998). The significance
of biology for human development: A developmental psychobio-
logical systems view. In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M.
Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoreti-
cal models of human development (5th ed., pp. 233–273). New
York: Wiley.
Granger, R. C. (2002). Creating the conditions linked to positive
youth development. New Directions for Youth Development, 95,
149–164.
Greenberg, M. T., Weissberg, R. P., O’Brien, M. U., Zins, J. E.,
Fredericks, L., Resnick, H., et al. (2003). Enhancing school-
based prevention and youth development through coordinated so-
cial, emotional, and academic learning. American Psychologist,
58(6/7), 466–474.
Gutman, L. M., & Midgley, C. (2000). The role of protective factors
in supporting the academic achievement of poor African Ameri-
can students during the middle school transition. Journal of Youth
and Adolescence, 29(2), 223–248.
Gutman, L. M., Sameroff, A. J., & Eccles, J. S. (2002). The aca-
demic achievement of African American students during early
adolescence: An examination of multiple risk, promotive, and
protective factors. American Journal of Community Psychology,
30(3), 367–399.
Hahn, A., & Lanspery, S. (2001). Change that abides: A retrospective
look at five community and family strengthening projects, and
their enduring results. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University.
Halfon, N. (2003). Afterword: Toward an asset-based policy agenda
for children, families, and communities. In R. M. Lerner & P. L.
Benson (Eds.), Developmental assets and asset-building communi-
ties: Implications for research, policy, and practice (pp. 223–229).
New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Hamburg, D. A., & Takanishi, R. (1996). Great transitions: Prepar-
ing American youth for the 21st century—The role of research.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, 6(4), 379–396.
Hamilton, S. (1999). A three-part definition of youth development.
Unpublished manuscript, Cornell University College of Human
Ecology, Ithaca, NY.
Hamilton, S. F., & Hamilton, M. A. (2004). The youth development
handbook: Coming of age in American communities. Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hamilton, S. F., Hamilton, M. A., & Pittman, K. (2004). Principles
for youth development. In S. F. Hamilton & H. M. A. Hamilton
(Eds.), The youth development handbook: Coming of age in Amer-
ican communities (pp. 3–22). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Havighurst, R. J. (1953). Human development and education. London:
Longmans, Green.

Hawkins, J. D., & Catalano, R. F. (1996). Parents who care: A step-
by-step guide for families with teens. San Francisco: Jossey-
Bass/ Pfeiffer.
Heckhausen, J. (1999). Developmental regulation in adulthood: Age-
normative and sociocultural constraints as adaptive challenges.
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Heckhausen, J., & Krueger, J. (1993). Developmental expectations for
the self and most other people: Age grading in three functions of
social comparison. Developmental Psychology, 29, 539–548.
Heckhausen, J., & Schulz, R. (1995). A life-span theory of control.
Psychological Review, 102, 284–304.
Hein, K. (2003). Enhancing the assets for positive youth develop-
ment: The vision, values, and action agenda of the W. T. Grant
Foundation. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson (Eds.), Developmen-
tal assets and asset-building communities: Implications for re-
search, policy, and practice (pp. 97–117). New York: Kluwer
Academic/ Plenum Press.
Hoffman, M. L. (2000). Empathy and moral development: Implica-
tions for caring and justice. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Hollister-Wagner, G. H., Foshee, V. A., & Jackson, C. (2001). Adoles-
cent aggression: Models of resiliency. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 31(3), 445–466.
Huebner, A. J., & Betts, S. C. (2002). Exploring the utility of social
control theory for youth development: Issues of attachment, in-
volvement, and gender. Youth and Society, 34(2), 123–145.
Hughes, D., & Curnan, S. P. (2000). Community youth development:
A framework for action. CYD Journal, 1(1), 7–13.
Hunter, J. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2003). The positive psychology
of interested adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32,
27–35.
Hyman, J. B. (2002). Exploring social capital and civic engagement to
create a framework for community building. Applied Developmen-
tal Science, 6(4), 196–202.
Jessor, R. (1993). Successful adolescent development among youth in
high-risk settings. American Psychologist, 48(2), 117–126.
Jessor, R., Turbin, M. S., & Costa, F. M. (1998). Risk and protection
in successful outcomes among disadvantaged adolescents. Applied
Developmental Science, 2(4), 194–208.
Jessor, R., Van Den Bos, J., Vanderryn, J., Costa, F. M., & Turbin,
M. S. (1995). Protective factors in adolescent problem behavior:
Moderator effects and developmental change. Developmental Psy-
chology, 31(6), 923–933.
Keyes, C. L. M. (2003). Complete mental health: An agenda for the
21st century. In C. L. M. Keyes & J. Haidt (Eds.), Flourishing:
Positive psychology and the life well-lived (pp. 293–312). Wash-
ington, DC: American Psychological Association.
King, P. E., Dowling, E. M., Mueller, R. A., White, K., Schultz, W.,
Osborn, P., et al. (in press). Thriving in adolescence: The voices
of youth-serving practitioners, parents, and early and late adoles-
cents. Journal of Early Adolescence.
Kreipe, R. E., Ryan, S. A., & Seibold-Simpson, S. M. (2004). Youth
development and health. In S. F. Hamilton & M. A. Hamilton
(Eds.), The youth development handbook: Coming of age in Amer-
ican communities (pp. 103–126). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Kretzmann, J., & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from the
inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s
assets. Chicago: ACTA Publication.
Larson, R. W. (2000). Toward a psychology of positive youth develop-
ment. American Psychologist, 55(1), 170–183.
References 937
Leffert, N., Benson, P. L., & Roehlkepartain, J. L. (1997). Starting
out right: Developmental assets for children. Minneapolis, MN:
Search Institute.
Leffert, N., Benson, P. L., Scales, P. C., Sharma, A. R., Drake, D. R.,
& Blyth, D. A. (1998). Developmental assets: Measurement and
prediction of risk behaviors among adolescents. Applied Develop-
mental Science, 2(4), 209–230.
Lerner, R. M. (1976). Concepts and theories of human development.
Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.
Lerner, R. M. (1984). On the nature of human plasticity. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Lerner, R. M. (1995). America’s youth in crisis: Challenges and op-
tions for programs and policies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lerner, R. M. (1998). Theories of human development: Contemporary
perspectives. In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner
(Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical mod-
els of human development (5th ed., pp. 1–24). New York: Wiley.
Lerner, R. M. (2000). Developing civil society through the promotion
of positive youth development. Journal of Developmental and Be-
havioral Pediatrics, 21, 48–49.
Lerner, R. M. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development
(3rd ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lerner, R. M. (2003). Developmental assets and asset-building com-
munities: A view of the issues. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson
(Eds.), Developmental assets and asset-building communities: Im-
plications for research, policy, and practice (pp. 3–18). New York:
Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Lerner, R. M. (2004). Liberty: Thriving and civic engagement among
America’s youth. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lerner, R. M., Anderson, P. M., Balsano, A. B., Dowling, E. M., &
Bobek, D. L. (2003). Applied developmental science of positive
human development. In R. M. Lerner, M. A. Easterbrooks, & J.
Mistry (Eds.), Handbook of psychology: Vol. 6. Developmental
psychology (pp. 535–558). New York: Wiley.
Lerner, R. M., & Benson, P. L. (2003). Developmental assets and
asset-building communities: Implications for research, policy, and
practice. Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic.
Lerner, R. M., Brentano, C., Dowling, E. M., & Anderson, P. M.
(2002). Positive youth development: Thriving as the basis of per-
sonhood and civil society. New Directions for Youth Development:
Pathways to Positive Development Among Diverse Youth, 95, 11–33.
Lerner, R. M., Dowling, E. M., & Anderson, P. M. (2003). Positive
youth development: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil
society. Applied Developmental Science, 7(3), 172–180.
Lerner, R. M., Fisher, C. B., & Weinberg, R. A. (2000). Toward a sci-
ence for and of the people: Promoting civil society through the ap-
plication of developmental science. Child Development, 71, 11–20.
Lerner, R. M., Freund, A. M., De Stefanis, I., & Habermas, T. (2001).
Understanding developmental regulation in adolescence: The use
of the selection, optimization, and compensation model. Human
Development, 44, 29–50.
Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., Alermigi, J., Theokas, C., Phelps, E.,
Gestsdottir, S., et al. (in press). Positive youth development, par-
ticipation in community youth development programs, and com-
munity contributions of fifth grade adolescents: Findings from
the first wave of the 4-H Study of Positive Youth Development.
Journal of Early Adolescence.
Lerner, R. M., Lerner, J. V., De Stefanis, I., & Apfel, A. (2001). Un-
derstanding developmental systems in adolescence: Implications
for methodological strategies, data analytic approaches, and
training. Journal of Adolescent Research, 16, 9–27.
938 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Lerner, R. M., Wertlieb, D., & Jacobs, F. (2003). Historical and theo-
retical bases of applied developmental science. In R. M. Lerner,
D. Wertlieb, & F. Jacobs (Eds.), Handbook of applied developmen-
tal science: Vol. 1. Applying developmental science for youth and
families—Historical and theoretical foundations (pp. 1–28). Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Li, X., Stanton, B., Pack, R., Harris, C., Cottrell, L., & Burns, J.
(2002). Risk and protective factors associated with gang involve-
ment among urban African American adolescents. Youth and Soci-
ety, 34(2), 172–194.
Lonczak, H. S., Abbott, R. D., Hawkins, J. D., Kosterman, R., &
Catalano, R. F. (2002). Effects of the Seattle Social Development
Project on sexual behavior, pregnancy, birth, and sexually trans-
mitted disease outcomes by age 21 years. Archives of Pediatric
and Adolescent Medicine, 156, 438–447.
Lorenz, K. (1965). Evolution and modification of behavior. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
Lorion, R. P., & Sokoloff, H. (2003). Building assets in real-world
communities. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Benson (Eds.), Developmen-
tal assets and asset-building communities (pp. 121–156). New
York: Kluwer Academic.
Luthar, S. S., Cicchetti, D., & Becker, B. (2000). The construct of re-
silience: A critical evaluation and guidelines for future work.
Child Development, 71(3), 543–562.
MacDonald, G. B., & Valdivieso, R. (2001). Measuring deficits and
assets: How we track youth development now, and how we should
track it. In P. L. Benson & K. J. Pittman (Eds.), Trends in youth
development: Visions, realities, and challenges (pp. 155–186).
Boston: Kluwer Press.
Maddox, S. J., & Prinz, R. J. (2003). School bonding in children and
adolescents: Conceptualization, assessment, and associated vari-
ables. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 6(1), 31–49.
Madsen, M. C. (1971). Developmental and cross-cultural differences
in the cooperative and competitive behavior of young children.
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 2, 365–371.
Mahoney, J. L., Cairns, B. D., & Farmer, T. W. (2003). Promoting
interpersonal competence and educational success through ex-
tracurricular activity participation. Journal of Educational Psy-
chology, 95, 409–418.
Mannes, M., Benson, P. L., Kretzmann, J., & Norris, T. (2003). The
American tradition of community development: Implications for
guiding community engagement in youth development. In R. M.
Lerner, F. Jacobs, & D. Wertlieb (Eds.), Handbook of applied devel-
opmental science: Promoting positive child, adolescent, and family
development through research, policies and programs: Vol. 1. Apply-
ing developmental science for youth and families—Historical and
theoretical foundations (pp. 469–499). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Mannes, M., Lewis, S., Hintz, N., Foster, K., & Nakkula, M. (2002).
Cultivating developmentally attentive communities: A report on the
first wave of the National Asset-Building Case Study Project. Min-
neapolis, MN: Search Institute.
Masten, A. S. (2001). Ordinary magic: Resilience processes in devel-
opment. American Psychologist, 56, 227–238.
Masten, A. S., & Coatsworth, J. D. (1998). The development of
competence in favorable and unfavorable environments: Lessons
from research on successful children. American Psychologist,
53(2), 205–220.
Masten, A. S., & Garmezy, N. (1985). Risk, vulnerability and protec-
tive factors in developmental psychology. In B. B. Lahey & A. E.
Kazdin (Eds.), Advances in child clinical psychology (Vol. 8,
pp. 1–52). New York: Plenum Press.
Masten, A. S., Hubbard, J. J., Gest, S. D., Tellegen, A., Garmezy,
N., & Ramirez, M. L. (1999). Competence in the context of ad-
versity: Pathways to resilience and maladaptation from child-
hood to late adolescence. Development and Psychopathology, 11,
143–169.
McLaughlin, M. W., Irby, M. A., & Langman, J. (1994). Urban sanc-
tuaries: Neighborhood organizations in the lives and futures of
inner-city youth. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
McLellan, J. A., & Youniss, J. (2003). Two systems of youth service:
Determinants of voluntary and required youth community ser-
vice. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32, 47–58.
Metz, E., McLellan, J., & Youniss, J. (2003). Types of voluntary ser-
vice and adolescents’ civic development. Journal of Adolescent Re-
search, 18, 188–203.
Miller, W. R., & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Spirituality, religion,
and health: An emerging research field. American Psycholo-
gist, 58, 24–35.
Moffitt, T. E. (1993). Life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited
antisocial behavior: A developmental taxonomy. Psychological
Review, 100, 674–701.
Montemayor, R., Adams, G. R., & Gullotta, T. P. (2000). Advances in
adolescent development: Vol. 10. Adolescent diversity in ethnic,
economic, and cultural contexts. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Moore, K. A. (1997). Criteria for indicators of child well-being. In
R. M. Hauser, B. V. Brown, & W. R. Prosser (Eds.), Indicators
of children’s well-being (pp. 36–44). New York: Russell Sage
Foundation.
Moore, K. A., & Glei, D. (1995). Taking the plunge: An examination
of positive youth development. Journal of Adolescent Research,
10(1), 15–40.
Moore, K. A., & Lippman, L. (2004). What do children need to f lour-
ish? Conceptualizing and measuring indicators of positive develop-
ment. New York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Moore, K. A., Lippman, L., & Brown, B. (2004). Indicators of child
well-being: The promise for positive youth development. The An-
nals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science,
591, 125–147.
Mortimer, J., & Larson, R. (2002). The changing adolescent experi-
ence: Societal trends and the transition to adulthood. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Munóz, R. F., Mrazek, P. J., & Haggerty, R. J. (1996). Institute of
Medicine report on prevention of mental disorders: Summary and
commentary. American Psychologist, 51(11), 1116–1122.
Nakamura, J. (2001). The nature of vital engagement in adulthood. In
M. Michaelson & J. Nakamura (Eds.), Supportive frameworks for
youth engagement: New directions for child and adolescent devel-
opment, No. 93. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. (2002). Com-
munity programs to promote youth development: Committee on
community-level programs for youth (J. Eccles & J. A. Gootman,
Eds.) [Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education,
Board on Children, Youth and Families]. Washington, DC: Na-
tional Academy Press.
Nesselroade, J. R. (1977). Issues in studying developmental change in
adults from a multivariate perspective. In J. E. Birren & K. W.
Schaie (Eds.), Handbook of the psychology of aging (pp. 59–69).
New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
O’Donnell, L., Stueve, A., San Doval, A., Duran, R., Atnafou, R.,
Haber, D., et al. (1999). Violence prevention and young adoles-
cents’ participation in community youth service—Implications
for intervention. Journal of Adolescent Health, 24(1), 28–37.

O’Donoghue, J. L., Kirshner, B., & McLaughlin, M. (2002). Introduc-
tion: Moving youth participation forward. New Directions for
Youth Development, 96, 15–26.
Overton, W. F. (1998). Developmental psychology: Philosophy, con-
cepts, and methodology. In W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M.
Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoreti-
cal models of human development (5th ed., pp. 107–187). New
York: Wiley.
Pancer, M., Rose-Krasnor, L., & Loiselle, L. (2002). Youth confer-
ences as a context for engagement. New Directions for Youth De-
velopment, 96, 47–64.
Patterson, G. R., Reid, J. B., & Dishion, T. (1992). Antisocial boys: A
social interactional approach (Vol. 4). Eugene, OR: Castalia.
Paulson, S. E., Marchant, G. J., & Rothlisberg, B. A. (1998). Early
adolescents’ perceptions of patterns of parenting, teaching, and
school atmosphere: Implications for achievement. Journal of Early
Adolescence, 18, 5–26.
Perkins, D. F., Borden, L. M., Keith, J. G., Hoppe-Rooney, T., & Vil-
larruel, F. A. (2003). Community youth development: A partner-
ship for creating a positive world. In F. A. Villarruel, D. F.
Perkins, L. M. Borden, & J. G. Keith (Eds.), Community youth de-
velopment: Practice, policy, and research (pp. 1–23). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Perkins, D. F., Borden, L. M., & Villarruel, F. A. (2001). Community
youth development: A partnership for change. School Community
Journal, 11, 39–56.
Peterson, C. (2004). Positive social science. Annals of the American
Academy of Political and Social Science, 591, 186–201.
Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., & Dodge, K. A. (1997). Supportive parent-
ing, ecological context, and children’s adjustment: A 7-year longi-
tudinal study. Child Development, 68, 908–923.
Pittman, K. J., & Fleming, W. P. (1991). A new vision: Promoting
youth development (Testimony of Karen J. Pittman before the
House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families). Wash-
ington, DC: Center for Youth Development and Policy Research.
Pittman, K. J., Irby, M., & Ferber, T. (2000). Unfinished business:
Further ref lections on a decade of promoting youth development.
In Public/ Private Ventures (Ed.), Youth development: Issues,
challenges and directions (pp. 17–64). Philadelphia: Public/ Pri-
vate Ventures.
Pittman, K. J., Irby, M., & Ferber, T. (2001). Unfinished business:
Further ref lections on a decade of promoting youth develop-
ment. In P. L. Benson & K. Pittman (Eds.), Trends in youth de-
velopment: Visions, realities and challenges (pp. 3–50). Boston:
Kluwer Academic.
Pittman, K. J., Irby, M., Tolman, J., Yohalem, N., & Ferber, T. (2001).
Preventing problems, promoting development, encouraging engage-
ment: Competing priorities or inseparable goals? Retrieved on Au-
gust 31, 2005, from www.forumforyouthinvestment.org.
Public/ Private Ventures. (2000). Youth development: Issues, chal-
lenges and directions. Philadelphia: Public/ Private Ventures.
Quinn, J. (1999). Where need meets opportunity: Youth development
programs for early teens. Future of Children, 9(2), 96–116.
Resnick, M. D., Bearman, P. S., Blum, R. W., Bauman, K. E., Harris,
K. M., & Jones, J. (1997). Protecting adolescents from harm: Find-
ings from the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health.
Journal of the American Medical Association, 278(10), 823–832.
Rhodes, J. E., Grossman, J. B., & Resch, N. R. (2000). Agents of change:
Pathways through which mentoring relationships inf luence adoles-
cents’ academic adjustment. Child Development, 71, 1662–1671.
References 939
Rhodes, J. E., & Roffman, J. G. (2003). Nonparental adults as devel-
opmental assets in the lives of youth. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Ben-
son (Eds.), Developmental assets and asset-building communities:
Implications for research, policy, and practice (pp. 195–212).
Boston: Kluwer Academic.
Rodriguez, M. C., & Morrobel, D. (2004). A review of Latino youth
development research and a call for an asset orientation. Hispanic
Journal of Behavioral Science, 26(2), 107–127.
Roehlkepartain, E. C., Benson, P. L., & Sesma, A. (2003). Signs of
progress in putting children first: Developmental assets among
youth in St. Louis Park, 1997–2001. Minneapolis, MN: Search
Institute.
Rogoff, B. (1990). Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development
in social context. New York: Oxford University Press.
Roth, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2000). What do adolescents need for
healthy development: Implications for youth policy. Social Policy
Report, 14(1), 3–19.
Roth, J., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2003). What exactly is a youth develop-
ment program? Answers from research and practice. Applied De-
velopmental Science, 7(2), 94–111.
Roth, J., Brooks-Gunn, J., Murray, L., & Foster, W. (1998). Promot-
ing healthy adolescents: Synthesis of youth development program
evaluations. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 8(4), 423–459.
Rowe, D. C., Vazsonyi, A. T., & Flannery, D. J. (1994). No more than
skin deep: Ethnic and racial similarity in developmental process.
Psychological Review, 101(3), 396–413.
Rutter, M. (1987). Psychosocial resilience and protective mecha-
nisms. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57(3), 316–331.
Ryff, C. D., & Singer, B. (1998). The contours of positive human
health. Psychological Inquiry, 9, 1–28.
Sampson, R. J. (2001). How do communities undergird or undermine
human development? Relevant contexts and social mechanisms. In
A. Booth & A. C. Crouter (Eds.), Does it take a village? Commu-
nity ef fects on children, adolescents, and families (p. 3). Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Sampson, R. J., Morenoff, J., & Earls, F. (1999). Beyond social capi-
tal: Spatial dynamics of collective efficacy for children. American
Sociological Review, 64, 633–660.
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. C. (1997). Neighbor-
hoods and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy.
Science, 277, 918–924.
Sanders, M. G. (1998). The effects of school, family, and community
support on the academic achievement of African American ado-
lescents. Urban Education, 33, 385–409.
Scales, P. C. (1991). A portrait of young adolescents in the 1990s: Im-
plications for promoting healthy growth and development. Min-
neapolis, MN: Search Institute.
Scales, P. C. (2001). The public image of adolescents. Social Science
and Modern Society, 38(4), 64–70.
Scales, P. C. (2003). Other people’s kids: Social expectations and
American adults’ involvement with children and adolescents. New
York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Scales, P. C., & Benson, P. L. (2004). Prosocial orientation and com-
munity service. In K. A. Moore & L. Lippman (Eds.), What do
children need to f lourish (pp. 339–356). New York: Kluwer Aca-
demic/ Plenum Press.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Leffert, N., & Blyth, D. A. (2000). Con-
tribution of developmental assets to the prediction of thriving
among adolescents. Applied Developmental Science, 4(1), 27–46.
940 Positive Youth Development: Theory, Research, and Applications
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., & Mannes, M. (2002). Grading grown-ups
2002: How do American kids and adults relate? Minneapolis, MN:
Search Institute.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Roehlkepartain, E. C., Hintz, N. R., Sul-
livan, T. K., Mannes, M., et al. (2001). The role of neighborhood
and community in building developmental assets for children and
youth: A national study of social norms among American adults.
Journal of Community Psychology, 29(6), 703–727.
Scales, P. C., Benson, P. L., Roehlkepartain, E. C., Sesma, A., Jr., &
van Dulmen, M. (in press). The role of developmental assets in
predicting academic achievement: A longitudinal study. Journal
of Adolescence.
Scales, P. C., Blyth, D. A., Berkas, T. H., & Kielsmeier, J. C. (2000).
The effects of service-learning on middle school students’ social
responsibility and academic success. Journal of Early Adoles-
cence, 20(3), 332–359.
Scales, P. C., & Leffert, N. (1999). Developmental assets: A synthesis
of the scientific research on adolescent development. Minneapolis,
MN: Search Institute.
Scales, P. C., & Leffert, N. (2004). Developmental assets: A synthesis
of the scientific research on adolescent development (2nd ed.).
Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute.
Scales, P. C., Leffert, N., & Vraa, R. (2003). The relation of commu-
nity developmental attentiveness to adolescent health. American
Journal of Health Behavior, 27(Suppl. 1), S22–S34.
Scales, P. C., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2003). Boosting student
achievement: New research on the power of developmental assets.
Search Institute Insights and Evidence, 1(1), 1–10.
Scales, P. C., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2004). Service to others: A
“gateway” asset for school success and healthy development. In
National Youth Leadership Council (Eds.), Growing to greatness:
The state of service-learning report (pp. 26–32). Saint Paul: Na-
tional Youth Leadership Council.
Scales, P. C., Sesma, A., & Bolstrom, B. (2004). Coming into their
own: How developmental assets promote positive growth in middle
childhood. Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute.
Schaeffer, C. M., Petras, H., Ialongo, N., Poduska, J., & Kellam, S.
(2003). Modeling growth in boys’ aggressive behavior across ele-
mentary school: Links to later criminal involvement, conduct dis-
order, and antisocial personality disorder. Developmental
Psychology, 39, 1020–1035.
Schaie, K. W. (1965). A general model for the study of developmental
problems. Psychological Bulletin, 64, 92–107.
Schneirla, T. C. (1957). The concept of development in comparative
psychology. In D. B. Harris (Ed.), The concept of development: An
issue in the study of human behavior (pp. 78–108). Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Schneirla, T. C. (1959). An evolutionary and developmental theory of
biphasic processes underlying approach and withdrawal. In M. R.
Jones (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 1–42). Lin-
coln: University of Nebraska Press.
Seligman, M. E. P., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2000). Positive psychol-
ogy: An introduction. American Psychologist, 55(1), 5–14.
Sesma, A., Jr., Mannes, M., & Scales, P. C. (in press). Positive adap-
tation, resilience, and the developmental assets framework. In S.
Goldstein & R. Brooks (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children.
New York: Springer.
Sesma, A., & Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2003). Unique strengths, shared
strengths: Developmental assets among youth of color. Search In-
stitute Insights and Evidence, 1(2), 1–13.
Simpson, A. R., & Roehlkepartain, J. L. (2003). Asset building in
parenting practices and family life. In R. M. Lerner & P. L. Ben-
son (Eds.), Developmental assets and asset-building communities:
Implications for research, policy, and practice (pp. 157–193). New
York: Kluwer Academic/ Plenum Press.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton.
Small, S., & Memmo, M. (2004). Contemporary models of youth
development and problem prevention: Toward an integration of
terms, concepts, and models. Family Relations, 53, 3–11.
Spencer, M. B. (1995). Old issues and new theorizing about African
American youth: A phenomenological variant of ecological systems
theory. In R. L. Taylor (Ed.), Black youth: Perspectives on their sta-
tus in the United States (pp. 37–69). Westport, CT: Praeger.
Spencer, M. B. (1999). Social and cultural inf luences on school ad-
justment: The application of an identity-focused cultural ecologi-
cal perspective. Educational Psychologist, 34, 43–57.
Spencer, M. B. (2001). Research on African-American adolescents.
In J. V. Lerner & R. M. Lerner (Eds.), Adolescence in America: An
encyclopedia (pp. 30–32). Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.
Spencer, M. B., Dupree, D., & Hartmann, T. (1997). A Phenome-
nological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory (PVEST): A
self-organization perspective in context. Development and
Psychopathology, 9, 817–833.
Spilka, G. (2004). On community-based evaluations: Two trends.
Evaluation Exchange, 9(4), 6. (Harvard Family Research Project)
Sroufe, L. A. (1979). The coherence of individual development: Early
care, attachment, and subsequent developmental issues. American
Psychologist, 34, 834–841.
Steinberg, L., & Lerner, R. M. (2004). The scientific study of ado-
lescence: A brief history. Journal of Early Adolescence, 24(1),
45–54.
Takanishi, R. (1993). An agenda for the integration of research and
policy during early adolescence. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Early
adolescence: Perspectives on research, policy, and intervention
(pp. 457–469). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Taylor, C. S., Lerner, R. M., von Eye, A., Bobek, D. L., Balsano,
A. B., Dowling, E., et al. (2002). Stability of attributes of positive
functioning and of developmental assets among African American
adolescent gang members and community-based organization
members. New Directions for Youth Development, 95, 35–55.
Taylor, C. S., Lerner, R. M., von Eye, A., Bobek, D. L., Balsano,
A. B., Dowling, E., et al. (2003). Positive individual and social be-
havior among gang and non-gang African American male adoles-
cents. Journal of Adolescent Research, 18, 496–522.
Thelen, E., & Smith, L. B. (1998). Dynamic systems theories. In W.
Damon (Series Ed.) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook on child
psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th
ed., pp. 563–634). New York: Wiley.
Theokas, C., Almerigi, J., Lerner, R. M., Dowling, E. M., Benson,
P. L., Scales, P. C., et al. (2004). Conceptualizing and modeling
individual and ecological asset components of thriving in early
adolescence. Journal of Early Adolescence.
Thomas, A., & Chess, S. (1977). Temperament and development. New
York: Brunner/ Mazel.
Tierney, P., Grossman, J. B., & Resch, N. L. (1995). Making a dif fer-
ence: An impact study of Big Brothers/ Big Sisters. Philadelphia:
Public/ Private Ventures.
Tolan, P. H., Gorman-Smith, D., & Henry, D. B. (2003). The develop-
mental ecology of urban males’ youth violence. Developmental
Psychology, 39, 274–291.

Tolman, J., & Pittman, K. (2001). Youth acts, community impacts:
Stories of youth engagement with real results. Tahoma Park, MD:
The Forum for Youth Investment.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (1999). Trends in
the well-being of America’s children and youth. Washington, DC:
U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Administration for
Children and Families. (1996). Reconnecting youth and commu-
nity: A youth development approach. Washington, DC: U.S. Gov-
ernment Printing Office.
Udry, J. R., Li, R. M., & Hendrickson-Smith, J. (2003). Health and
behavior risks of adolescents with mixed-race identity. American
Journal of Public Health, 93, 1865–1870.
Villarruel, F. A., Perkins, D. F., Borden, L. M., & Keith, J. G. (2003).
Community youth development: Practice, policy, and research.
Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher
educational processes (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E.
Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wandersman, A., & Florin, P. (2003). Community interventions and
effective prevention. American Psychologist, 58, 441–448.
Wang, M. C., Hartel, G. D., & Walberg, H. J. (1990). What inf luences
learning? A content analysis of review literature. Journal of Edu-
cational Research, 84, 30–43.
Way, N., & Robinson, M. G. (2003). A longitudinal study of the ef-
fects of family, friends, and school experiences on the psycholog-
ical adjustment of ethnic minority, low-SES adolescents. Journal
of Adolescent Research, 18(4), 324–346.
Weissberg, R. P., Kumpfer, K. L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2003). Pre-
vention that works for children and youth. American Psychologist,
58, 425–432.
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (1989). Vulnerable but invincible: A
Longitudinal Study of Resilient Children and Youth. New York:
Adams, Bannister and Cox.
West, D. D. (1974, December). Youth development: A new look at an
old concept. Youth Reporter, 5–8.
Whitlock, J. L. (2003). Voice, visibility, place, and power: Correlates
of school and community connectedness among eighth, tenth and
twelfth grade youth. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Cornell
University.
Whitlock, J. L., & Hamilton, S. F. (2003). The role of youth surveys
in community youth development initiatives. Applied Developmen-
tal Science, 7(1), 39–51.
W. K. Kellogg Foundation. (n.d.). Kellogg Youth Initiative Partner-
ships 1978–1997: Lessons learned from the crucial first decade of
References 941
positive youth development through community-based program-
ming. Battle Creek, MI: Author. Retrieved September 22, 2004,
from http://www.wkkf.org/ Pubs/ YouthEd/KYIP/ Pub3174.pdf.
W. T. Grant Foundation. (1988). The forgotten half: Pathways to suc-
cess for America’s youth and young families. New York: W. T.
Grant Foundation.
Wynn, J. (1997). Primary supports, schools, and other sectors: Impli-
cations for learning and civic life. Paper presented at the Harvard
Project on Schooling and Children. Chicago, IL: Chapin Hall Cen-
ter for Children.
Yates, M., & Youniss, J. (1996). A developmental perspective on com-
munity service in adolescence. Social Development, 5, 85–111.
Youniss, J., McLellan, J., & Yates, M. (1997). What we know
about engendering civic identity. American Behavioral Scien-
tist, 40, 620– 631.
Zaff, J., & Michelsen, E. (2002). Encouraging civic engagement: How
teens are (or are not) becoming responsible citizens. Washington,
DC: Child Trends.
Zaff, J. F., Moore, K. A., Papillo, A. R., & Williams, S. (2003). Im-
plications of extracurricular activity participation during ado-
lescence on positive outcomes. Journal of Adolescent Research,
18, 599–630.
Zeldin, S. (1995). Community-university collaborations for youth de-
velopment: From theory to practice. Journal of Adolescent Re-
search, 10(4), 449–469.
Zeldin, S. (2000). Integrating research and practice to understand
and strengthen communities for adolescent development: An in-
troduction to the special issue and current issues. Applied Devel-
opmental Science, 4(Suppl. 1), 2–10.
Zeldin, S. (2002). Sense of community and positive adult beliefs
toward adolescents and youth policy in urban neighborhoods
and small cities. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 31(5),
331–342.
Zeldin, S. (2004). Youth as agents of adult and community develop-
ment: Mapping the processes and outcomes of youth engaged in or-
ganizational governance. Applied Developmental Science, 8(2),
75–90.
Zeldin, S., Kimball, M., & Price, L. (1995). What are the day-to-day
experiences that promote youth development? An annotated bibli-
ography of research on adolescents and their families. Washington,
DC: Academy for Educational Development, Center for Youth De-
velopment and Policy Research.
Zweig, J. M., Phillips, S. D., & Lindberg, L. D. (2002). Predicting
adolescent profiles of risk: Looking beyond demographics. Jour-
nal of Adolescent Health, 31(4), 343–353.
CHAPTER 17
Religious and Spiritual Development
throughout the Life Span
FRITZ K. OSER, W. GEORGE SCARLETT, and ANTON BUCHER
A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH 943
IS RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
RESISTANT TO THE POSTMODERN PATH? 944
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 946
Religious and Spiritual Development as Maturing 947
Religious and Spiritual Development as Coping:
Psychoanalytic Theory 948
Religious and Spiritual Development as Perfecting 951
DEFINING RELIGIOUS AND
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT 952
Religion, Religiousness, and Spirituality 953
Content, Form, and Function 954
Stage and Structure 956
STAGE-STRUCTURAL THEORIES 957
Cognitive-Stage Theories: Ronald Goldman 958
Faith Developmental Theory: James Fowler 959
Stages of Religious Judgment and Reasoning: Fritz Oser
and Paul Gmünder 961
The Relational and Contextual Model of Development:
Helmut Reich 965
STAGE-STRUCTURAL THEORIES: CONCERNS 965
ALTERNATIVES TO STAGE-STRUCTURAL
THEORIES 967
Susan Kwilecki’s Substantive-Functional Approach 967
The Spiritual Child Movement 968
Cognitive-Cultural Theories 970
Developmental Systems Theories 971
A young man meets his former professor and relates that
he has recently fallen in love. He says he believes his
falling in love is a matter of destiny, a gift given by
chance. The older man listens intently and then suggests
this experience cannot have happened by chance, that it
The authors would like to thank Kathryn Tabone, Mitchael
Steorts, and Alexis Gerber for their help in preparing the
manuscript.
Preparation of this chapter was supported by a grant from
the Templeton Foundation.
942
CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT IN RELIGIOUS AND
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT 972
Studies Carried Out from a
Stage-Structural Approach 972
Studies Carried Out from a
Cognitive-Cultural Approach 975
A Synthesis 976
RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
IN CONTEXT 976
The Family Context 977
Religious Schools and Religious Education 980
Congregations 981
POSITIVE CORRELATES OF RELIGIOUS AND
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT 982
Health and Well-Being 982
Moral Development 983
Coping 984
Positive Correlates in Advanced Age 985
NEGATIVE CORRELATES AND PATHOLOGY 985
Cults, Occultist Practices, and Terrorist Groups 987
Mental Disorders 989
Pathogenic (Toxic) Religious Beliefs, Practices
and Attitudes 989
CONCLUSIONS 990
REFERENCES 991
is indeed a gift, a gift given by the two people involved
and by God. He also suggests that a development such as
this always has a hidden, transcendent meaning.
In this sketch of a conversation, we are confronted
with judgments about the meaning of an important life
event—falling in love. One judgment seems to have no
connection to religion or spirituality, while the other
seems to be very much connected to religion. It is
judgments such as these that theories of religious de-
velopment must explain, and in such a way that we
understand individual change, transformations, pro-

gression, and regression as well as commonalities
across persons, groups, and ages.
Thirty years ago, theories of religious development
avoided explaining issues expressed in our scene—issues
about faith and transcendence. Rather, theories of reli-
gious development applied a cognitive, Piagetian ap-
proach to concepts and knowledge—for example, in
explaining how children understand the concept of God
(Goldman, 1964).
Religious thinking was seen as an application of gen-
eral cognitive structures, such that lower levels of reli-
gious thinking were taken as expressions of immature,
magical, and egocentric thinking. In doing so, re-
searchers on religious and spiritual development gave no
value to lower stage constructions of meaning. They saw
nothing in the way lower stages can provide for a grow-
ing religious and spiritual rationality. In this chapter, we
explore theories providing explanations of religious and
spiritual development quite different from that provided
by Piagetian stage theory.
Here is another story to help define our area of in-
quiry: On arrival at a birthday party, a young woman no-
tices candles in front of every invited guest. After a
while, the host asks everyone present to concentrate on
the candles, to become quiet, to close their eyes and then
to share a good wish for the birthday person. The room
is silent, and then, when wishes are shared, every word
is valued. What happens here is a form of going into as
well as beyond oneself—which is what many take to be
something spiritual.
As with religious development, spiritual development
is also related to change and transformation, to progres-
sion and regression. However, if separated from reli-
gious development, the contents of spiritual development
seem less fixed, and the steps toward higher, more com-
plex levels seem less evident. There is today no theory of
pure spiritual development. That is why in this chapter,
we explore alternative theories of spiritual growth, and
why we use religious and spiritual as highly overlapping
entities, which can be taken mostly together.
We believe that religious and spiritual development
is a normative task. As such, developing religiously
and/or spiritually is important because it transforms
narrow-minded religious behavior and thinking into
open, fully integrated religiosity and spirituality, thus
avoiding central problems, including religious funda-
mentalism, intolerance, and war. However, being mind-
ful of the challenges faced by any normative approach,
we emphasize especially the challenge presented by al-
A Developmental Approach 943
ternative conceptions of endpoints of development—in-
cluding the alternative of no definite endpoint.
Thus, this chapter aims to examine the emergence
and growth of religious and spiritual development
from a variety of perspectives, but with a special em-
phasis on those with a transformative view. It does so
using two overarching paradigms or frameworks. The
first is the organismic or cognitive—structural para-
digm associated with the stage theories of Piaget,
Werner, and Kohlberg. The second is the developmen-
tal systems paradigm that has gained interest over the
past 2 decades (Lerner, 2002). In one sense, the devel-
opmental systems paradigm includes the organismic
paradigm such that they operate on different concep-
tual levels. In theory the two are compatible, and we
use them in this way, as theoretically compatible.
However, in practice, those adopting a developmental
systems paradigm have often settled on simple defini-
tions of religious and spiritual development. The
strength and contribution of the organismic paradigm
is that it forces attention on the problem of definition.
This is a major reason for introducing the concept of
stage. We use the organismic paradigm to better define
religious and spiritual development—and later on, use
mostly a developmental systems paradigm to discuss
the literature on contexts, situatedness inf luences, sup-
ports, outcomes, and ef fects.
The chapter examines the following major questions
in particular:
• How should we define religious and spiritual devel-
opment?
• What is universal and what is culturally situated with
respect to religious and spiritual development?
• What triggers, causes, and supports religious and
spiritual development?
• What evidence is there for religious and spiritual de-
velopment promoting character development, avoid-
ing risky behavior, and fostering thriving in general?
• What evidence do we have for religious and spiritual
development promoting physically and psychologi-
cally unhealthy behavior?
A DEVELOPMENTAL APPROACH
To explain religious and spiritual development requires
explaining the antecedents and consequences of religious
944 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
and spiritual content and belief, religious and spiritual
practical life, and religious and spiritual structure
(Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 1998). It also re-
quires explaining how an existential experience can be
interpreted differently at different times in life and with
different complexity, styles, and meaning-making capac-
ities. Finally, it means explaining how religious and spir-
itual development elucidates growth and change in ways
of being in the world that need not contradict the general
enlightening process of modern and postmodern society.
Our approach is individual centered in that religious and
spiritual behavior is seen as rooted in the person who
is immersed in and influenced by life events, learning,
and culture.
The question of how apparently simple levels of de-
velopment are transformed into complex forms is cen-
tral (Case, 1985; Fischer & Bidell, 1997; Fischer &
Rose, 1999; Pascual-Leone, 1983). We adhere to the dis-
continuous approach to development, but, in so doing,
we differentiate highly according to lifestyles, denomi-
nations, cultures, situations, intelligence, and ethno-
graphic experiences. We offer no stereotypic portraits
of stages. Rather, we describe and explain how individu-
als in modern societies transform their religious atti-
tudes, judgments, and feelings in the life span.
Development is the focus—so much so that general dis-
cussions about the psychology and sociology of religion
(Brown, 1987; Durkheim, 1915/1995; Grom, 1992;
Hood, Spilka, Hunsberger, & Gorsuch, 1996; Wulff,
1991) are avoided.
Taking a developmental approach to religiousness and
spirituality has serious implications for designing inter-
ventions to help. When religiousness and spirituality
make life uncontrollable and bound to blind faith, they
can easily become sources for inhuman behavior, intol-
erance, and painful dependency on dysfunctional
groups. But when real development occurs, religiousness
and spirituality can be compared to any other develop-
mental transformation producing losses and gains in a
flexible and complex human personality.
Thus, religious and spiritual development contains
the growth of the personality and identity in the broad-
est sense. Religious and spiritual knowledge, feelings,
belonging, self-efficacy, and identity—all are part of
development and change and must—to the extent that
research is available—be part of our overall develop-
mental frame.
In this chapter, we defend the thesis that religious
and spiritual thoughts, acts, and feelings can neither be
derived from nor reduced to something else. They have
their own meaning, roots, and core—like morality,
mathematics, and music. Later on, we speak about reli-
giousness as having a fundamental mother structure,
which is generated, in part, from the universal experi-
ence that life is fragile. Even at early ages, children ask
questions about the meaning of death, about arbitrari-
ness and contingency, and about why there is misfortune
and evil. This questioning reveals the religious mother
structure, and it provides one expression of and impetus
for spiritual development.
IS RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL
DEVELOPMENT RESISTANT TO THE
POSTMODERN PATH?
In 1791, Condorcet (1789/1976), the French Minister
of Education, predicted that as the human intellect pro-
gressed, religion would be dispensed with in a culture
largely dominated by science. In the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, leading thinkers agreed, among
them Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, and James Leuba.
Marx dismissed religion as the “opium of the people”
because he thought religion alienated people and legit-
imized the exploitation of the proletariat. Freud re-
garded religion as an obsessional neurosis, an infantile
illusion that humanity would have to overcome by mov-
ing in the direction of “God as logos.” Leuba, one of the
founding fathers of the psychology of religion, consid-
ered religiousness to be negatively correlated with ra-
tionality, implying that religiousness is something to be
overcome.
However, at the beginning of the third millennium,
research tells us that Condorcet’s prognosis has not been
fulfilled. The opposite has happened. The classic secu-
larization thesis, which claims there is a successive
weakening of religiousness in the postmodern age, has
been refuted. In the United States, 96% of the popula-
tion professes to believe in God (Gallup, 1995) and 75%
of U.S. adolescents say they try to follow the teachings
of their religion (P. King & C. Boyatzis, 2004). In most
European countries, the numbers are markedly smaller,
but even in a country such as France, with its distinct lay
history, there are still approximately 67% who believe
in God (Denz, 2002, p. 40).
In Europe, in general, we see that persons in the new
millennium are less apt to belong to a denomination but
still feel themselves to be religious and/or spiritual.
 Is Religious and Spiritual Development Resistant to the Postmodern Path?
For example, in a large sociological study in Austria,
Zulehner, Hager, and Polak (2001) found that 94% of the
people in their sample felt strongly religious despite
only 27% saying they are Christians, 30% saying they
have a patchwork religiosity, 30% saying they are hu-
manists, 13% saying they are atheists, and only a small
number saying they participate in active church life. In
addition, the correlation between social engagement and
religiosity was very high, a finding consistent with find-
ings from the research of many, which shows that will-
ingness to perform volunteer service is positively
associated with stable or upward religious developmen-
tal trajectories (Donnelly, Matsuba, Hart, & Atkins,
2005; Youniss, McLellan, Su, & Yates, 1999).
If anything, the postmodern era manifests tenden-
cies to become more religious, not less. New religious
movements, often of a fundamentalist nature, are moti-
vating millions. More and more religious groups are
succeeding, among them totalitarian sects. And with
regard to forms of spirituality, the enormous variety
suggests that we are today in the midst of a spirituality
“ boom.”
The evidence for their being a spirituality boom
comes from several sources. There are the many new
books on spirituality with titles such as Heart and
Home. Embracing the Spiritual in Everyday Life (Ben-
ish, 2001) and The Way. Using the Wisdom of Kabbalah
for Spiritual Transformation and Fulfillment (Berg,
2001). There are also now psychological journals devot-
ing special issues to spiritual topics, for example, the
Journal of Individual Psychology (2000, Vol. 3) and the
journal, Applied Developmental Science (2004, Vol. 8).
And even a cursory search on the Internet indicates
tremendous interest in spirituality and spiritual develop-
ment. For example, launching a search for “spiritual de-
velopment ” in databases such as PsycInfo will produce
more hits than “religious development.”
The variety and boom are, no doubt, related to the
fact that religious freedom has been established as a
constitutional right in the developed world so that reli-
gious and spiritual beliefs and affiliations can no longer
be imposed or prescribed. Connected with this is the
way in which spirituality has been released from the
power of religious communities. As a result, many now
are developing their own religious ideas and practices.
These ideas and practices can be rejected as “religion à
la carte,” but they can also be seen positively as the re-
sult of a patchwork religiousness and spirituality that
has emerged under the influence of postmodernism.
945
Furthermore, in academia we now find a renewed in-
terest in religion and spirituality as well as new theories
putting religion and spirituality at the very heart of
what it means to be human. We see this renewed interest
especially in the psychology of religion, which long ago
cast off ties restricting it to church religiousness and, in
recent times, turned to discussing diverse forms of spir-
ituality (Argyle, 2000; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle, 1997;
Hood, 1995; Hood et al., 1996; Wulff, 1991). And we
see that many scientists want to connect religious life
and the natural sciences through speculative reflection
(Reich, 2004). As for the new theories, we see them
suggesting religious and spiritual development is indis-
pensable to human functioning. For example, today,
sociobiologists claim religiousness is determined genet-
ically and that religion was and still is an important fac-
tor in evolutionary survival (Burkert, 1996; Daecke &
Schnakenberg, 2000; Wilson, 1998). Religion, they
argue, offers advantages of selection; sects especially
serve as examples—since they achieve selection by
strengthening group cohesiveness and because they fos-
ter aggression toward threatening entities outside the
group.
Thus renowned psychologists of religion (Hood et al.,
1996, p. 44) have asked, “Is religion in our genes?” In so
doing, they are thinking not about specific religions,
which are always marked and shaped in sociocultural
ways, but about a basic religious disposition, which ac-
cording to Oerter (1980, p. 293), is activated when young
children become conscious of their temporally restricted
existence, an experience that leads to a preoccupation,
determined by nature, with religious and metaphysical
problems. Spirituality, too, has been seen as humanity’s
answer to its own finite nature (Socha, 1999).
Modern, scientifically based theories of religion and
spirituality have explained religious and spiritual devel-
opment as a means of satisfying the human need to exer-
cise control, indeed, control over and above the mere
immanence of the here-and-now and into the great tran-
scendent realm beyond (Flammer, 1994).
Throughout human evolution, belief in the divine has
worked because it has helped humans cope with threaten-
ing and difficult situations. In addition, religion has legit-
imized authority and created security—through oaths,
for example, but also through the expectation of reciproc-
ity between sacrifice and reward (Burkert, 1996).
As another example of new theories giving a positive
view of religious and spiritual development, Huntington
(1998, p. 61) has theorized that every culture is based
946 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
on a religion, which, in the nature of a latent disposi-
tion, retains its power to grow and spread even after it
has been subjected to waves of secularization. Further-
more, cultural anthropologists point out that every cul-
ture produces a system of religious symbols, which
govern individuals’ relations with transcendence and
provide the ultimate systems of authority. This means
“religion can be viewed as a precondition of culture, or
as springing from the same roots as culture” (Ohlig
2002, p. 101).
However, discontinuity, boom, genetic issues, and
new developments are not the only terms to use to ex-
plain why Condorcet’s prognosis has been proven
wrong. Today, there are continuities with the past in
the way religiosity and spirituality are experienced.
Children and young people continue, as they did in the
past, to encounter religious phenomena such as church
buildings, saffron robed monks, religious sisters,
veiled Islamic schoolgirls, orthodox Jews with
yarmulkes and side locks, soccer players making the
sign of the cross, and people praying at a funeral. Fur-
thermore, places of spirituality are still represented by
monasteries and convents, houses of retreat for spiri-
tual exercises, and remote places for tranquility and
prayer. Spirituality also includes traditional ideas—
negative ideas having to do with suffering and asceti-
cism but also positive ideas having to do with affirming
life, being health conscious, and seeking happiness.
In sum, religion and spirituality are alive and thriv-
ing both in traditional ways and in ways not even imag-
ined by Condorcet. Now, more than ever, we need to
understand this widespread and varied human phenome-
non—especially by understanding its development.
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
The scientific study of religious development dates back
to 1882, the year that G. Stanley Hall, in the context of
his “Child Study,” investigated children’s religious
imagination (see Huxel, 2000, 95 f ). However, the con-
cept of religious development has a much longer history.
The books of the dead in ancient Egypt and Tibet de-
scribed steps leading to the gods and Nirvana respec-
tively. In the Bible, the Apostle Paul noted children’s
qualitatively different ways of being in the world when
he wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I un-
derstood as a child, I thought as a child; when I became
an adult, I put away childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13:11,
New Revised Standard Version).
In the Christian faith tradition, the concepts of devel-
opment and stage have been used frequently to define
the religious and spiritual life—so frequently that one
might suspect that current stage developmental theory is
rooted in the mind-set of this Western tradition. There
are many examples. Ambrosias, one of the early church
fathers (dec. 379), described four stages in the ascent to
God, and Benedict of Nursia (dec. 547) described nor-
matively 12 stages of humility.
Mysticism has also played a central role in develop-
ing the concept of religious and spiritual development,
and, in recent times, some of the more famous stage
models of mystics have been compared to stage models
of modern theorists. Thus, M. J. Meadow (1992)
showed impressive parallels between Teresa of Avila’s
seven stages leading to mystical union and Jane Lo-
evinger’s model of ego development. Steele (1994) re-
constructed John of the Cross’s stages of spiritual
development in the light of transpersonal psychology,
and Oser (2002) compared the steps of the mystical
path in both Meister Eckhart and Margerethe Porete to
the stages of religious judgment as presented by Oser
and Gmünder (1991).
These prescientific descriptions of stages provide no
systematic theory or description of age changes. Rather,
they define an ideal for the total religious life. Neverthe-
less, they show that, early on, religious leaders made
frequent use of the metaphors of stage and step to give
their own developmental accounts.
The phenomenon of religious development was also
obvious to Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1768). In
Emile (1762/1979), his novel on education, Rousseau ob-
served younger children’s propensity to imagine God as
a person as well as their not understanding the abstract
language of catechism. From these observations,
Rousseau advised that children be kept from religious
instruction until they reach adolescence. Centuries later,
Ronald Goldman would give similar advice but from a
Piagetian theoretical perspective.
In the field of religious education, classical writers
such as Salzmann, Basedow, Jean Paul, and Jean Calvin
were finely attuned to children’s religious development
(Schweitzer, 1992). For example, Jean Calvin (1834,
p. 200) assigned the Old Testament to children and the
New Testament to adolescents, a practice that antici-
pated G. Stanley Hall’s advice at the turn of the twenti-
eth century (Hall, 1900, 1908). Calvin assumed that
the vivid stories of the Old Testament matched the in-
terests and mental capacities of children just as the ab-

stract messages of the New Testament did the same for
adolescents.
By the turn of the twentieth century, when psycholog-
ical exploration of religious development began in
earnest, the three main paradigms for explaining reli-
gious and spiritual development had already been well
established as:
1. Religious and spiritual development as maturing
2. Religious and spiritual development as coping
3. Religious and spiritual development as perfecting
In the first paradigm, maturity, loosely defined, is the
telos toward which religious and spiritual development
tends. Maturity is a value-laden concept, but the values
made explicit in this paradigm are attainable by most. In
this paradigm, to mature religiously and spiritually is not
to become a saint. Rather, it is to become an adult in
whatever ways being an adult is culturally defined.
In the second paradigm, maturity is also a telos, but
the emphasis is more on the primitive and immature—so
that maturity means coping with personal limitations.
Here, we see a functional approach—with religious and
spiritual development functioning to help us cope. We
also see health and maturity being used almost inter-
changeably. Nowhere is this paradigm used more exten-
sively than in psychoanalytic theory—so we concentrate
on psychoanalytic theory when discussing this paradigm.
The third paradigm explicitly embraces perfection as
the goal of development. The telos here is entirely con-
ceptual—though occasionally the talk is of religious
or spiritual exemplars. But even in the exemplars, the as-
sumption of this paradigm is not that the exemplar is
perfect but that the exemplar points to what perfection
consists of, to the standard or ideal that defines develop-
ment, and allows us to evaluate and explain levels or
stages of development as approximations to perfection.
These three paradigms are used to organize the re-
mainder of this section.
Religious and Spiritual Development as Maturing
Research into religious development reached its first
highpoint in the beginning decades of the twentieth cen-
tury, partly as a result of the work of American pioneers
in the psychology of religion, in particular, Hall, Leuba,
and Starbuck (see Huxel, 2000; Wulff, 1991, pp. 41–53).
This era also produced extensive work in Germany, by
practical theologians hoping that knowledge derived
A Historical Perspective 947
from the psychology of religion would optimize religious
instruction.
These early researchers and practical theologians in-
vestigated children’s concepts of heaven (Barth, 1911),
God (Nobiling, 1929), religious doubt (Wunderle, 1932),
and religious ideas in general (Voss, 1926). Their central
focus was on describing age differences rather than on
constructing theories. For most of these early investiga-
tors, religious development was a maturational process
(Gesell, 1977; Kroh, 1965). Nowhere do we see this
more clearly than in the stage theory of G. Stanley Hall.
G. Stanley Hall
Hall (1904, 1923) argued that individual religious devel-
opment recapitulates the religious development of the
species. So, religious development begins with uncon-
sciousness and is followed by a stage of fetishism and
nature worship—the very features that define both an-
cient idolatrous religions and the religious concepts of
school children with their concrete and anthropomor-
phic images of God.
Hall also argued that children need to work through
these earlier (i.e., historically earlier) ways of being re-
ligious before they can adopt more advanced, recently
acquired ways. So, as mentioned previously, he sug-
gested that the religious education of children should
focus on the Old Testament with its concrete images and
stories, and later on, during adolescence, on the New
Testament with its abstract principles and values.
Hall’s influence and contribution was also in his pro-
moting careful, empirical work as well as in his explain-
ing that adolescence is a significant time for spiritual
transformation.
Hall’s linking individual and phylogenetic religious
development has been critiqued and refuted (Gould,
2003a). However, his influence on the psychology of re-
ligious development has been enormous, not only be-
cause he got others to think developmentally, but also
because he demonstrated that religious development is a
domain that should be studied scientifically. Hall’s phy-
logenetic theory was a maturationist theory in that it as-
sumed religious development unfolded in ways heavily
influenced by biology. This maturationist understanding
and emphasis continued long after Hall—even into the
second half of the twentieth century.
Gordon W. Allport
The third example of religious and spiritual
development as a process of maturing is the work of
948 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
G. W. Allport. In The Individual and His Religion (All-
port, 1950), Allport described two types of religious-
ness, which form a developmental sequence. The first
type is the “self-interested” religiousness of younger
children who see prayers as a means of getting material
things. Children also imagine God in a concrete, an-
thropomorphic manner. Thus, we have the precursor of
the well-established concept, “extrinsic religiousness.”
In the years preceding puberty, children’s egocen-
tric religiousness leads to disappointment (e.g., initi-
ated by denial of material goods, experiences of
theodicy). Subsequently, children form new and more
abstract religious concepts and shape a mature and
self-disinterested type of religiousness. In the best
case, religion becomes part of an adolescent’s own per-
sonality and fulfils the criterion of functional auton-
omy: religiousness becomes “intrinsic religiousness.”
In the following decades, the distinction between ex-
trinsic and intrinsic religiousness became one of the
most powerful distinctions in the psychology of religion.
Hundreds of studies showed that intrinsic religiousness
is positively correlated with a variety of desirable out-
comes, such as a sense of well-being, whereas extrinsic
religiousness is positively correlated with undesirable
outcomes such as being prejudiced (see the overview by
Wulff, 1991, pp. 217–242; see also Hood et al., 1996).
In discussing earlier works using this first paradigm,
we see how religious and spiritual maturity can repre-
sent an achievable and worthwhile end. Furthermore, we
see how maturity has to do with individuals functioning
well in their cultures and contributing to their societies.
These early works using this first paradigm can be
seen as the forerunners of present-day research on reli-
gious maturity (Benson, Donahue, & Erickson, 1993).
Furthermore, they can be seen as the forerunners of
present-day research on resilience and positive youth
development as they relate to religious and spiritual de-
velopment (Lerner, Dowling, & Anderson, 2003). Later
on, we have more to say about present-day research con-
tinuing in this tradition of thinking about religious and
spiritual development as a maturing process.
Religious and Spiritual Development as
Coping: Psychoanalytic Theory
Psychoanalytic theory is—if developmental—essen-
tially a theory of motivation. More precisely, it is a col-
lection of related theories connected by their sharing a
common focus on unconscious, intrapsychic conflicts.
Psychoanalytic theory has played a central role in defin-
ing religious and spiritual development and its func-
tions. It has done so in both controversial and
contradictory ways—with theorists from the same psy-
choanalytic community often reaching opposite conclu-
sions based on common starting points. Nowhere do we
see this more clearly than in the competing theories of
Freud and Jung and in the radically different ways that
Freudian, ego analytic, and object relations theorists
have evaluated religion and religious development.
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud took issue repeatedly and in an influen-
tial way with religiousness. In so doing, he stimulated
thousands of psychoanalytic studies of religion (Beit-
Hallahmi, 1996a; see also Shafranske, 1995; Wulff,
1991, pp. 253–316). As early as 1907, he characterized
religiousness as an obsessional neurosis. For Freud, re-
ligious concepts are illusions that provide comfort and
security to those threatened by the forces of nature, the
inevitability of old age and death, and the hostility
of others. Their origins can be traced to protective per-
sons with whom the child has close contact in early
childhood.
The most important protective person was, for
Freud, the father, toward whom boys have hostile feel-
ings during the Oedipal phase, resulting in the father
image being projected into the transcendent realm. In
his later writings, Freud put his theory of the psychic
origins of God as follows: “ To begin with, we know that
God is a father-substitute; or, more correctly, that he is
a copy of a father as he is seen and experienced in child-
hood—by individuals in their own childhood . . .”
(Freud, 1923a, p. 85).
However, in classic Freudian psychoanalysis, reli-
gious development is not merely a matter of projection
but also of sublimating sexual libido. In an early paper
titled, “Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices,”
Freud (1907) claimed that religiousness arose as a “re-
nunciation of certain impulses . . . within which . . . a
sexual element cannot normally be excluded.” Freud’s
student, Schroedter (1908), drew from this the general
conclusion that the origin of religiousness, in particular,
emotive and mystical forms of religiousness, resides in
the repression of erotic instincts. What is repressed, he
argued, reappears in a distorted form, as in acts of piety
that border on hysteria.

Pfister (1911), one of the first theologians familiar
with Freudian theory, used Freudian theory to explain
the religious development of Margarethe Ebner, a mys-
tic of the high Middle Ages. Ebner had the habit of
lying next to a crucifix and experiencing the “sweet-
est ” sensations—for Pfister, evidence of the sublima-
tion of unsatisfied sexuality. Pfister (1925) applied the
same kind of analysis to Count Ludwig von Zinzendorf
(1700–1760), founder of the Moravian Church. When
he was forty, Von Zinzendorf began worshipping the
wound in the side of Jesus—evidence, according to
Pfister, for the sublimation of homosexual feelings.
The constellation of unresolved Oedipal feelings, ho-
moerotic inclinations, sublimation, repression, and neu-
rosis in general was subsequently interpreted into dozens
of biographies of prominent religious personalities (see
reviews by Bucher, 2004; Hitschmann, 1947; Zeligs,
1974, on the religious development of biblical figures).
Not surprisingly, the classical Freudian view of reli-
gious development drew criticism on a massive scale
(see reviews by Beit-Hallahmi, 1996a; Meissner, 1984).
For example, Greve and Roos (1996) questioned the uni-
versal applicability of the Oedipus complex and argued
that the Oedipus story is, after all, a myth, not an accu-
rate representation of a universal phenomenon. Freud’s
reducing God to an earthly father also came under at-
tack. For example, on the basis of clinical case studies,
Schjelderup and Schjelderup (1932) described how peo-
ple develop their own mother religions, especially in
Eastern contexts. However, possibly the most damning
criticism of Freud’s psychology of religious develop-
ment has been the criticism that there is no way to dis-
prove Freud’s claims because when claims cannot be
disproved, they fall outside the domain of science.
Carl Jung
For Carl Gustav Jung, the son of a protestant minister,
religion played a positive role in both his theory and
personal life. Still in the psychoanalytic tradition, Jung
provided a quite different focus than Freud’s—with his
concept of individuation (1968). The concept of individ-
uation explains individual development as a gradual in-
tegration of psychic structures, creating a self where
conscious and unconscious are fully integrated and
compatible.
As for his theory’s connection to religious and spiri-
tual development, Jung spoke about a “personal uncon-
scious” or hidden psychic realm that he referred to as
A Historical Perspective 949
the “shadow.” According to Jung, every individual has to
cope with what is suppressed, ignored, and neglected in
personal life. In doing so, individuals develop toward
wholeness, becoming a wholly integrated self. For this
process of becoming an integrated self (individuation),
religion plays a central role.
The goal of the individual is to balance the demands
of reality with personal needs. This balancing is
achieved with the help of inherited archetypes in a col-
lective unconscious that is a part of every individual’s
heritage. Numinous archetypes are structuring princi-
ples that are produced through dreams and cannot be
produced by mind and reflection. Religions play a cen-
tral role by effecting this balance in the way they relate
to the archetypes. Because religious myths are projec-
tions of the archetypes, the messages of the soul and the
messages of religions are of similar form and can be
translated each to the other. In doing so, individuals
cope better by coming to terms with their shadow.
Therefore, whereas for Freud development consists of
putting religion behind us, for Jung, development consists
of embracing and using religion to support development.
Erik Erikson
Erikson represents a third variation on the psychoana-
lytic theme with respect to religious and spiritual devel-
opment. As did Freud and Jung, Erikson focused on
unconscious intrapsychic conflicts to explain what fuels
development. However, Erikson’s emphasis was much
more on how intrapsychic conflict reflects not only fa-
milial themes but also societal-cultural themes. In many
ways, Erikson fits more comfortably into present-day
discussions about context, culture, and development.
With respect to Erikson and religious and spiritual
development, the two main concepts are “ basic trust ”
and “identity.” Developing basic trust was, for Erikson,
the central religious issue—not only trust in God but
also trust in a universe that offers enough to make life
worth living.
However, for Erikson, it is the struggle to achieve a
personal identity that warranted special attention. For
Erikson, religion offered one of several ways in which
individuals achieve identity. Nowhere is this better illus-
trated than in Erikson’s (1958) influential book, Young
Man Luther, in which he shows how Luther used religion
to shape and construct his identity.
In Young Man Luther, Erikson demonstrated how reli-
gious ideology and religious institutions provide ways for
950 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
youth to separate themselves from old identifications
with parents to achieve a new identity better suited to
weather the storms of adulthood and better suited to ren-
der them able to contribute to society. In Young Man
Luther, Erikson shows how Luther’s choice to become a
monk, his obsessional behavior as a young monk, and, his
becoming a great reformer, all reveal his inner struggle to
remain identified with his father and his church while, at
the same time, to distance himself to become his own
person with his own convictions and purpose in life.
Object Relations Theorists
For the past several decades, neo-analytic psychology
has focused more and more on the quality of interper-
sonal relations and on how interpersonal relations are
affected by internalized images of self and significant
others. Nowhere do we see this more clearly than in the
work of those who identify themselves as object rela-
tions theorists. Their central focus is on imagination
and illusion-making.
While continuing Freud’s practice of calling religious
imaginings illusions, object relations theorists have given
illusion-making a positive spin, which treats imagining as
a wedge between impulse and objective reality, a wedge
that guards against the dangers of impulses and autistic
thinking, on the one hand, and the slings and arrows of
misfortune and a stultifying status quo, on the other. In
Paul Pruyser’s (1991) words:
Illusion is not hallucination or delusion but can deteriorate
into them. Illusion formation is . . . a unique process that
derives from the imagination. It need not be captive to the
autistic process and cannot be locked into the reality test-
ing procedures described by common sense. (p. 176)
Object relations theorists define imagining as a transi-
tional phenomenon, where the boundaries between
subjective and objective become blurred. The partial
differentiation between what is inside and outside al-
lows individuals to not only creatively manage but also
to creatively transform. Pruyser (1991) provides the
example of Martin Luther King Jr. and his “I have a
dream” speech to illustrate what is meant by religious
imagining being a transitional phenomenon that cre-
atively manages and transforms. He writes:
That speech straddled both the world of ideas and the
world of facts; it introduced a new paradigm after showing
the bankruptcy of an older one; it combined Yahwistic
wrath with the benevolence of a God-in-Christ. But for all
his patent creativity, what reliance King had on the great
illusionistic traditions of the Bible, black preaching, and
Gandhian nonviolence! Absorption in these traditions had
become to him a sacred playing—with one sideways glance
at the brutal facts of the realistic world and another keen
glance at the ever-present explosive turbulence of the
autistic world. (p. 179)
The example of King provides insight into the ana-
lytic concept of religious and spiritual maturity and the
role of religious-spiritual imagining in realizing matu-
rity. Pruyser implies that King’s religious imagining
grasped something true, though not something true in
the sense of scientific truth. Truth in this context is ob-
viously not about propositions that are either true or
false. Presumably, truth in this sense has more to do
with living lives that are “ true.”
What is missing, though, is just how to evaluate a re-
ligious illusion as true. We are left wondering if Pruyser
means to suggest it is universal truths that are revealed
in religious imaginings or simply truths that are spe-
cific to particular groups and individuals. The following
personal story suggests perhaps it is both. Pruyser
(1991) writes,
I attended a denominational school . . . that stood for much
greater Calvinist orthodoxy than did my family. Thus,
home and school presented me with two different religious
and emotional worlds. The first was mellow, optimistic,
and forgiving; the second strict, somber and punitive—
both equally taking recourse to scripture. . . . There is
nothing like such an upbringing to convince a young boy
that religion is what you make it, that all of it is what I now
call “illusionistic.” Fortunately, home won over school,
undoubtedly because of its deeper roots in my childhood
practicing of the transitional sphere. The hand of God,
much talked about in school, was closer to my mother’s
tender-and-firm hand than to the threatening and often
slapping extremities of my teachers. (p. 180)
In other words, for Pruyser—and for many trained in the
object relations tradition—the decisive step in religious
and spiritual development is choosing between alterna-
tive imaginings. For Pruyser, the truth or value of imag-
ining lies not so much in its structure as in its content,
and in the value of its content for supporting healthy
psychological development. The gentler, nurturing im-

agery promoted in Pruyser’s home life seemed healthier
to Pruyser than the more punitive imagery promoted in
his school life.
But what exactly should one mean by “ healthier,”
and is healthier to be equated with mature? Pruyser and
object relations theory in general are not specific with
regard to how the concepts of healthy and religious-
spiritual development relate—and perhaps for good rea-
son. Health is not to be reified, turned into a “ thing”;
rather, it is to be used to assess functioning, and func-
tioning is a matter of fit between person and context.
Object relations theory has also contributed by
broadening our understanding of the origins of the God
concept. For example, Rizzuto (1979) argued that Freud
picked too late a period in dating the beginnings of the
representation of God in the Oedipal phase. She located
the origin of the representation of God in early child-
hood. Regardless of whether they are raised in a reli-
gious manner, children form a representation of God or
sacred figures such as the Buddha. These representa-
tions or images may derive from the mother, father, or
combinations of significant others. Furthermore, the
quality of the relationships depicted in these images de-
pends on the quality of early human relationships.
These representations or images provide, at best, pro-
tection. Later on, they may be held onto, updated, or
discarded—to conform to official doctrines or to con-
tradict them.
In sum, classic and neo-psychoanalytic theory pro-
vides a variety of examples of work done in the paradigm
of coping. Furthermore, these examples are among the
forerunners of present-day studies, which also operate in
the paradigm of coping. We will have more to say about
present-day studies working in the paradigm of coping,
such as the case studies of Susan Kwilecki (1999).
Religious and Spiritual Development
as Perfecting
[I]n contradistinction to the process of mere change (de-
velopment) is a movement toward perfection, as variously
as that idea may be constructed. (Kaplan, 1983a)
In describing religious and spiritual development, the
previous two paradigms stay close to tangible reality.
Persons develop, and some mature, but development and
maturity are not remarkable. In contrast, this third
paradigm defines and assesses religious and spiritual
A Historical Perspective 951
development in terms of what is remarkable, so remark-
able that one may never actually witness an example of
someone who reaches the endpoint, someone who is
fully developed.
At first glance, this third paradigm seems to revert
back to prescientific days when religious and spiritual
development meant climbing toward some state of mys-
tical union. However, the paradigm leads in a quite dif-
ferent direction. It leads in the direction of offering
specific criteria for defining and evaluating develop-
ment and for making explicit the often implicit or hid-
den values in all developmental models. Later on, there
will be extended examples to show how this paradigm
works. Here, and for the purpose of providing a histori-
cal perspective, we concentrate on a single example,
namely, the example of William James and his monu-
mental work, The Varieties of Religious Experience
(1902).
The Varieties is arguably the single most influential
book in the psychology of religion. Even after a century
since it was written, readers find in it insights that are
directly relevant to our times (Taylor, 2002). However,
the Varieties is not normally thought of as a text on reli-
gious and spiritual development. For one thing, there is
hardly any mention of children. For another, it gives us
religious types, but the types themselves seem ordered
more along a horizontal plane than along a vertical, de-
velopmental one. This seems especially true of James’s
two major types: “ The Healthy-Minded” or “once-born”
and the “Sick Soul” or those who feel themselves in
need of being “ twice-born.”
Nevertheless, a closer reading of the Varieties shows
James to be very much a developmentalist as defined by
the third paradigm. In particular, James saw the sick
soul as having a more mature grasp of reality than that
seen in the healthy minded—and a greater potential for
developing spiritually. He shows this developmental or-
dering of the two types when he turns from writing
about the once-born, healthy-minded to writing about
the sick soul in need of being twice-born:
Let us then resolutely turn our backs on the once-born and
their sky-blue optimistic gospel; let us not simply cry out,
in spite of all appearances, “Hurrah for the Universe!—
God’s in his Heaven, all’s right with the world.” Let us see
rather whether pity, pain, and fear, and the sentiment of
human helplessness may not open a profounder view and
put into our hands a more complicated key to the meaning
of the situation. (James, 1902, pp. 135–136)
952 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
In short, the sick soul has a better grasp of reality and so
is in a better position to develop further.
And what might that development consist of ? Later
on, James tells us when he discusses saintliness. After a
second (spiritual) birth, the previously sick soul is more
sensitive to the world’s contingencies. This is essential
to growth, which shows how James can be seen as a de-
velopmentalist in the tradition of the third paradigm.
Saintliness is James’s way of providing a telos, an
ideal endpoint needed to define, evaluate, and explain
religious and spiritual development. He makes this clear
by characterizing his picture of saintliness as a compos-
ite picture, an ideal type, rather than as a picture of spe-
cific individuals. In short, James’s saint is a standard of
perfection that helps define what it means to develop re-
ligiously and spiritually.
James’s concept of saintliness is not the everyday
concept of a moral exemplar who uses religious lan-
guage. Rather, James’s concept of saintliness is essen-
tially religious or spiritual, not moral. In his words, to be
a saint is to have “a feeling of being in a wider life than
that of this world’s selfish little interests; and a convic-
tion, not merely intellectual, but as it were sensible, of
the existence of an Ideal Power ” (p. 272). He follows
this description with the added comment that the saint
has “a sense of the friendly continuity of the ideal power
with our own life, and a willing self-surrender to its
control” (p. 273). For James, religious and spiritual
emotions are central. Morality is a by-product.
In the Varieties, the saint is an ideal type defining the
endpoint of religious and spiritual development. For
James, the experience of being a divided self, a self in
need of being saved, a lost or sick soul was instrumental
for developing toward saintliness. To develop religiously
or spiritually meant that things might get worse, not bet-
ter—at least for a while. For James, simply becoming
mature and coping are not, by themselves, enough to de-
fine what can ultimately develop when we speak of reli-
gious and spiritual development. For James and anyone
else working in this third paradigm, it matters little
whether anyone actually reaches sainthood and perfec-
tion. What matters is that we can conceive of sainthood
and perfection and in so conceiving, we can become bet-
ter able to define, evaluate, and explain religious and
spiritual development.
Just as the work of previous writers working in the
other two paradigms forecast current research, so, too,
the work of James forecast current research and theory
using this third paradigm. In particular, James’s ideal
type, saintliness, forecasts current stage theories, which
also use perfection as a telos, particularly the theories
of Fowler (1981) and Oser and Gmünder (1991). Later
on, we have more to say about these more current theo-
ries operating in the paradigm of religious and spiritual
development as perfecting.
From the point of view of today’s research, these
three paradigms for thinking about religious develop-
ment operate in all discussions taking identity formation
as the main goal of development. As King (2003) states,
“. . . identity development that emerges . . . within reli-
gion is an identity that transcends the self and can pro-
mote a sense of commitment that not only fosters
individual well-being but promotes the good of society
as well” (p. 197). These three paradigms thus are holis-
tic approaches to religious and spiritual development, a
point we return to repeatedly throughout the remainder
of the chapter.
DEFINING RELIGIOUS AND
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
In Goethe’s (1974) Faust, when Gretchen asked Faust
about his attitude toward religion, she was thinking of
faith in the church, salvation of souls, and fear of hell.
Presumably, so was Faust. Were she to ask her question
today, she would have to imagine quotation marks
around “religion” and do her best to interpret which of
several meanings was embedded in Faust’s response.
Today, one of the central problems in the psychology of
religious and spiritual development—as mentioned in
the beginning—is the problem of defining religious and
spiritual.
This problem of defining is nothing new. Almost a
century ago, James Leuba (1912, p. 341) listed 48 dif-
ferent definitions of religion, which led him to con-
clude that attempts to define religion precisely border
on megalomania. Since, the situation has become still
more difficult because spirituality also needs defini-
tion and because the religious-spiritual landscape has
become more pluralistic. Generally accepted defini-
tions do not exist (Beile, 1998, p. 24), and the search
for a common definition can proceed almost indefi-
nitely (Brown, 1987, p. 17). For this reason authorita-
tive textbooks on the psychology of religion generally
avoid providing a working or operational definition
(Beit-Hallahmi, 1989, p. 11; Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle,
1997, p. 5; Hood et al., 1996, p. 7).

Nevertheless, even though there is no commonly ac-
cepted definition, there are commonly accepted distinc-
tions that help define religious and spiritual development.
In particular, there are the commonly accepted distinc-
tions between religion and religiousness, between reli-
giousness and spiritual, and between content, form, and
function. We discuss each of these distinctions to address
the problem of definition. In addition, we discuss the con-
cepts of structure and stage as indispensable means for
defining and explaining the religious and spiritual devel-
opment of persons and not just of acts, thoughts, and feel-
ings considered separately.
Religion, Religiousness, and Spirituality
Religion refers to institutions and systems consisting of
organizational structures, codes of behavior, and symbol
systems defining assumptions and beliefs designed to
create in people powerful, comprehensive, and enduring
world views and attitudes. As such, religion is primarily
susceptible to sociological analysis.
Religiousness refers to subjective modes of experi-
encing and interpreting, making religiousness primar-
ily susceptible to psychological analysis. One and the
same religion can be reconstructed and experienced in
quite different ways leading to quite different types of
religiousness. The Catholic Church, for example, can
be a source of fastidious anxieties for one person and a
secure, maternal home for another. Therefore, it is ul-
timately the individual who determines religiousness
on the basis of his or her subjective experience:
“Events or feelings are only ‘religious’ if a person de-
fines them as such” (Stark, 1965, p. 99). Religiousness
refers to much more than religious practice such as at-
tending religious services and joining religious institu-
tions. Many regard themselves as being religious even
though they have left or avoided religious institutions
and religious practice.
Nor is it any less difficult to arrive at a definition of
spirituality. For a good many experts, when it comes to
spirituality, the problems of defining are even more dif-
ficult (Hood et al., 1996, p. 115). However, there is no
way to evade the issue given the fact that at the present
time, there is scarcely a discussion of faith and scarcely
a book on religion that does not use spirituality. Indeed,
the term spirituality is visibly eclipsing the term reli-
giousness. The increased use of spirituality derives to a
large extent from the loss of relevance of religious insti-
tutions and traditions. Many feel themselves bound by
Defining Religious and Spiritual Development 953
spiritual ideals even as they feel themselves not bound
by religious tradition (see story on p. 943).
In order not to exclude these people, Utsch (1998,
p. 97) argued in favor of converting spirituality into an
autonomous research subject separated from the subject
of religion. In his view, such a separation is justified
since religion can exist without spirituality when it
“consists only of rules of behavior, of theology not re-
lated to experience, and of rites which have not been un-
derstood” (p, 99). Spirituality is thus named ex negativo
and defined as a subjective experience of what is existen-
tially relevant for human beings.
However, a good many scholars retain the historical
connection between religion and spirituality by linking
spirituality to the experience of transcendence. For ex-
ample, Pargament (1997) defined spirituality as “a
highly individualized search for the sense of connected-
ness with a transcendent force” (p. 38). McFadden
(1996) also included a religious element in her definition
when she designated spirituality as a “motivational-
emotional phenomenon associated with a sense of mean-
ingful integration within the self, with other persons and
the world, and with the Divine” (p. 387). Miller and
Martin (1988) did something similar in saying, “Spiritu-
ality entails the acknowledgment of a transcendent
being, power, or reality greater than ourselves” (p. 14).
In sum, spirituality can be identical with religiousness
by its constituting a relationship to a divine or transcen-
dent power, or it can be independent of religiousness by
its stressing a more philosophical orientation. Put another
way, spirituality can refer to actions, which rekindle reli-
giousness or to actions without religious reference such
as relaxation exercises practiced by self-professed athe-
ists. Religiousness and spirituality are therefore not to be
seen as in contrast to each other but rather as overlapping
(Reich, Oser, & Scarlett, 1999, see also p. 943).
This view of religiousness and spirituality as being
both independent and overlapping has been supported
by several recent studies. For example, Dowling et al.
(2004) used factor analytic and structural equation
modeling to separate out spirituality from religiosity
factors contained in the questionnaire results of Search
Institute’s database. They did so by equating spiritual-
ity with self-transcendence evidenced in the way indi-
viduals become civic-minded and concerned about
contributing to society.
In another study, Zinnbauer et al. (1997) asked
a sample of 350 persons whether they understand
themselves as:
954 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
• Spiritual and religious (74%)
• Spiritual but not religious (19%)
• Religious but not spiritual (4%)
• Neither spiritual nor religious (3%)
From these data, we see that the overwhelming ma-
jority understood themselves as being both spiritual and
religious (74%). Only 19% understood themselves as
being exclusively spiritual. Still, despite there being a
relatively small percentage that understood themselves
to be exclusively spiritual, spiritual development is a po-
tentially powerful resource for positive human develop-
ment (Benson, Roehlkepartain, & Rude, 2003, p. 205). It
is, however, an understudied, complex, and multifaceted
concept, one that overlaps with many aspects of reli-
gious development, and one that is shaped by both indi-
vidual capacities and ecological influences—as we
discuss later.
It is the relatively small group that considers itself to
be spiritual but not religious, which furnishes the popu-
lar stereotype that religion is antiquated for being insti-
tutional and dogmatic, whereas spirituality is central for
being personal and open. The wide-spread acceptance of
this stereotype has led Hill (2000) to warn against polar-
izing religiousness as bad and spirituality as good—be-
cause virtually all religions promote spirituality, and
virtually all spiritual practices have at one time or an-
other been promoted in religious traditions.
In the social sciences, the effort to distinguish reli-
giousness from spirituality has not been matched by an
equal effort to specify what they have in common. Out-
side the social sciences, there has been more said about
this issue. The work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith on faith
has been most influential (Smith, 1998a, 1998b).
Smith, the historian and long-time dean of compara-
tive religious studies, has argued that faith is the central
category in both religiousness and nonreligious spiritu-
ality. As explained by him, faith refers to a person’s in-
volvement in the symbols of a faith tradition rather than
to the symbols themselves. Faith is more a verb than a
noun. It is more about action and living a certain way
than it is about something static such as a dogma, belief,
or symbol. Smith points out that this meaning of faith is
much older than the newer meaning of faith as belief
(Smith, 1998a). It was the Enlightenment that spawned
the newer meaning and reduced religion to matters of
belief or to its alternative, feeling.
The picture Smith (1998a) paints of faith-filled lives
emphasizes how individuals, by participating in the sym-
bols of their faith traditions have been transformed:
To live religiously is not merely to live in the presence of
certain symbols, but to be involved with them or through
them in a quite special way, a way that may lead far be-
yond the symbols, that may demand of a person’s re-
sponse, and may affect one’s relations not only to them
but to everything else: to oneself, to one’s neighbor and to
the stars. (p. 3)
But the main point here is that faith is about participa-
tion and response, not about belief. “One does not be-
lieve a symbol. Rather, one responds to it.” (Smith,
1998a, p. 146).
The consequences of conflating faith and belief have
been to marginalize religion and to dismiss spirituality
as something less than rational:
Belief became . . . the category of thought by which skep-
tics, reducing others’ faith to manageability, translated
that faith into mundane terms. They substituted for an in-
terest in it as faith an interest rather in the exotic mental
processes and conceptual framework of those whose lives
had been sustained and enriched by it. . . . What had been a
relation between the human and something external and
higher . . . was transformed by the new thinking into a self-
subsistent, mundane operation of the mind. . . . To imagine
that religious persons “ believe” this or that is a way of
dominating intellectually, and comfortably, what in fact
one does not truly discern. (W. C. Smith, 1998a, p. 144)
With regard to the religious-spiritual distinction:
Faith need not refer to religious faith. Faith as involve-
ment in a symbol system meant to define and support the
good life, such faith can be entirely secular faith. For
example, one legacy of classical Greece and Rome has
been a secular faith, which is, says Smith:
a living tradition with its own metaphysical underpinning,
its own great champions and even martyrs, its own institu-
tions, its own apprehension of or by transcendence, and,
. . . its own type of faith. (1998a, p. 134)
Using Smith’s conception of faith, we gain one way
of understanding what religiousness and spirituality
have in common: They are both grounded in faith.

Content, Form, and Function
The last set of commonly accepted distinctions is the
most difficult to explain, yet it may be the most crucial
for defining religious and spiritual development. Our
goal here is not simply to define what content, form, and
function mean with regard to religious and spiritual de-
velopment. Rather, our goal is also to define how these
three, taken together, point us in the direction of adopt-
ing a structural definition and explanation of religious
and spiritual development as development of persons.
While there is general agreement over what we should
mean by content, form, and function, there is no such
agreement over what we should mean by structure and
structural development. Beginning with what we can
agree on may help clarify what we should mean by reli-
gious and spiritual structural development.
To illustrate distinctions between content, form, and
function, we use the phenomenon of personal prayer
(Scarlett & Perriello, 1991). Personal prayer, as distinct
from the generally impersonal group prayers said during
religious services, offers a reasonable way to illustrate
distinctions, because personal prayer is both widespread
and clearly religious in nature—particularly when indi-
viduals invest their prayers with feeling. Furthermore,
with age, personal prayers not only change but also de-
velop. We focus mostly on petitionary personal prayers
because, of the various types of prayers, they are by far
the most common.
Prayer’s content refers to the specific themes, ideas,
and beliefs contained in prayer. Prayer may be about
healing, avoiding danger, hoping for success—almost
anything and everything. It may be about gods, ances-
tors, or patron saints. It may be about something as small
and petty as finding a parking space or as large and
noble as achieving world peace.
The variety of contents found in phenomena such as
personal prayer points to both the value and limitations
of understanding religious and spiritual development in
terms of its content only. On the one hand, content pro-
vides a window on special circumstances, on what is on
an individual’s mind, and on how an individual may be
thinking in ways characteristic of his or her family,
community, and culture. On the other hand, the infinite
variety in content limits its value for defining develop-
ment in terms of content only. How, for example, should
we distinguish developmentally between prayer directed
to a single divinity and prayer directed to gods or ances-
Defining Religious and Spiritual Development 955
tors? Given that there are no agreed on criteria, we
should not.
Nevertheless, content figures into analysis of reli-
gious and spiritual development in general and the de-
velopment of prayer in particular—both to the extent
that content occasionally supports criteria for defining
religious and spiritual maturity (e.g., acting in self-
disinterested ways, pursuing noble purposes) and to the
extent that content reveals something about the overall
structuring of content, form, and function. So, for exam-
ple, when the content of petitionary prayer includes
statements such as “If it be your will . . .,” then the con-
tent makes explicit that the praying individual sees the
possibility of there being alternative perspectives or
wills—a measure of decentering and therefore of devel-
opment. It is reasonable to treat petitionary prayers that
make this possibility explicit as being more developed
than petitionary prayers that do not, all other things
being equal.
A better indicator of developmental differences has
been, generally, differences in form. With respect to
prayer, there are the differences in types—petitionary,
confessional, thanksgiving, and so on—and presumably
development has something to do with recognizing, un-
derstanding, and being able to use each type. However,
in each type, there are different forms that have differ-
ent developmental meanings. For example, two confes-
sional type prayers may each contain specifications of
the same transgression, say, lying. However, only one of
the two may specify a plan for becoming honest. Adding
the plan is more than adding content. It is making con-
fessional prayer into a more developed form, a form that
is more differentiated with respect to its parts. With the
example of prayer containing “If it be your will . . .,” the
added content is not clearly an added part making the
prayer into a more differentiated whole. The added con-
tent is, rather, an indicator of an underlying attitude and
understanding of the relationship between person and
the agency to which the prayer is directed.
With regard to functions, prayer also provides exam-
ples. By definition, petitionary prayers serve the explicit
function of making requests. However, a closer inspec-
tion reveals petitionary prayers sometimes serve addi-
tional functions as well. Furthermore, these additional
functions can sometimes help define development. For
example, a child and an adult may both pray for a sick rel-
ative to get well. However, the adult may add something
956 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
about not knowing what to do if things turn out for the
worse, if the sick relative dies. This little addition sug-
gests prayer serves the added function of helping the
praying individual to figure out, puzzle, or search for
ways to understand or frame a crisis. This searching func-
tion is hardly ever found in children’s prayers and may
only occasionally be found in the prayers of adults—
which tips us off to its being a function that can help de-
fine development.
Therefore, by analyzing and evaluating separately
the content, form, and functions of religious and spiri-
tual phenomena, such as prayer, we often gain a better
understanding of religious and spiritual development.
However, in doing so, we still are not able to define and
explain how individual persons develop. For this we
need the concepts of stage and structure.
Stage and Structure
The concepts of stage and structure offer indispensable
means for defining and explaining the religious and spir-
itual development of persons. They do so first in the way
they organize content, form, and function to reveal
the full meaning of the religious and spiritual life. At-
tending to content, form, and function separately or in
sequence can lead to overlooking the central character-
istics that distinguish mature from immature—the hid-
den structure that allows us to not only evaluate
individual acts but also to evaluate the development of
persons.
Stage and structure also offer means to explain the
dynamic nature of religious and spiritual development.
In the previously cited example of adding functions to
petitionary prayer, we see a transformation in the self ’s
structured way of being in the world—from being in the
world as a self depending on some divine power to re-
solve crises to being in the world as a self acting in con-
cert with a divine power. The change from one to the
other is neither arbitrary nor random. Rather, the change
has profound meaning for adaptation—which is a major
reason why we judge the second way of structuring to be
more developed.
This view of stage and structure differs markedly
from the views of current critics of stage theory—includ-
ing critics of religious and spiritual stage theories. Post-
Piagetian critics have dismissed stage-structural theory
primarily for not providing an adequate account of vari-
ability and not accounting for transition processes. How-
ever, recently, a number of theorists have answered the
critics and in so doing, have revitalized stage-structural
theory. David Henry Feldman’s (in press) discussion
bears special mention.
After outlining each of the main criticisms of Pi-
aget’s stage-structural theory, D. H. Feldman proposes
ways to answer the criticisms and retain stage as a use-
ful, even indispensable explanatory concept. His main
suggestions include the following two, which we take to
be the most central.
The first major criticism of stage-structural theories
such as Piaget’s is that they do not account for the wide
variation in behavior one finds in any given stage. D. H.
Feldman answers this criticism by suggesting we think
of a stage as consisting of two substages—with the first
substage devoted to constructing the stage and with the
second devoted to extending and applying the stage’s
system as widely as possible. Stages are marked by
their midpoints.
Using this way of thinking, stages emerge only grad-
ually and are only gradually replaced as the effort to ex-
tend and apply begins to fail. In other words, stages
need not be thought of as structured wholes, which snap
into place at particular moments in development. There
is an ebb and flow to their development, and variability
in behavior or patterns of behavior, rather than under-
mining the notion of stages, is another indicator of their
development.
The second major criticism of stage-structural theo-
ries is that they do not provide adequate accounts of
transition mechanisms. In the case of Piaget’s stage the-
ory, equilibration as a transition mechanism bears too
much of the burden for explaining transitions. D. H.
Feldman answers this criticism by suggesting we keep
Piaget’s equilibration mechanism but give more empha-
sis to other mechanisms to explain transitions—includ-
ing maturation and learning.
Suggestions such as D. H. Feldman’s (in press) allow
us to hold on to the concepts of stage and structure to
define and explain religious and spiritual development.
Once again, we find there is no reason to throw out the
baby with the bath water.
In sum, content, form, and function are commonly
accepted concepts and distinctions used for defining
and evaluating religious and spiritual development.
However, when used by themselves, they do not ade-
quately account for the development of persons. Stage
and structure are less commonly accepted concepts.
However, if used in ways that address the main criti-
cisms of stage-structural theories, stage and structure

become indispensable concepts for defining and explain-
ing the religious and spiritual development of persons.
The neo-Kantian philosopher, Ernst Cassirer, pro-
vides an example of how stage-structural analysis can be
indispensable in defining, evaluating, and explaining the
religious and spiritual development of persons. For Cas-
sirer, at the lower stages of religious and spiritual devel-
opment, individuals live in a mytho-poetic world where
symbol and referent are fused and where there is no dis-
tinction between meaning and existence (Cassirer,
1955). Cassirer distinguishes between mythical and reli-
gious consciousness with the latter being more devel-
oped. However, myth (a tradition’s imagination) and
religion are inseparable. Cassirer writes:
If we attempt to isolate and remove the basic mythical
components from religious belief, we no longer have reli-
gion in its real, objectively historical manifestation; all
that remains is a shadow of it, an empty abstraction.
Yet, although the contents of myth and religion are inex-
tricably interwoven, their form is not the same. And the
particularity of the religious form is disclosed in the
changed attitude which consciousness here assumes to-
ward the mythical image world. It cannot do without this
world, it cannot immediately reject it; but seen through the
medium of the religious attitude this world gradually
takes on a new meaning.
The new ideality, the new spiritual dimension, that is
opened up through religion not only lends myth a new sig-
nification but actually introduces the opposition between
“meaning” and “existence” into the realm of myth. Reli-
gion takes the decisive step that is essentially alien to
myth: in its use of sensuous images and signs it recognizes
them as such—a means of expression which, though they
reveal a determinate meaning, must necessarily remain in-
adequate to it, which “point ” to this meaning but never
wholly exhaust it. (p. 239)
In Cassirer’s account, we see how important struc-
tural differences can be for defining what is essential
in religious and spiritual development. For Cassirer, it
is the transformation from living in a mytho-poetic
world to living in a world where the myths and poetry
of faith traditions become symbols pointing to truths to
live by. Others who engage in stage-structural analysis
find different ways to characterize what is essential.
Whatever the ways, the effort is the same, explaining
not only the development of acts, thoughts, and feelings
but also explaining the development of persons. In gen-
eral, critics forget that stages and structures are heuris-
tic instruments for understanding this development:
Stage-Structural Theories 957
They are frames of mind and heuristics of beliefs, not
tangible realities.
Having explained the rationale for using the concepts
of stage and structure, we turn now to discussing spe-
cific stage-structural theories of religious and spiritual
development.
STAGE-STRUCTURAL THEORIES
The stage-structural theories to be discussed here are all
in the constructivist tradition associated with the work
of Jean Piaget. Because Piaget’s theory focused on epis-
temology and cognitive development, stage-structural
models of religious and spiritual development are often
criticized for being too cognitive. Critics assume that
any off-shoot of Piaget’s theory is also bound to be too
cognitive.
It is ironic that few know about Piaget’s early reflec-
tions on religious and spiritual development—what is
generally understood to be a Piagetian approach to reli-
gious and spiritual development is not at all Piagetian.
We begin with a brief summary of Piaget’s actual ap-
proach to religious and spiritual development to better
frame the discussion of stage-structural theories.
From his late teens until his early 30s, Piaget preoc-
cupied himself with the question of how one can be-
lieve in God and remain objective (Reich, 2005). His
questioning led to a significant development in his
thinking: to his distinguishing between a transcendent
and immanent God. For Piaget, God initially meant the
God of conservative theology—a transcendent and
mysterious God whose laws must be followed slav-
ishly. Over time and in the context of actively debating
and discussing, Piaget developed a very different
meaning of God so that eventually God, for him, went
inward. In rejecting transcendence in favor of imma-
nence, Piaget came to identify God with the heart,
with the norms of reason, and with the internalized ex-
ample of Jesus.
Piaget’s model of religious development centered
around a transformation from transcendent to imma-
nent meanings of divinity. This transformation was far
more than a cognitive transformation and certainly
more than developing faith in reason. To be sure, rea-
son was there in his model but also the heart and a
faith tradition. He makes this clear in a lecture he gave
in 1929, to members of the Swiss Christian Students
Association:
958 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
if, beyond men, one examines the currents of thought that
propagate from generation to generation, immanentism ap-
pears as the continuation of the impulse of spiritualization
that characterizes the history of the notion of divinity. The
same progress is accomplished from the transcendental
God endowed with supernatural causality to the purely
spiritual God of immanent experience, as from the semi-
material God of primitive religions to the metaphysical
God. Now—and this is the essential point—to this progress
in the realm of intelligence corresponds a moral and social
progress, that is, ultimately an emancipation of inner life.
(Vidal, p. 287)
Piaget never developed a research program to test out
his developmental theory of religious and spiritual
development. Whatever the reasons may be for Piaget’s
abandoning his public reflections on religious and spir-
itual development, his early discussions clearly indi-
cate that a true Piagetian approach to religious and
spiritual development demands much more than attend-
ing to cognition and reasoning.
However, in the early 1960s, when Piaget’s cognitive
developmental theory was eclipsing all other theories of
cognitive development, Piaget’s early reflections were
virtually forgotten. The result was an application of Pi-
aget that was not at all Piagetian and that was indeed
overly cognitive. The clearest example is the work of
Ronald Goldman.
Cognitive-Stage Theories: Ronald Goldman
Goldman’s (1964) classic study “Religious Thinking
from Childhood to Adolescence” is a landmark in the re-
search on religious development. The main concern of the
TABLE 17.1 Stages of Piaget and Goldman Compared
Piaget
Preoperational Intuitive Religious Thought
Religious contents comprehended unsystematically, fragmentarily, frequently in a magical way, God represented
anthropomorphously; frquent transductive conclusions: “ Why did Moses not go to the bush?” “Because there was
a sign saying ‘Keep off the Grass.’ ”
Concrete operational Concrete Religious Thought
Magical and animistic elements receding; religious concepts presented in a more coherent and objective way—
though their symbolic-metaphorical nature not yet apprehended: “ The burning bush had a fire behind it, it only
seemed to be burning.”
Formal operational Abstract Religious Thought
Religious contents now ref lected in a hypothetical-deductive manner with symbols recognized as symbols: “ The
burning bush is a symbol that God is there.”
book is ultimately derived from the pedagogy of religion:
“ To know what a child is able to grasp intellectually is a
surer foundation for education than to know only what
adults feel the child ought to grasp” (p. xi). Goldman re-
ferred to the decisive work of Jean Piaget—not so much
to Piaget’s early work, “ The Child’s Conception of the
World” (1929), which investigated children’s theories—
and the stages of cognitive development. In so doing,
Goldman adopted the position that, “Religious thinking
is not different in mode and method from nonreligious
thinking. Religious thinking is . . . the activity of think-
ing toward religion” (p. 3).
Unlike earlier studies in the psychology of religion,
which merely described children’s religious concepts
without explaining them, Goldman’s approach had the
advantage of treating diverse impressions of children in
a theoretically based sequence. Goldman asked chil-
dren and young people about their religious concep-
tions such as “God’s omnipotence,” “ the Bible,” and
“Jesus.” He also asked children about their interpreta-
tions of three biblical stories: Moses and the burning
bush, the crossing of the Red Sea, and the temptation
of Christ. He assigned children’s interpretations to
three stages of religious cognition and matched them to
Piaget’s stages of cognitive development—as indicated
in Table 17.1.
From this summary table, we see that Goldman con-
ceptualized mature religious thought moving beyond the
“childish and immature religious ideas of children”
(p. 67) to be capable of seeing the symbolic-metaphorical
structure of religious language in general and biblical
language in particular. Using the findings of his research,
Goldman drew provocative consequences for the peda-
Goldman

gogy of religion, notably that children should no longer be
confronted with the Bible because they glaringly misun-
derstand biblical texts.
Goldman inspired an abundance of studies replicat-
ing his work (see reviews by Hyde, 1990, p. 15–63; Slee,
1986a). Peatling’s (1974) multiple-choice test and his
devised “ Thinking about the Bible Test ” became widely
known and used. Other psychologists of religion made
use of the semi-clinical interview (Elkind, 1964), and
they also applied Piaget’s cognitive stages to religious
concepts. The overall picture painted was that, with in-
creasing age, concrete modes of thinking recede and are
replaced by more abstract religious thinking (e.g., Tam-
minnen, 1976).
However, even while Goldman inspired others to
apply Piagetian stage analysis to religious material, he
also drew widespread criticism. His work was criticized
for its faulty methods (Langdon, 1969; Slee, 1986a,
1986b). For example, religious semantics can be more
appropriately based on word choice procedures than on
interview questions foreign to children’s natural ways
of thinking (Murphy, 1978). Furthermore, research
showed that abstract religious thought coincides posi-
tively not with the acceptance of religious, particularly
biblical, contents but with rejection of that content
(Hoge & Petrillo, 1978), and children’s understanding
of biblical content is more adequately explained by
other stage-structural theories such as Oser and Gmün-
der’s (Bucher, 1991).
More recently, cognitive scientists informed by re-
search on “ theory of mind” as well as by cognitive an-
thropology, have questioned Goldman’s work for
overstating differences between children’s and adult’s
ways of thinking about religion. On the one hand, chil-
dren’s thinking about counterintuitive religious con-
cepts, such as the concept of an all-seeing God, must
be judged in the context of children’s intuitive psychol-
ogy and in the context of what adults teach children
about religious concepts. When so judged, children’s
thinking appears far more reasonable and sophisticated
than Goldman’s theory leads us to believe (Boyer &
Walker, 2000; Harris, 2000). On the other hand, adults
often give theologically correct answers to questions
about religious concepts, but, in their own personal
lives, they function with religious concepts not alto-
gether different than what Goldman ascribed to chil-
dren (J. Barrett & Keil, 1996). We have more to say
about this line of criticism when discussing research
on children’s religious concepts.
Stage-Structural Theories 959
By far, the most common criticism of Goldman’s
work has been directed at Goldman’s essentially nar-
row cognitive focus. Critics have pointed out that reli-
gious consciousness includes far more than what is
implied in Goldman’s research, particularly with re-
gard to the use of religious symbols (Godin, 1968b). A
special problem is that Goldman did not deal with the
development of religiousness, sui generis, but rather
with cognitive structures to the extent that they rub off
on religious content.
Probably as a reaction to Goldman’s overestimation
of cognitive processes, the first empirically based the-
ory of religious and spiritual development of the 1980s
was holistic in nature and included social, moral, reli-
gious, spiritual, and identity formation parts and treated
faith as having a much broader meaning than belief. It is
this theory of James Fowler that we discuss next.
Faith Developmental Theory: James Fowler
Fowler’s focus is broad because his view of faith is
broad. Following the lead of theologians Paul Tillich, H.
Richard Niebuhr, and Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Fowler
(1981) defines faith as a universal quality of persons, a
quality defined by the way persons orient themselves
in the cosmos and, at higher stages, in an ideal, yet-to-
be-achieved or experienced ultimate environment. In
Judeo-Christian thinking, this ultimate environment is
defined as the “ kingdom of God,” the endpoint of
human history. Faith so defined is reflected in how indi-
viduals make or find meaning, how they define centers
of value and power, and how they adopt symbols and sto-
ries to reveal or express their faith. For Fowler, faith is
far more than belief or reasoning.
Fowler’s (1981) focus is also broad because faith
developmental theory is intent on capturing the overall
psychological development of persons. His theory bor-
rows heavily from Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg, and
to a lesser extent from Sullivan, Stern, Rizzuto, and
Kegan. His stages take into consideration an individ-
ual’s development with respect to major developmental
tasks including identity achievement, cognitive devel-
opment, moral judgment, symbol formation, social
perspective taking, and locus of control. For Fowler,
the development of faith and the development of per-
sons are so intertwined as to be, to a large extent, one
in the same.
At the heart of Fowler’s (1981) view of faith develop-
ment is the issue of individuation in a pluralistic society.
960 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
From this view, the central dilemma for individuals is
that of being true to ourselves, our feelings, intuitions,
beliefs, and understandings, while, at the same time,
maintaining or constructing ethical, positive relation-
ships with increasingly diverse communities.
At first, this dilemma is played out in the family and
with one’s inherited extra-familial community and faith
tradition, then with self-consciously adopted communi-
ties and faith traditions, and, ultimately, with the com-
munity of humankind. As with Oser and Gmünder’s
(1991) stage theory, Fowler’s faith developmental the-
ory is meant to define an ideal sequence (paradigm of
perfection). Only a few reach the highest stage.
Fowler’s way of construing faith and human develop-
ment shows in the descriptions of his stages of faith
development. Table 17.2 provides a brief overview of
those stages (Fowler, 1981).
Fowler’s stage model was applied to transcripts
made following two-hour interviews with over 350 sub-
jects. The interviews made use of a “Faith Development
Instrument ” designed to elicit and support discussion
directly relevant to getting at subjects faith, as faith
was defined by Fowler.
The results of Fowler’s (1981) own research indi-
cated that almost all of the preschoolers in the sample
had an intuitive-projective faith; almost three quarters
of the elementary school children had a mythic-literal
faith, and almost half of the adolescents interviewed had
a synthetic-conventional faith. Among adults, the vari-
ance was greater, with 40% younger than 30 having an
individuative-reflective type of faith and 18% having a
synthetic-conventional type. Conjunctive faith was rare
and occurred only after age 40. There was only one sub-
ject categorized as having a universalizing type faith.
There have been at least 11 empirical studies repli-
cating Fowler’s original study, and 26 others using the
faith development interview technique (Streib, 2001).
Several cross-cultural studies provide inconclusive evi-
dence about the suitability of Fowler’s stages for study-
ing faith development in non-Western cultures. Part of
the difficulty has been in using the faith development in-
terview method. Attempts to devise a shorter method to
measure faith development have not been successful.
Since conducting his study in the 1970s, Fowler
(1981) has focused more on making faith developmental
theory useful for practitioners, particularly in the fields
of pastoral counseling and religious education. However,
he has continued to modify the theory in response to
criticisms. Concerning gender bias and overemphasis on
TABLE 17.2 Fowler’s Stages of Faith Development
Stage One: Primal Faith (Infancy)
Prelinguistic faith defined by the trust developing between infants
and their caregivers and by the psychological bonds created
through affect attunement.
Stage Two: Intuitive-Projective Faith (Early Childhood)
Faith defined by the images created to represent both threatening
and protective powers, by representations of God that derive from
experience with significant caregivers, by the awakening of moral
standards, and by continued reliance on and referencing to
caregivers.
Stage Three: Mythic-Literal Faith (Elementary School Years)
Faith defined by widening sources of authority to include those
outside the family so as to create a community of like-minded, by the
appreciation of myths and narratives taken literally and valued for
their ability to explain and express faith, and by anthropomorphic
images/conceptions of God.
Stage Four: Synthetic-Conventional Faith (Adolescence
and Adulthood)
Faith defined by the development of a worldview derived from
conventionally or consensually sanctioned authorities, by self-
identity forming a synthesis of the perceptions of others so that
identity is defined in terms of belonging (to family, ethnic group,
sex role, religion) and/or possessing, and by undeveloped ability to
understand and identify with groups with worldviews different
from one’s own.
Stage Five: Individuative-Ref lective Faith (Late Adolescence
to Adulthood)
Faith defined by the self-conscious, explicit examination of
commitments, beliefs, and values leading to critical examination
of the individual’s faith heritage and a self-conscious choosing
of the faith tradition and community to which the individual
belongs. Faith at this stage indicates the individual takes charge
of his/or life in defining self and commitments – often limiting
the individual’s ability to connect to faith-based groups and
faith traditions and to take the perspective of alternative
groups.
Stage Six: Conjunctive Faith: (Average Age: About 30)
Faith defined as self-conscious commitment to ethical action
based on fully internalized principles and to a vision of meaning,
coherence, and value that fully accepts the limitations of the self
to understand fully and act purely. Faith at this stage is
maintained without the props of external authority and may be
described as paradoxical faith inasmuch as commitments are
made in the context of self-doubt and despair that allows for
appreciation of alternative perspectives but threatens passivity
and inability to act.
Stage Seven: Universalizing Faith: (Average Age: Minimum
about 40)
Faith defined as overcoming paradox through identifying with the
ultimate conditions of existence (“ kingdom of God”). Faith at
Stage Seven often appears to be simple compared to faith at Stages
Five and Six. Self and other are, at Stage Seven, viewed and
understood from a cosmic, transcendent perspective which allows
for the feeling of unity and meaning.

autonomy issues at stage four, Fowler has placed more
emphasis on relational knowing to characterize faith at
stage four, and in response to criticisms concerning cul-
tural bias, Fowler has placed greater emphasis on the de-
constructing power of specific cultural contexts, which
call for more emphasis on faith development being
viewed in the context of culture and needing specific
conditions for development to proceed beyond the lower
stages.
More recent stage-structural theories of development
refer again to Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s conceptions of
growth; however, instead of considering religious and
spiritual experiences only as they reflect general stages
of logical thinking and cognition, these newer theories
consider genuine religious experience, feelings, and con-
victions as they reflect religious judgment, reasoning,
and cognition. Clear examples occur in the research of
Oser, Gmünder, and Reich—which we discuss next.
Stages of Religious Judgment and Reasoning:
Fritz Oser and Paul Gmünder
Goldman’s research was on judgment and reasoning
about religious content and concepts. Oser and Gmün-
der’s research is on religious judgment and reasoning
about unspecified content (Oser & Gmünder, 1991). The
distinction is important. In Goldman’s case, judgment
and reasoning was the issue and religion was the content.
In Oser and Gmünder’s case, religiousness is the issue
and judgment and reasoning is a means to understanding
religiousness. In Goldman’s case, the focus is on the
cognitive domain. In Oser and Gmünder’s case, the
focus is on the religious domain. Here, we see religious
judgment and reasoning treated as a “mother structure”
or way of thinking that cannot be reduced to some other
way of thinking.
However, because religious judgment and reasoning
constitute judgment and reasoning about something,
the question arises as to what religious judgment and
reasoning are about. For Oser and Gmünder (1991), re-
ligious judgment and reasoning are not about meaning-
making of all life, but from a measurement point of
view are most apt to be about resolving ambiguities
elicited in particular kinds of situations, here described
as contingency situations.
Contingency situations elicit religious judgment and
reasoning primarily because they raise questions about
who or what is ultimately in control and also about a va-
riety of conflicts having to do with a person’s relation-
Stage-Structural Theories 961
ship to an ultimate being or reality. With contingency
situations, there is ambiguity, which can be resolved
through a special kind of interpreting that Oser and
Gmünder (1991) identify as being religious or spiritual
in nature. This chapter opened with such an example—
the example of one person interpreting another’s good
fortune as having a religious meaning. Other examples
include interpretations of misfortune. Therefore, study-
ing reactions to contingency situations offers one way
to understand the development of religious judgment
and reasoning.
Oser and Gmünder’s (1991) focus was on the qualita-
tively different ways that individuals reason religiously
about the conflicts elicited by existential contingency
situations. Contingency situations are not controllable in
human life. They stimulate the beginning of religious-
ness, but they also stimulate conflicts in persons, which
are defined as polar opposites needing to be differenti-
ated and coordinated. Each polar opposite defines some
issue that may be brought to bear when interpreting a
contingency situation. As noted in Table 17.3, Oser and
Gmünder list several polar opposites as central.
These polar opposites can be used to reason about
how best to interpret and react to contingency situations.
They function in ways similar to the Kantian categories
of thinking (time, space, causality, etc.) needed to orga-
nize thinking in general.
From a genetic point of view, at lower stages of devel-
opment, individuals choose only one of the polar oppo-
sites. Either they are dependent, or they are free. Either
they are in a holy space or in a profane space—and so
forth. By adolescence, individuals usually consider both
polar opposites simultaneously. There is trust and mis-
trust, transcendence and immanence, and so on. Fur-
thermore, each polar opposite is seen as having meaning
in life. Here is transcendence, and there is immanence,
and both can be at the same time. Later, at higher stages
of development, one polar opposite can be taken as a
TABLE 17.3 Polar Opposites to Be
Coordinated for Religious
Judgment and Reasoning
Freedom versus dependence
Transcendence versus immanence
Hope versus absurdity
Transparency versus opacity
Eternal versus ephemeral
Trust versus mistrust
Holy versus profane
962 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
fundamental condition for the other, so, for example, the
experience of absurdity can become a condition for ex-
periencing hope, and freedom can become a prerequisite
for experiencing healthy dependency.
But what exactly does reasoning with the aid of seven
polar opposites organize and accomplish? Oser and
Gmünder’s (1991) answer is that it helps define how in-
dividuals understand their relationship to God or to
whatever individuals owe a commitment. Because some
faith traditions speak of a collection of personal agencies
(gods, ancestors, etc.) while others speak of an imper-
sonal force or reality (dharma, Tao), Oser and Gmünder
referred to the person-“Ultimate” relationship—with ul-
timate referring to that which one owes commitment to
ultimately. For example, devote Buddhists often treat
dharma (cosmic law) as an Ultimate reality to which one
owes commitment (W. C. Smith, 1998a).
A clear example of how the polar opposites figure
into reasoning about the person-Ultimate relationship
occurs when individuals, faced with contingency situa-
tions, reason about how free and/or how dependent they
are with respect to a higher power or reality. Contin-
gency situations are, after all, situations that raise ques-
tions about control. The main assumption here is that
reasoning well about the person-Ultimate relationship
leads to more adaptive ways of living that serve not only
the individual but also those around the individual.
This does not mean that less developed ways are nec-
essarily less adaptive—because adaptation is always a
matter of the match between person and context. A
child’s way of reasoning may be perfectly matched to
his or her protective surroundings. The theory suggests
that it is adaptive for children to reason religiously as if
there are no apparent conflicts created by the presence
of evil, tragedy, and injustice. However, it is not adaptive
for adults to reason without taking into account these
and other conflicts. In short, for adults, the standards
for adaptive behavior are higher.
Furthermore, saying development is about adapting
does not mean that immature ways need to be discour-
aged. On the contrary, the model suggests that most of
the time, religious reasoning is directed toward adapting
and is open to being modified and transformed as the
need arises. Refer back to the previous section’s com-
ments about consolidating and expanding phases in
stages as well as to transition mechanisms, and Oser and
Gmünder’s stage approach becomes clearer.
What development of religious reasoning means is
that, with development, individuals are more able to
adapt to a wide variety of contexts or situations—not
just to the narrow set of contexts and situations experi-
enced in, say, childhood. Furthermore, development
here is assumed to help prevent negative dependency,
dogmatic positions, intolerant behavior, and aggressive
forms of religious expressions.
What development and adaptation mean differs ac-
cording to theoretical perspective, as we see in the next
section. Here, development is defined as structural de-
velopment and approximations to an ideal endpoint (par-
adigm of perfection). In other theories, development
may be defined more as content, intensity, and adapta-
tion to specific circumstances (paradigm of coping).
Two further comments to clarify the stage theory of
religious judgment: First, though the focus here is on
contingency situations, the theory suggests that reli-
gious judgment and reasoning may occur in a wide va-
riety of situations, not just contingency situations.
William James’ saints were, after all, continually judg-
ing and reasoning religiously. Second, though the the-
ory refers to religious judgment and reasoning, the
term spiritual judgment and reasoning could work just
TABLE 17.4 Stages of Religious Judgment in the Oser and
Gmünder (1991) Model
Stage 1: Orientation of Religious Heteronomy—Deus ex Machina
God (the Ultimate) is understood as active and as intervening
unexpectedly in the affairs of the world; persons are conceived as
mostly reactive to God’s (the Ultimate’s) power and interventions.
Stage 2: Orientation of Do et Des—“Give so you may receive”
God (the Ultimate) is understood to be external, all-powerful, and
intervening, however, God (the Ultimate) now can be inf luenced
through promises, prayers, and deeds.
Stage 3: Orientation of Ego Autonomy and One-Sided
Responsibility
The inf luence of God (the Ultimate) is consciously reduced. The
individual is conceived of as responsible for his or her own life.
The Ultimate Being (if accepted as real) has a separate and hidden
existence and responsibility/function.
Stage 4: Orientation of Mediated Autonomy
God (the Ultimate) is mediated through immanence—as in
developing faith in a divine plan and living life accordingly. Social
engagement becomes a form of religious/spiritual expression.
Stage 5: Orientation of Unconditional Religiosity
The individual feels that he or she is always and unconditionally
related to the Ultimate Being—so that each moment is or can have
a religious/spiritual dimension. Religious and spiritual reasoning
displays complete differentiation and coordination of the seven
polar opposites.

as well—especially given the fact that certain kinds of
atheism and agnosticism retain notions of a person-
Ultimate relationship.
This brings us, at last, to the heart of the theory: to
how the polar opposites become increasingly differen-
tiated and coordinated and created stages defining how
individuals understand their relationship with an Ulti-
mate being. Table 17.4 lists the stages and provides
brief descriptions.
Again, independent of the religious denomination
( jewish, catholics, protestants):
• At the lower stages, there is little or no effort to coor-
dinate the polar opposites. Either God (the Ultimate
Being) intervenes, or He (It) does not intervene.
Either we feel hopeful, or we do not feel hopeful.
Either an event reveals God’s (the Ultimate Being’s)
will or that will remains inscrutable. And so it goes
with the rest of the polar opposites, as individuals
continue to think in “Either . . . or . . .” terms.
• At middle stages, polar opposites become differenti-
ated and opposed to one another—without there
being a way to coordinate or balance them. For exam-
ple, at a middle stage, individuals may see themselves
as free to make their own choices while, at the same
time, they may feel that God (or the Ultimate Being)
is simultaneously doing the same, possibly in opposi-
tion to what they are doing.
• At higher stages, the polar opposites interpenetrate
one another so that, for example, freedom is achieved
through remaining dependent on God (the Ultimate
Being); transcendence emerges indirectly through
concrete actions so that immanence and transcen-
dence are intertwined, and transparency and opacity
become integrated as indicated by phrases such as,
“We see, but through a glass darkly.” (1 Corinthians
13:12, New Revised Standard Version). With respect
to the polar opposites, what were originally experi-
enced as conflicting opposites come to be experi-
enced as integrated dualities that define religious and
spiritual experience.
Oser and Gmünder’s (1991) stage theory of religious
judgment was developed, tested, and validated using a
semistructured clinical interview method that asked sub-
jects to respond to hypothetical contingency situations.
The best known of these situations is the “Paul dilemma.”
Subjects are first told the story of a young man caught in
Stage-Structural Theories 963
a plane about to crash. The young man promises God that,
if he survives the crash, he will forego a promising career
and serve humanity in a third world country. Paul sur-
vives, and subjects are asked to respond to a series of
questions to elicit reasoning about Paul’s promise,
whether he should keep his promise toward God, what
will happen if he doesn’t, and how, in general, he should
think and behave in reaction to his surviving the crash.
A coding manual allowed subjects’ responses to the
Paul dilemma and to other hypothetical dilemmas to be
evaluated in terms of the seven polar dimensions—and
allowed for subjects to be assigned to a particular stage
of religious judgment. Here are typical responses to the
question of whether Paul should keep his promise:
Stage One: “Paul has to keep his promise, otherwise
God will give him a stomach ache.”
Stage Two: “God helped Paul so Paul now has to do
some good.” Or, “If Paul does not keep his promise,
he has to do something else. He has to pray so that he
won’t be punished.”
Stage Three: “ This has nothing to do with God. Paul
has to make his own decision. God, if he exists, has
other problems.”
Stage Four: “Whatever decision Paul makes, he will
likely use his faith in God to act responsibly—be-
cause acting responsibly is really what is God’s will.
And, in the end, things will be okay.”
Stage Five: “Whether he goes (to serve in a third world
country) or does not go is unimportant; what is im-
portant is that Paul fulfills the larger promise to meet
the many challenges he will face throughout life, in
the light of what he gathers to be God’s will. God is
present in every human communication and so it does
not matter where exactly Paul ends up.”
Again, no single answer or response was enough to as-
sign a subject to a particular stage. It was the collec-
tive response that determined how subjects were
assigned to stages.
The results of the original and subsequent studies
have proven the usefulness of this stage model for (a)
describing age changes, ( b) understanding religious be-
havior, (c) looking at conversion experiences, and (d) es-
tablishing the value and significance of developing
religious judgment and reasoning.
With respect to age changes, significant age trends
were established with European samples, not only in
cross-sectional studies (Oser & Gmünder, 1991), but
964 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
also in longitudinal studies as well (Di Loreto & Oser,
1996). Together, the cross-sectional and longitudinal
studies suggest that children and adolescents normally
progress through the first three stages of religious
judgment. After adolescence, the majority of adults re-
main at stage 3. This finding may be explained, in part,
by cognitive development being the prime transition
mechanism at lower stages (e.g., developing capacity to
reason about contradictions) while emotional develop-
ment figures more in the transitions at higher stages
(Beile, 1998).
These findings were replicated in sociocultural
contexts as different as India (Hindu and Buddhist),
Tibet and Rhwanda (ancestor worship; Dick, 1981).
Another finding is that in adolescence, girls score
higher than boys—though the differences are small and
disappear with the transition to adulthood (Reich,
1997; Schweitzer, 1992).
As for the usefulness of the stages for understanding
religious behavior, the stages shed light on individual
differences in (a) involvement in religious communi-
ties, ( b) interpretations of religious texts, and (c) self-
effectiveness in religious beliefs.
With respect to involvement in religious communi-
ties, individuals at stages 1 and 2 are more likely to pre-
fer religious communities that require unconditional
subservience from members, but individuals at higher
stages are more likely to prefer liberal communities
(Zondag & Belzen, 1999). Furthermore, individuals at
stage 2 are more likely to have stronger ties to religious
institutions, attach greater importance to sacraments,
and expect more support from religion (Kager, 1995).
Finally, with respect to religious communities, persons
at lower stages are more likely to prefer religious bond-
ing relationships analogous to the mother-child relation-
ship, but persons at higher stages are more likely to
prefer such relationships to take the form of cooperating
friends (Kager, 1995).
With respect to interpretation of religious texts,
individuals at stages 1 and 2 tend to understand reli-
gious language literally rather than metaphorically or
symbolically (Zondag & Belzen, 1999)—and in a man-
ner consistent with their do ut des orientation. So, for
example, individuals at stage 2 tend to interpret mira-
cles reported in the Bible as pay-back for biblical fig-
ures being good, and parables such as the parable of
the workers in the vineyard who received a full day’s
pay for working only an hour were interpreted as
showing that God rewards good work (Bucher, 1991).
With respect to conversion experiences, conversions
into open, but not into closed, narrow religious groups are
associated with stage development (Wenger Jindra, 2004).
With respect to self-effectiveness in religious beliefs
(SEB), individuals at stage 3 show considerably less
SEB than do individuals at lower and higher stages (Rol-
lett & Kager, 1999). SEB is strongest at stage 2, which is
consistent with the overall stage 2 orientation emphasiz-
ing the influence that individuals can have on God or the
Ultimate Being.
As for the value and significance of developing reli-
gious judgment, three studies suggest that stages may in-
fluence how individuals cope with adversity and come to
think positively. In one study of parents with either
Down syndrome or autistic children, parents at higher
stages were more likely to use social support than were
parents at stage 3 (Gnos, 2003). In a similar vein, another
study provided evidence that widows were overcoming
sadness at a higher stage level than non-widows, suggest-
ing that, for at least some widows, stage development
may occur to cope with the death of a spouse (Zen-
klusen, 2003). Finally, in one study, stimulating the de-
velopment of thinking about content with spiritual
meaning had direct effects on social consciousness and
on well-being (Blakeney & Blakeney, 2005).
Therefore, Oser and Gmünder’s (1991) stage theory
has proven useful and in a number of ways. In particular,
the theory has proven useful for understanding how reli-
gious judgment and reasoning figure into overall reli-
gious development.
Fowler and Oser and Gmünder’s Theories Compared
The similarities between the theories of Fowler (1981)
and Oser and Gmünder (1991) are evident. Both are in-
debted to genetic structuralism. Both are in the tradition
of the Enlightenment. Both describe a development that
leads from the particular to the universal and from het-
eronomy to autonomy. Both establish significant age
trends, and the stages from both theories, to a certain
extent, parallel one another. For example, in a direct
comparative study by Tamminnen (1994), results
showed that in the adult age group, most subjects were at
stage 3 in Oser and Gmünder’s scheme and at the paral-
lel stage 4 in Fowler’s. Notwithstanding these similari-
ties, there are differences (for a fuller discussion, see
Nipkow, Schweitzer, & Fowler, 1988).
First, Fowler (1981) incorporates into his scheme of
stages many different kinds of psychological elements,
including moral and social elements, the development of

self-hood and self-identity, type of thinking, and com-
prehension of symbols. In contrast, Oser and Gmünder
(1991) concentrate on religious matters only to the ex-
tent they can be used to cope with life in the face of the
Absolute or Divine.
Fowler speaks of faith in a very general sense,
which has attracted the criticism that we are dealing
here with an “everything and nothing view of faith”
(Fernhout, 1986, p. 66). In contrast, Oser and Gmün-
der (1991) speak of religious judgment for establishing
control in a situation of life through a person’s regulat-
ing the relationship ( bounding) between him- or her-
self and the Absolute.
Fowler (1981) views the normative goal of religious
education in terms of the biblical metaphor of the king-
dom of God (or “reigning of God”), whereas Oser and
Gmünder (1991) view this goal as not determining the
characteristics of stages.
While Fowler’s (1981) approach may be more suit-
able for raising questions related to life history and exis-
tential themes, Oser and Gmünder’s (1991) approach is
more about the transformation dynamics of cognitive
structures. Fowler is more interested in the implications
of his stage theory for supporting pastoral care, while
Oser and Gmünder are more interested in scientific is-
sues such as the issue of validating stages.
Approaches have their own history and their own
advantages and drawbacks. Oser and Gmünder’s
(1991) approach is admittedly less explanatory and
more sharply focused on God-man connectedness, but
this could be interpreted as a strength. Fowler’s (1981)
approach is more faith related and thus more holistic,
and this, too, can be seen as strength. Therefore, to a
certain extent, these approaches or theories serve com-
plementary roles for understanding religious and spiri-
tual development.
The Relational and Contextual Model of
Development: Helmut Reich
There are numerous religious phenomena calling for
more specialized reasoning than that explained in the
Oser and Gmünder’s (1991) stage model. In particular,
there are religious dogmas and religious conflicts that
raise intellectual challenges for any believer who feels
obligated to think logically and scientifically. These
more specific challenges call for the development of a
specialized way of reasoning that Reich (1993) has
named relational and contextual reasoning (RCR).
Stage-Structural Theories: Concerns 965
RCR reasoning is useful in situations involving com-
peting, bona fide explanations. It is useful because of its
underlying trivalent logic, which can lead to categorizing
competing explanations as being compatible, incompati-
ble, or noncompatible. Noncompatible refers to instances
when competing explanations are both (all) correct, de-
pending on context.
Using the construct of RCR and working in the
framework established by Oser and Gmünder (1991),
Reich’s (1993) research has focused on how individuals
develop ways to resolve apparent contradictions having
religious meaning. Examples include the problem of
evil (How can there be a just and all-powerful God
when there is evil and tragedy?) and the contrasting
biblical and scientific accounts of how the universe
came to be.
Reich’s (1993) research has demonstrated how indi-
viduals, with age and with development, resolve these
apparent religious contradictions using RCR reasoning.
Development is described in the following stages:
Stage One: Only one competing explanation is recog-
nized.
Stage Two: One or more competing explanations are
recognized.
Stage Three: Competing explanations are seen as
needed for full understanding.
Stage Four: The relation between competing explana-
tions is analyzed, and the situation specificity of the
relative contributions of each is at least intimated.
Stage Five: An overarching theory or synopsis is con-
structed to specify the complex and mutual rela-
tionships between competing explanations, and the
situation specificity of their explanatory weight.
So, for example, stage 5 responses to the biblical versus
scientific explanations of the origins of the universe
and humankind might emphasize God’s setting in mo-
tion Darwinian evolution and/or the essentially moral-
spiritual meaning explained in biblical accounts versus
the essentially material-physical meaning explained in
scientific accounts.
At the end of this focus on relational judgment and
reasoning as they both define religious and spiritual de-
velopment, we admit that they do not need to lead to re-
ducing religious and spiritual development to general
(e.g., Piagetian) stages of cognitive development. Fur-
thermore, we see that adopting such a focus allows for
precision in measuring and explaining.
966 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
STAGE-STRUCTURAL
THEORIES: CONCERNS
Stage-structural theories of development in general and
religious and spiritual development in particular have
come under attack for several reasons. The main reasons
have to do with (a) the linear and normative treatment of
development, ( b) the emphasis on cognition, judgment,
and reasoning, (c) the emphasis on presumed universals
to the exclusion of individual and cultural differences,
and (d) the mostly positive/optimistic view of structural
development that overlooks pathology among those at
higher stages. A fair assessment of stage-structural the-
ories must address these concerns—which we do in the
next section on alternative approaches to religious and
spiritual development.
Those who object to the linear and normative nature of
stage-structural theories generally equate development
with change over time. They may also place greater em-
phasis than do stage-structural theorists on the short-term
functions that faith plays in individuals’ lives. Together,
these two ways of thinking about religiousness and spiri-
tuality lead us to note that stage-structural theories fail to
capture the changes and consistencies in individuals’ ways
of being religious and/or spiritual (Wulff, 1993).
This criticism that stage-structural theories are too
linear and normative may even be found as an implied
criticism by the authors of stage-structural models. For
example, Oser and Gmünder (1991), as well as Fowler
(1981), report that using their stages to describe age
changes reveals patterns that are decidedly nonlinear—
especially among adults.
However, if the concept of development is distin-
guished from the concept of change over time, as we
think it should be, then the linear nature of stage-
structural models can be seen for its essential worth:
for contributing to the definition of religious and spiri-
tual development and for contributing to our ability to
evaluate any given pattern of faith. A linear model is
needed for the purposes of defining and evaluating,
and age changes need not be linear for stage-structural
models to be validated or useful (Kaplan, 1983b).
As for the criticism that stage-structural theories
overemphasize the role of cognition, judgment, and
reasoning in religious and spiritual development, sev-
eral points apply. First, as we have seen, Goldman’s
(1964) theory and all other stage-structural theories
that treat religious and spiritual development as being
merely an application of universal cognitive structures
do indeed go beyond the evidence to overemphasize the
role of cognition.
However, overemphasis on cognition is not intrinsic
to stage-structural theories. Indeed, Oser and Gmün-
der’s (1991) theory as well as Fowler’s (1981) include in
their descriptions of stages many issues, conflicts, and
concerns that are obviously social and emotional in na-
ture. For example, both theories place at the center of re-
ligious and spiritual development, not the ability to
think logically, but the ability to coordinate conflicts
between individuation and making positive connections
to God (the Ultimate) and to communities of diverse be-
lievers. Furthermore, and as Rest (1983) and Oser
(1988) have argued, it is impossible to disentangle emo-
tion from cognition because there is no such thing as
reasoning without feeling. Finally, and following Pi-
aget’s lead, stage theorists such as Oser and Fowler as-
sume that emotion provides a functional “motor ” for the
transition from one stage to another. Indeed, this seems
to be particularly the case for transitions between the
upper stages (Rollett & Kager, 1999).
The third concern and criticism has to do with stage-
structural theories’ emphasizing universals to the exclu-
sion of cultural differences. As we see in the next
section, the focus on nonuniversals and on cultural
(communication) differences has become a main focus
in recent times, often to the point of excluding discus-
sion of universals.
However, the choice to focus on universals is a legiti-
mate research focus. We need to focus on universals to
adequately define human development. We also need to
focus on those norms that need not be embodied but that
form indispensable means for defining what develop-
ment means, or should mean. Stage-structural theories
do just that: By focusing on structural development
rather than on content, we gain understanding of what
we should mean by “developing” and whether any norms
for defining development can be said to be universal.
Furthermore, and as cross-cultural studies have shown,
there is at least enough empirical research to suggest
that, when it comes to religious and spiritual develop-
ment, there are universals.
But does content not matter? This raises the last con-
cern that stage-structural models are overly positive/
optimistic. Our own view is that this concern is justi-
fied—despite the fact that there are discussions noting
the potential for problems even at the higher stages
(Kohlberg, 1981). However, the main point here is about
content, not structure. Content matters, particularly

with respect to whether an individual’s or group’s im-
ages and beliefs support or undermine an ethical life. In-
dividuals functioning at lower stages in stage-structural
models may show more compassion and be more sensi-
tive to issues of justice than many functioning at higher
stages as defined by structural criteria only. Put another
way, there are spiritual problems at all stages—as we
discuss later in the final section dealing with problems
of a religious and/or spiritual nature, such as the prob-
lem of religiously inspired terrorism. There is a need for
research in this area, to document and explain the nature
of problems at different stages of religious and spiritual
development.
Having provided a stage-structural framework for
thinking about religious and spiritual development, we
can move on to evaluating current empirical approaches
in the light of this framework. Because this framework
has to do with norms for defining the maturing of faith
and of persons, the discussion of current approaches is
in terms of their not being about faith or persons, or
about development defined by norms.
ALTERNATIVES TO STAGE-
STRUCTURAL TH EORIES
Is religious and spiritual development to be conceived
of as a march toward a single, albeit complex and uni-
versal endpoint, thus following norms that push, pull, or
define where individuals are to head if they are to de-
velop? Or is religious and spiritual development to be
conceived of as water flooding a hillside, as a branching
bush, or as some other metaphor that characterizes de-
velopment in terms of multiple pathways leading to
multiple endpoints?
Development conceived of as an upward climb to-
ward perfection is defined by approximations to perfec-
tion. Development conceived of as multidirectional
pathways leading to multiple endpoints is defined by
what happens to individuals as they react to unexpected
moments and as they participate in particular contexts
and cultures.
These two conceptions of development lead to quite
different goals for the social scientist bent on explaining
religious and spiritual development. Using a normative
conception of development, explanation tends to be about
the structural development that underlies or defines
“lower ” and “ higher,” “immature” and “mature,” and
about universals. Using a nonnormative conception of
Alternatives to Stage-Structural Theories 967
development, explanation tends to be closer to describing
change over time, not only or mainly in the individual but
also in the individual’s transactions and participation in
contexts and cultures to function and adapt.
We look at four quite different approaches that share
a common understanding that religious and spiritual
development need not and should not be thought of in
terms of stages and universal endpoints. Each criti-
cizes normative, stage-structural models for failing to
explain the nonlinear changes that often occur in how
religiousness and spirituality get expressed from birth
to death. Each also criticizes stage-structural models
for not capturing the diverse ways that individuals ex-
press themselves religiously and spiritually, for being
overly optimistic about the fruits of structural develop-
ment, and for putting western, liberal values above all
others. David Wulff (1993) sums up these criticisms
this way:
The positing of religious development, especially in the
form of progressive and irreversible stages, requires the
assumption of religion-specific dispositions or structures
as well as of particular end-states representing the fullest
realization of the inborn potential. It is difficult to say,
however, of what these rarely observed end-states consist.
Furthermore, the construction of these states requires the
imposition of certain philosophical and theological views,
thus undermining any claims for universality. (p. 182)
We review the contributions of these current ap-
proaches to religious and spiritual development and
their specific, as well as general, criticisms of norma-
tive, stage-structural theories, even if they are in part
speculative. We begin with the contributions and criti-
cisms of Susan Kwilecki’s substantive-functional ap-
proach (Kwilecki, 1999), which follows in the tradition
of religious studies.
Susan Kwilecki’s
Substantive-Functional Approach
Kwilecki’s work is with adults, not children, because,
in her view, “childhood is not the period of consum-
mate religious expression.” (1999, p. 264). She is,
therefore, critical of current research on religious and
spiritual development, which she says, “meticulously
explains the differences in . . . the religious conceptu-
alization of a 5- and a 9-year-old, but does not address
the spectacular variety of adult religious perspectives”
968 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
(p. 264). Because of this variety, Kwilecki defines
religious and spiritual development by quantitative
measures. She writes,
Growth or development in personal religion occurs
. . . when ideas and experiences of the supernatural be-
come increasingly salient and functional to the individual.
. . . My criterion of religious development—the scope,
depth, and pervasiveness of supernaturalism in life—is
essentially quantitative. (pp. 32–33)
For Kwilecki, what grows or develops has to do with
imagination more than with perception and reason:
Becoming religious . . . means realizing, and increasingly
acting upon the realization, that ultimately our fate lies
with forces that transcend our generally most effective
tools of adaptation—the senses and reason. Attempting to
monitor critical but elusive powers, the religious are daily
thrown upon the imagination, a faculty difficult to disci-
pline and trust. Ongoing negotiations with unseen beings
strain even the hominid capacity for symbolization. Not
everyone becomes religious to the same degree. (p. 31)
As lives lived imaginatively, the religious, for Kwilecki,
are not to be evaluated using the cognitive-developmental
schemes derived from Piaget and Kohlberg.
With respect to defining religious and spiritual devel-
opment, Kwilecki’s (1999) work reminds us that the
focus needs to be on whole persons functioning in com-
plex and ever-changing circumstances. To capture reli-
gious and spiritual development, we cannot rely solely
on general description systems such as those found in
stage-structural theories. We need to know the details of
individuals’ lives, the challenges they face as well as
their inner thoughts, fantasies, and feelings.
Kwilecki’s (1999) work also shows us the value of
certain forms of thinking and behaving that often are
explicitly or implicitly denigrated by stage-structural
theories. For example, in her case study of “Jack Mc-
Cullers,” a mechanic who reported he once received a
divine command to purchase a head gasket for a Toyota,
when he did not own a Toyota or know anybody who did.
Kwilecki’s response to the religious imaginings of Mc-
Cullers was: “What could be sillier than thinking that
the ruler of the universe would waste time on interven-
tions and messages such as these? What could be lovelier
than thinking that the ruler of the universe is so intimate
and playful?” (personal communication; Kwilecki, Sep-
tember 2003). In short, in Kwilecki’s approach, we see
the inherent ambiguity in religious imagining that is
often missing in normative, stage-structural approaches.
Kwilecki’s (1999) approach corrects deficiencies
found in normative, stage-structural approaches. But is
her way of defining development entirely quantitative
and without norms? In her writing, we can occasionally
detect a normative and qualitative definition of develop-
ment, one that seems sensible if not inevitable. Through-
out her writing, Kwilecki goes back and forth between
describing the ordinary individuals that are the focus of
her case studies and extraordinary religious and spiri-
tual exemplars. In her admiration of ordinary examples
of faith but especially in her admiration of exemplars,
one can detect an implicit developmental approach de-
fined by qualitative differences. Whether writing about
Mother Teresa, Black Elk, or the Zen nun Satori Myods,
Kwilecki admires the faithful’s ability to pursue noble
purposes, especially in the face of adversity—and al-
ways she is taken with the faithful’s ability to imagine
realities beyond appearances, their ability to remain op-
timistic, and their ability to use imagination to adapt.
Her person-centered approach can, therefore, lay the
foundation for a normative developmental approach that
is sensitive to culture, circumstances, and individual
personalities.
Kwilecki’s (1999) work focuses on adults because
she believes that it is in the adult years that faith takes
on its varied and sometimes magnificent forms. Her ap-
proach is nonnormative in the way she defines religious
and spiritual development in quantitative terms, as faith
gaining strength. Her approach gives us development
without explicit norms, even if empirically not yet fully
validated. The next example is of a current approach fo-
cusing on children because it claims that stage-struc-
tural models have overlooked children’s rich and varied
spiritual experience. The focus here is on assessing chil-
dren’s spirituality but without development.
The Spiritual Child Movement
In recent years, a number of psychologists and educators
have been writing about “ the spiritual child” (Coles,
1990; Hart, 2005; Hay & Nye, 1998; Reimer & Furrow,
2003), so many that we can discern a spiritual child
movement that is, in part, a reaction to stage-structural
theories of religious and spiritual development, which
are generally seen as following along the lines set down
by Goldman. As such, one of the main criticisms put
forth by this group is that stage-structural theories are

too cognitive. For example, David Hay (Hay & Nye,
1998) writes:
the cumulative feeling I am left with after reviewing what
we know about childhood spirituality is an uneasiness
about the adequacy of developmental theory (meaning
stage-structural theories) to give an account of it. . . . The
major problem (with stage theories) is their narrowness,
coming near to dissolving religion into reason and there-
fore childhood spirituality into nothing more than a form
of immaturity or inadequacy. (pp. 50, 51)
The idea that children are spiritual is not new.
Throughout history, faith traditions have, at some time
or another, found an innate spirituality in children—as
demonstrated in the passage from Mark 10:15 (New Re-
vised Standard Version), “Whosoever shall not receive
the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter
therein”; in the reincarnation beliefs surrounding the
search for a new Dalai Lama (Thurman, 1991); and in
the treatment of babies by the Beng of Ivory Coast (Got-
tlieb, 2005). At various times, children have been seen
as having a natural and uncritical faith, a natural wis-
dom and capacity for discerning the way things really
are, and a spirituality that comes from being old souls.
Therefore, what is new in the current spiritual child
movement is not the idea of children being spiritual but
the arguments attacking stage-structural theories for
being too cognitive.
The spiritual child movement is a movement based on
the idea that spirituality is rooted in personal experi-
ence, feeling, and biology. Those leading the movement
do acknowledge there is a cognitive element to what they
refer to as “spiritual experience.” To experience spiritu-
ally requires at least the cognitive ability to step back
and be aware—of the larger picture, of the mystery of
life, of there being something more than what is given by
the senses. But this ability is present at very young ages,
as young as four by some accounts, but certainly by six.
The capacity for spiritual awareness is present at
young ages because, says this group, humans have
evolved in ways that provide for this capacity (Hart,
2005; Hay & Nye, 1998). Spiritual capacity is inherited
capacity, a product of brain development. It is given to
children by biology rather than by parents, teachers, or
culture—though for spirituality to develop, children
need lots of encouragement and support. In sum, the
spiritual child movement is bent on getting across one
main idea, namely, that children have the capacity for
rich and varied spiritual experiences that form (or
Alternatives to Stage-Structural Theories 969
should form through being encouraged and supported)
the foundation of their religious, ethical, and spiritual
development.
What is the evidence supporting this claim that chil-
dren have the capacity for experiences that are essentially
spiritual? The evidence there is comes from interview
studies of children, from retrospective paper and pencil
studies of adults, and from collections of anecdotes.
Members of this group have been the first to point out
that their methods and the available evidence do not
meet rigorous scientific standards. Even with regard to
the issue of how to define children’s spirituality, they
admit that it is difficult, at best, and perhaps impossible
to pin down children’s spirituality by means of defini-
tion. There is, says this group, an inevitable subjectivity
to discerning children’s spirituality. For example, Re-
becca Nye (1999) writes that what she observed as mo-
ments when the children she interviewed were relating
their spiritual experiences were moments not captured
by the words appearing in transcripts. Those moments
were singled out because, during them, children
“seemed to shift into another gear ” (Nye, 1999, p. 62)
when speaking about their experiences.
Given the current evidence and methods, it might be
easy to dismiss this movement on the grounds that it is
not grounded in solid scientific research. However, doing
so ignores the real phenomena being discussed. The main
question is not whether the phenomena discussed are
real but whether they warrant the designation of spiri-
tual. Other terms work equally well, terms used by the
leaders of this movement themselves—wonder, awe, wis-
dom, and relational consciousness. Adding the term spir-
itual runs the risk of adding a gratuitous interpretation.
Furthermore, by calling attention to children’s “spir-
itual experiences,” the group promoting the spiritual-
child movement has self-consciously de-emphasized the
role of judgment and reasoning and thinking in general,
to the point of sometimes adopting an opposite extreme
to that of Goldman. The previous quote by David Hay
might serve as an example.
Finally, this group’s approach may be questioned for
how development is conceived (or not conceived, as the
case may be). It is one thing to point out moments of
awe, wonder, and wisdom in the lives of children and an-
other to define faith and its development. Of the two en-
terprises, the second seems more significant. Moments
of awe, wonder, wisdom, and relational consciousness
are not likely to shoulder much of the work of establish-
ing a foundation for religious and spiritual development.
970 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
At least, research has yet to show they do. And even if it
is not the moments themselves that are important but
rather the innate capacities they point to, we are still left
with the question of how these innate capacities develop
into mature patterns of faith. Granted that what devel-
ops has to do with wonder, awe, and wisdom, we are left
still with the task of figuring out the qualitative differ-
ences between the wonder, awe, and wisdom of a child
and that of, say, John Muir speaking of mountains as
“God’s cathedrals” (Cronon, 1997) and Gandhi demon-
strating the wisdom of the Gujarati precept, “Return
good for evil” (Gandhi, 1993).
In the following discussion of the next approach, we
also find an appreciation for how much children under-
stand—as well as an appreciation for the influence of
elders and culture. However, unlike the previous two ap-
proaches, the next approach is grounded in experimental
research done in post-Piagetian and postrationalist, cog-
nitive-developmental psychology—with its focus on do-
main specific development and cultural diversity.
Cognitive-Cultural Theories
Stage-structural theories posit norms for defining devel-
opment, which make them susceptible to being insensi-
tive to cultural diversity. The wealth of information now
obtained from new disciplines such as cognitive anthro-
pology suggests that no stage-structural theory can do
justice to the rich variety of thinking and acting that is
found in and among cultures. Rather than adopt the
stairway to maturity model, today’s cognitive develop-
mental psychologists, like Darwin before them, have
adopted the model of an ever-branching bush.
Current cognitive-cultural theories (e.g., Johnson &
Boyatzis, 2005) search for competencies specific to
nonuniversal domains rather than search only for com-
petencies that cut across domains (e.g., object perma-
nence). This search has provided a more nuanced view
of intellectual development. The word domain can have
as its reference something quite broad, such as the do-
main of physics, or something quite narrow such as the
domains of baseball and knock-knock jokes (Feldman,
1980). It is the broad sense of domain that is used in cur-
rent cognitive studies—and three broad domains in par-
ticular have been the focus of research on children’s
cognitive development: the physical, biological, and psy-
chological (theory of mind) domains. Throughout their
early years, children are seen as developing intuitive
knowledge in these three domains so that by age 4, most
children have a fairly well developed intuitive ontology
(Boyer & Walker, 2000; Harris, 2000).
This view of young children having a fairly well de-
veloped intuitive ontology directly contradicts the older
Piagetian view, which characterizes young children’s
thinking as being prelogical. In this newer view, young
children come off as neither rational nor irrational.
Rather, they come off as adept at handling different sys-
tems of thinking about reality. For our purposes, two
systems are central.
The first system is for thinking about everyday
events. This is the default system. It rests on direct ob-
servation and on an innate push to find patterns and
causal connections. It is not a system that looks for
magic and the counterintuitive. On the contrary, it is a
system that is thoroughly empirical. Preschoolers may
pretend, but in doing so, they call their pretense “make-
believe.” And when not pretending, if their causal infer-
ences seem irrational, it is more because they lack
information and experience than because their thought
processes are inherently irrational.
The other system is for thinking about the counterin-
tuitive. It comes into play more because of culture and
testimony of trusted caregivers than it does because of
children’s reflections on reality. Early on, children are
exposed to counterintuitive ideas and counterintuitive
worlds that make up their culture’s religious heritage,
and, remarkably, they have little difficulty taking on
these ideas and worlds and making them their own
(Harris, 2003).
They do so for a number of reasons. First, they trust
their caregivers and mentors—those giving testimony to
the reality of the counterintuitive (Harris, 2000). Second,
because religious ideas are both counterintuitive and pre-
sented as true, children find them arresting and memo-
rable (Atran & Norenzayan, 2005). Third, children are
able to keep a kind of double booking—with intuitive on-
tology employed most of the time, and their newly ac-
quired counterintuitive ontology employed when the
occasion fits (Harris, 2003). Fourth, even when assimi-
lating counterintuitive religious belief systems, children
borrow from their intuitive ontology—making it possible
to draw inferences from the counterintuitive world to the
everyday and vice versa (Harris, 2000).
As can be seen in this account, the questions are
about the development of distinctions and boundaries
between separate domains. They are not questions about
stages leading in a particular direction. Furthermore,
children older than four are characterized as being much

more similar to adults in their basic thought patterns
than Piagetian characterizations lead us to believe. Fi-
nally, culture, not simply organismic development, ex-
plains age changes in what children believe.
What does this mean for the study and understand-
ing of religious and spiritual development? For one
thing it means rejecting theologically influenced devel-
opmental models in favor of descriptions grounded
in cross-cultural field research. For another thing, it
means religious development is not a separate cognitive
domain but rather a domain that draws on the cognitive
achievements designed originally for mundane tasks.
Finally, it means religious thinking is neither more
primitive nor more mature than other kinds of think-
ing. It is simply different. And this relativity extends to
distinctions between religious traditions themselves so
long as individuals in any given tradition develop basic
intuitive ontologies (physical, biological, psychologi-
cal) and so long as the counterintuitive religious agents
and worlds serve the usual adaptive functions of foster-
ing moral (communal) commitment and relieving exis-
tential anxiety (Atran & Norenzayan, 2005).
This is a composite view of current thinking about re-
ligious development from a cognitive-cultural perspec-
tive. What are we to make of it? What are its strengths
and weaknesses? The main strength in this perspective
is providing a better account of how religious beliefs are
acquired. The main weakness is the perspective’s con-
flating belief and faith—so much so that, at times, the
subject investigated seems to be something other than
religious and spiritual development. For example, the
perspective fails to distinguish differences between
children’s questions such as “Why don’t angels fall
down to earth?” (Harris, 2000), and adults’ questions
such as “Why do bad things happen to good people?”
(Kushner, 1981). The first question lacks moral signifi-
cance. The second question forces thinking about what
kind of universe we live in and how we ought to face in-
justice and adversity. While there may be disagreement
about whether both kinds of questions fall in the domain
of religious and spiritual development, it seems clear
that the second kind of question has more to do with
what has previously been defined as faith.
Developmental Systems Theories
Developmental systems theories shift the focus from in-
dividuals to transactions between individuals and their
various embedded contexts (Lerner et al., 2003). That
Alternatives to Stage-Structural Theories 971
is, developmental systems theories are essentially rela-
tional in nature. This means that development is located
not in the person but in the ongoing transactions be-
tween the person and his or her multilayered contexts.
Of concern here is the goodness of fit between person
and environment. Religiousness and spirituality relate to
the extent that they provide ways to foster a better fit.
Indeed, one of the main findings coming out of research
based on developmental systems theories is that reli-
giousness and spirituality do indeed make it more likely
for individuals to thrive because their behavior both
improves and is rewarded by their contexts. In sum,
thriving is the main interest; religious and spiritual de-
velopment are of interest only as they lead to thriving.
Among the many types of studies linking religious
and spiritual development to thriving are those investi-
gating faith-based communities and their role in helping
youth develop positively (Benson et al., 2003; King &
Boyatzis, 2004; King & Furrow, 2004; Roehlkepartain,
1995). A study by Regnerus and Elder serves as the
main example (Regnerus & Elder, 2003).
This study illustrates the developmental systems ap-
proach in several ways, first by its speaking about in-
volvement in a faith based community as a potential
“resilient pathway.” The term resilient pathway reveals
the approach’s main assumption about plasticity as well
as its main interest—what leads to thriving. The results
of this study show that in high risk communities, church
attendance functions as a protective mechanism “stimu-
lating resilience in the lives of at-risk youth”—as shown
by church attendance correlating positively with staying
“on track ” in school.
However, it is in Regnerus’ and Elder’s (2003) ex-
planation of the results rather than in the results
themselves that we see the main features of the devel-
opmental systems approach. Regnerus and Elder ex-
plain the results as follows:
The ritual action of attending worship services or cere-
monies, in contrast with theological differences that mark
distinct religious affiliations and beliefs, appears to be a
process that operates independently of particular belief
systems and organizational affiliations. Church atten-
dance may constitute—even if by accident—a form of so-
cial integration that has the consequence of reinforcing
values conducive to educational achievement and goal set-
ting . . . (In addition) . . . church attendance and doing
well in school require commitment, diligence, and routine.
The ritual practice of rising and going to church or mass,
and so forth—whether compelled by one’s own faith or
972 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
one’s parents’ demands—commits a youth to a practice
and routine, a skill that translates into tools needed for
academic success. (p. 646)
In other words, for the study’s at-risk youth, going to
church regularly meant they were exposed to values and
good routines that could be transferred to school.
Obviously, studies such as this study are much
needed, especially for understanding how to support at-
risk youth. But are they studies of religious and spiritual
development, or are they simply studies of positive de-
velopment defined broadly? We think they are the latter
because they skirt the task of charting and explaining
faith and its development. While these studies often ac-
knowledge that faith is a unique and important variable,
they do not explain how faith develops. And in not ex-
plaining how faith develops, they leave out the inner
workings that define and explain the religious and spiri-
tual development of persons.
In subsequent sections we return to discussing devel-
opmental systems theories and their contribution to
understanding the positive correlates of religious and
spiritual development. However, in the next section, we
look more closely at the ongoing debate between stage-
structural and cognitive-cultural theories—as we take
up the task of explaining concept formation in religious
and spiritual development.
CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT
IN RELIGIOUS AND
SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
Nowhere do we see the contrast between stage-structural
and cognitive-cultural approaches more clearly than
when characterizing conceptual development in religious
and spiritual development. Stage-structural approaches
provide the following composite picture:
• With age, children go from having mostly anthropo-
morphic and concrete conceptions of supernatural
agencies to having mostly symbolic and abstract
conceptions.
• With age, children go from reliance on magical and
egocentric-imaginative reflecting, which includes
thinking about supernatural agencies and prayer, to
more rational and decentered thinking.
In contrast, cognitive-cultural approaches provide the
following composite picture:
• With age, children, adolescents, and adults maintain
conceptions of supernatural agencies that are both
anthropomorphic and nonanthropomorphic.
• With age, children, adolescents, and adults develop
intuitive ontologies having to do with what they can
perceive directly, which coexist with counterintuitive
ontologies having to do with what they cannot per-
ceive directly. The acquisition of the latter constitutes
neither magical-egocentric nor logical-decentered
thinking.
What is the evidence supporting each of these ap-
proaches? And in looking at the evidence, can we find a
way to reconcile the differences? To answer both ques-
tions we look next at studies carried out from each of
these approaches—beginning first with studies carried
out from a stage-structural approach. For the most part,
we compare what the two sets of studies have to say
about development with respect to concepts of (a) super-
natural agencies, ( b) religious institutions and prayer,
and (c) death/ life after death.
However, in discussing studies of religious concepts
and their development, we remind readers that concepts
can never be sorted neatly into religious and nonreli-
gious. Certain concepts may not appear to be associated
with religious or spiritual development. Nevertheless,
by taking into account the context in which these con-
cepts are experienced, they become religious or spiri-
tual concepts. For example, at the surface level, the
concepts of “ work ” and “ family” may not appear to
have religious or spiritual meaning. However, by placing
these concepts in specific contexts their meaning be-
comes modified such that they take on a religious or
spiritual meaning—as when Shakers speak of “conse-
crated labor ” and Mormons speak of “ the eternal fam-
ily.” Meaning is tied not only to development but also to
culture and faith tradition.
Studies Carried Out from a Stage-
Structural Approach
Studies of religious conceptual development carried out
from a stage-structural approach have largely followed
in the rationalist tradition exemplified in the work of Pi-
aget. In this tradition, children’s concepts reflect quali-
tatively different and less rational (when compared to
adults’ concepts) ways of thinking. This can be seen
when examining a variety of religious concepts, the
 Conceptual Development in Religious and Spiritual Development
most notable being those having to do with supernatural
agencies, religious institutions, prayer, and death.
Supernatural Agencies
By far the most studied religious concept has been the
concept God. Children’s conceptions of God have been
assessed in a variety of ways, most frequently by asking
children to draw what they picture in their minds when
they hear the word God . Having children draw pictures
of God, write letters to God, and other relatively un-
structured and projective methods have shown them-
selves useful for bringing out children’s conceptions of
God more readily than closed methods (Klepsch &
Logie, 1982, p. 36; Tamminnen, 1991, p. 160).
These unstructured and projective methods are not
without their problems. In particular, they encourage an-
thropomorphizing and, when used with children only,
they can create biased comparisons based on children
and adults being assessed differently (J. Barrett, 2001).
Methodological issues notwithstanding, numerous
studies (Bucher, 1994; Hanisch, 1996; Heller, 1986;
Nye & Carlson, 1984; Pitts, 1977; Pnevmatikos, 2002)
have confirmed the trend described by Harms (1944).
On the basis of more than 4800 drawings and conversa-
tions, Harms found that children, aged 3 to 6, produced
predominantly fairy-tale figures of God, while older
children portrayed God in an anthropomorphous
manner. Only adolescents provided abstract-symbolic
conceptions.
Since Harm’s research, studies have repeatedly
demonstrated that young children typically see God as
a friendly, smiling old man, often with a beard, and
often residing in heaven, with heaven depicted as a
place somewhere above the earth (Bucher, 1994; Gold-
man, 1964; Heller, 1986; Tamminnen, 1991, p. 195). A
number of surveys have shown that, with age, fewer
and fewer children give anthropomorphous depictions
of God, and more and more give symbols or metaphors
to represent God—such as God being represented as
light, nature, or love (Bucher, 1994; Goldman, 1964;
Hanisch, 1996). Strict, or demonic images are rare
(Frielingsdorf, 1992).
According to this set of studies, children’s concep-
tions of God move from the anthropomorphic and con-
crete to the symbolic and abstract, albeit at different
speeds in different religions. For example, Pitts (1977)
found that Mormon children held on to anthropomor-
phous conceptions longer than average, while Jewish
children did the opposite.
973
Do children’s drawings reflect their real conceptions
of God? The answer is not clear. Children may repro-
duce in their drawing schemes what can be canonized,
schemes that may persist even though their inner con-
ceptions have changed (Freeman, 1980).
However, anthropomorphizing in childhood cannot
be attributed solely to the drawing method because,
with respect to conceptions of God, other research
methods have revealed a similar developmental trend.
For example, in interview studies, a number of investi-
gators have found that anthropomorphous depictions
of the Divine dominate, more so than later on (Barnes,
1892; Vogel, 1936). Similarly, Thun (1959), who
recorded the classroom conversations of German ele-
mentary schoolchildren during religious instruction,
and Deconchy (1967), who classified French chil-
dren’s images of God by using a word association tech-
nique, found that children up to 11-years-old
conceived of God anthropomorphously, while adoles-
cents conceived of God in ways that were both abstract
and vague. Hyde (1965), too, investigated adolescents’
images of God with methods other than by using draw-
ings and found a steady receding of anthropomor-
phisms, delayed in the case of children who regularly
went to church.
In summary, numerous studies following in the stage-
structural tradition have found that with age, children’s
conceptions of God become less anthropomorphic and
less concrete and more symbolic and abstract. Similar
results have been found in studies of children’s concep-
tions of religious institutions and prayer.
Conceptions of Religious Institutions,
Prayer, and Death
Religiousness and spirituality are not continually being
invented anew. Rather, they are handed down by tradi-
tion in faith communities. Therefore, ideas possessed by
children of religious institutions and practices are of
particular interest not only to researchers but also to
teachers of religion. The central studies remain those
carried out by Elkind and his coworkers (1961, 1962,
1963), in which Jewish, Catholic, and Protestant chil-
dren were asked how they perceived their denomination
and religious community. The results supported the fol-
lowing description of age changes:
• Undifferentiated conceptions, according to which even
a domestic cat could be regarded as Catholic (to age 7)
974 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
• Concretely differentiated conceptions (to age 9) in
which religious affiliation was defined in terms of spe-
cific, concrete acts such as going to church or synagogue
• Abstractly differentiated conceptions (from age 10)
that made reference to beliefs and ideology
As for prayer, given the diversity and universality of
prayer, it is not surprising that the psychology of religion
has, from its beginnings, investigated its development
(Brown, 1994; Hyde, 1990). Early investigations derive
from Pratt (1910), who characterized the development
of prayer as leading from primitive and spontaneous
supplication to more ritualized forms.
Goldman (1964) distinguished three stages in the de-
velopment of the prayer concept. At the first stage, nor-
mally ending at age 9, children conceive of prayers like
magic. Furthermore, younger children believe that God
literally hears prayers and is compelled to accede to re-
quests because the praying person has prayed properly
and is a good person. Later on, children believe that the
effect of prayer is dependent on its content; if prayers
contain only material and selfish wishes, they will not
likely be granted. In adolescence, development contin-
ues when prayer is seen as an expression of faith and as
a form of psychic-spiritual self-help.
Rosenberg (1989) investigated age changes in several
content areas of prayer: How (for instance, the physical po-
sition of the praying person), What (the content of prayer),
Whom (the addressee of prayer or conception of God), and
the reflective-subjective aspect of praying. Children and
adolescents were shown pictures of people praying and
asked to associate freely to what they saw. The results
showed that, with age, the “how” became less significant.
For younger children, externalities such as covering the
head during prayer were important, and supplications as
well as anthropomorphous conceptions of God dominated.
For adolescents, prayer required a more psychological con-
ception, such that they saw prayer’s value as having to do
with its effect on the praying person him- or herself.
Other studies have confirmed this trend of prayer de-
veloping from being a magical speech act to a spiritual
dialogue. For example, Long, Elkind, and Spilka (1967)
distinguished three stages of prayer. Children younger
than nine regarded praying as essentially a way of asking
for things. Beginning around age 9, the relevance of ask-
ing for things diminished, and prayer became an inner
dialogue with God (Godin, 1968a; Thouless & Brown,
1964). Brown (1967) also found that belief in the magi-
cal-causative effect of prayer decreased with age.
In a study of prayer and its development in adoles-
cence, Scarlett and Perriello (1991) had subjects pro-
vide prayers for hypothetical situations calling for
prayer (e.g., praying for a dying friend). Their results
showed that with age, adolescents prayed less for God to
intervene directly to make dramatic changes, such as
curing a sick friend, and more for God to provide sup-
port and guidance. Furthermore, with age, adolescents
shifted from “ talking at ” God to “ talking with” God
such that they engaged more in sharing feelings, ques-
tions, and doubts and not just requests.
Together, these studies of age changes in how chil-
dren and adolescents pray and think about prayer are
reminiscent of William James’ (1902) words about the
development of prayer:
the belief is, not that particular events are tempered more
towardly to us by a superintending providence, as a reward
for our reliance, but that by cultivating the continuous
sense of our connections with the power that made things
as they are, we are tempered more towardly for their re-
ception. The outward face of nature need not alter, but the
expressions of meaning in it alter. (p. 474)
Death, or rather the possibility of life after death, is
perceived by many as a religious phenomenon, which
means that children’s and young people’s conceptions
of death should be taken into account (see reviews by
Faulkner, 1993; Ramachers, 1994; Wittkowski, 1990).
Early on, Anthony (1940) questioned 128 children
about their definitions of death and found that, with
age, children only gradually come to realize that death
refers to the cessation of life functions and is biologi-
cally necessary. Numerous studies since then have
demonstrated that children between ages 3 and 5 do not
understand death to be universal (mostly old people die,
but not one’s parents), nor do they consider death to be
irreversible. By age 7, children normally develop at least
a nascent understanding of the irreversibility and uni-
versality of death so that most children, by age 9, pos-
sess a developed conception of death (Wittkowski,
1990, p. 58).
Relatively little has been written about how the con-
cept of life after death changes over time (Tamminnen,
1991, p. 262). Barth (1911), in a survey of German
children, showed that children conceived of heaven as a
specific locality somewhere above the earth. Bur-
gardsmeier (1951) found, in a survey of German chil-
dren of compulsory school age, that children conceived
of heaven as a fantastic, beautiful, and sacred place and
 Conceptual Development in Religious and Spiritual Development
then as air, firmament, and the residence of God, and,
finally, as a symbol. Blum (cited in Ratcliff, 1985)
found that children’s conceptions of life after death be-
came vaguer with increasing age, and that age ac-
counted for more of the variance than did religious
background. These results were replicated by Tammin-
nen (1991, p. 260–278), who found that young school-
children depicted eternal life and heaven with above
average graphic detail (p. 278). Older children had dif-
ficulties locating heaven in the cosmos, or else pro-
vided theologically inspired ideas (e.g., “Heaven is
within us.”).
Once again, studies carried out following a stage-
structural approach accentuate differences between
children’s, adolescents’, and adults’ religious concepts
as well as accentuate the usefulness of using the an-
thropomorphic to nonanthropomorphic and concrete-
literal to abstract-symbolic criteria for describing and
evaluating religious and spiritual development. The
same is not the case with studies carried out following a
cognitive-cultural approach—as the subsequent dis-
cussion explains.
Studies Carried Out from a Cognitive-
Cultural Approach
The previous section provided an overview of the
cognitive-cultural viewpoint or approach. Here, we
look more closely at the evidence and arguments sup-
porting this viewpoint and its characterization of
conceptual development in religious and spiritual de-
velopment. We begin with evidence and arguments re-
lated to concepts of supernatural agencies.
Two questions have framed studies carried out from
the cognitive-cultural approach. The first is, “Are chil-
dren mostly anthropomorphic in their thinking about
supernatural agencies, such as God—as stage-structural
theories lead us to believe?” The second is, “Are chil-
dren’s concepts of supernatural agencies essentially
different from adults’ concepts of supernatural agen-
cies—as stage-structural theories lead us to believe?”
The first question has been addressed by asking chil-
dren what they know about ordinary agents such as hu-
mans. The starting point for discussion is Wimmer and
Perner’s (1983) study showing that children as young as 5
understand that others’ thinking may differ from their
own depending on what information others have available
to them. For example, a 5-year-old discovering rocks in a
cereal box will correctly predict that an adult encounter-
975
ing the box for the first time will think there is only ce-
real in it, not rocks. Therefore, even young children have
a theory of mind.
However, when asked whether God will make the
same mistake, children, by age 5, say, “No.” Even young
children understand that God is no ordinary agent—that
God has supernatural, counterintuitive powers. In short,
with respect to the concept of God, children are not as
anthropomorphic as previously pictured. Rather, chil-
dren make a clear distinction between persons and God.
The same holds true for children raised in cultures and
faith traditions with supernatural, religious agents other
than God—such as Krishna and ancestors.
The second question, about differences between
children’s and adults’ conceptions of God, has led to
studies that show adults, as well as children, conceive
of God anthropomorphously. J. Barrett and Keil’s
(1996) study is the one most cited. Barrett and Keil
found that their adult subjects, when asked directly
about God’s nature, gave theologically correct an-
swers, answers that avoided defining God anthropo-
morphously. However, when asked to recount stories
involving God, the same adults added to or distorted
the stories by anthropomorphizing God—such as
speaking of God as “not noticing” or as acting sequen-
tially. They spoke of God as acting in very human
ways. Barrett and Keil concluded that adults, like chil-
dren, develop and maintain conceptions of God that
combine their counterintuitive understanding of God as
a supernatural agent with their intuitive understanding
of how normal agents act. This same combining of the
intuitive and counterintuitive applies to other religious
supernatural agencies as well (spirits and ancestors).
With respect to prayer, Woolley’s research provides
a similar finding to that of Barrett and Keil (1996).
Woolley (2000) asked children, ages 3 to 8, to teach a
puppet to pray. She also interviewed the children about
their understanding of prayer, its effects, and why
prayers sometimes do not get answered. Her results
share certain findings with studies carried out from a
stage-structural approach. However, there were impor-
tant differences stemming from her comparing chil-
dren’s understanding of prayer and their intuitive
knowledge of causation.
First, Woolley (2000) showed that children as young
as age 5 develop a mentalistic conception of prayer—
much earlier than that reported by Long et al., 1967. Sec-
ond, she showed that, by age 5, children begin to give up
belief in the causal powers of wishing, even as they begin
976 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
to believe in the causal powers of prayer. Therefore, chil-
dren’s belief in the efficacy of prayer cannot be attrib-
uted to their holding magical views of the causal powers
of thinking in general and wishing in particular. Their
believing in prayer’s efficacy is, rather, a result of their
being taught or socialized. Woolley’s participants came
from religious families. Furthermore, their belief in the
efficacy of prayers but not in the efficacy of wishes
seemed to be tied to their understanding that prayer, un-
like wishing, involves an intermediary, God, who is a su-
pernatural agent.
With respect to children’s conceptions of death and
life after death, the same cognitive-cultural framework
applies. In the course of direct experience with death,
children construct their own, intuitive ontology about
death such that they understand death’s irreversibility and
inevitability at much younger ages than stage-structural
theories lead us to believe (Slaughter, Jaakola, & Carey,
1999). However, in the course of experiencing death, chil-
dren also acquire counterintuitive beliefs about death and
life after death—beliefs transmitted by culture and faith
tradition through the testimonies of trusted others (Har-
ris, 2000).
Together, these cognitive-cultural accounts of chil-
dren’s religious concepts leave us with a quite different
picture of children’s capacities and of culture’s role in
religious and spiritual development. Whereas some re-
searchers see children as having limited capacity and
culture being responsible for helping children overcome
their natural propensity for magical thinking, others
conceive them as having considerable capacity and cul-
ture being responsible for teaching or communicating
beliefs about what is counterintuitive. Therefore, at the
center of the newer picture is the distinction between in-
tuitive and counterintuitive ontology.
However, because there is much that is counterintu-
itive that is not learned in childhood, for example, the
Darwinian concept of evolution, why are religious coun-
terintuitive concepts learned much earlier? Harris
(2000) provides a compelling answer. Counterintuitive
religious concepts, such as the concepts of gods, spirits,
and ancestors as supernatural agencies, do not require
children to give up their intuitive, commonsense con-
cepts of ordinary agents. In contrast, scientific con-
cepts, such as the Darwinian concept of evolution, do
indeed require children to give up their intuitive, com-
monsense concepts. One cannot, for example, hold both
the intuitive, creationist view that species are immutable
and the counterintuitive, Darwinian view that states the
opposite. In contrast to counterintuitive scientific con-
cepts, counterintuitive religious concepts operate in par-
allel to intuitive, nonreligious beliefs—at least for most
people, most of the time.
A Synthesis
Where do these contrasting pictures leave us with re-
spect to our present understanding and future research?
One possibility is that they force us to reject one in favor
of the other. However, this possibility seems a poor
choice. On the one hand, the cumulative results of nu-
merous studies suggests that there are indeed important
differences in the way children as compared to adoles-
cents and adults give meaning to religious concepts.
These differences are not simply the result of faulty re-
search methods and unevenness with respect to social-
ization. On the other hand, the results of careful and
thoughtful studies comparing intuitive and counterintu-
itive ontologies demonstrate important similarities in
the way children, adolescents, and adults provide mean-
ing to religious concepts.
We suggest that these two approaches are not so op-
posite as they first appear to be, and that a synthesis is
possible. Focusing on differences does not exclude fo-
cusing on similarities. Furthermore, these two foci com-
plement rather than contradict one another. The strength
of the cognitive-cultural approach lies in its providing
better explanations for how religious beliefs are ac-
quired. The strength of the more normative, stage-struc-
tural approach lies in its providing possibilities for
explaining how religious beliefs become existentially
relevant or, as Johnson and Boyatzis (2005) said, how
religious concepts help with the task of connecting the
self with a more valued reality. Put another way, the
stage-structural approach may be more useful with re-
spect to explaining how beliefs become integrated with
feelings and actions to form a pattern of faith that can
lead individuals to function at higher religious or spiri-
tual levels. After all, religious and spiritual exemplars
are exemplary largely because of their positive and pow-
erful faith and not because of their concepts and beliefs.
RELIGIOUS AND SPIRITUAL
DEVELOPMENT IN CONTEXT
Religious and spiritual development always takes place
in multiple and layered contexts. Furthermore, each

context has in itself parts operating together to form
systems—with the various systems themselves operat-
ing together to form larger systems. This observation
about contexts makes any attempt at causal explanation
complex indeed—for clearly, in any final analysis, cause
is to be found in the combination of a seemingly infinite
number of causes (Lerner, 2002).
In the following discussion, when we speak of a par-
ticular cause, influence, outcome, or dependent variable,
we do so with a developmental systems paradigm still in
mind. We use these concepts for what they are—still
useful concepts for exploring how religiosity and spiri-
tuality develop, even if they are not useful for fitting re-
ligiousness and spirituality into some procrustean bed.
They are useful, too, given the fact that our methodolo-
gies lag behind progress in theorizing.
Now, we look at three main contexts for thinking
about what influences or supports religious and spiritual
development. These three are the family, the religious
school, and the congregation. We focus on these three
because of their logical connection to religious and spir-
itual development but also because they have been con-
texts that have been studied empirically.
The Family Context
As several have noted, the family is the most powerful
influence on children’s religious and spiritual develop-
ment (Boyatzis, Dollahite, & Marks, 2005). Its influ-
ence is twofold. First, as an institution of socialization,
the family directly impacts the developing child. This
occurs when practices, beliefs, traditions, and values are
transmitted from parent to child. Second, children are
indirectly influenced in their religious and spiritual de-
velopment by the attachments they form in their family.
The Divine can function as an object of attachment, and
the attachment a child forms with the Divine can occur
either as a way to continue having a secure attachment or
as a means of compensating for an insecure attachment.
In sum, parents and families influence the religious and
spiritual development of their children in direct and tar-
geted ways, especially through religious teachings and
practices, but also in indirect and untargeted ways, espe-
cially through the way they foster attachments.
Socialization and Practice
Empirical research has repeatedly demonstrated that
with regard to religious development, mothers and fa-
thers have the most influence (Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle,
Religious and Spiritual Development in Context 977
1997; Hood et al., 1996). For example, Ozorak (1989)
found parents’ influence on their children’s religious de-
velopment to be much greater than that of peers, as well
as more lasting than parents’ influence on their chil-
dren’s political development and ways of structuring
leisure time. And, as indicated in Table 17.5, Cavalli-
Sforza (1982) found correlations that are consistent with
the findings and interpretations of these other studies.
Similar results have come from self-report studies of
young adults. For example, the young adult interviewees in
B. Hunsberger & Brown’s (1984) study reported that the
strongest influence on their religious and spiritual devel-
opment was their mother, followed by the church and their
father, with friends and the media playing only a modest
role. B. Hunsberger (1995) also found that older subjects
considered their religious development to have been most
influenced by their mothers, followed by their fathers and
the church, and then by the media, friends, and school.
In a number of studies, mothers are credited with
having the primary influence on children’s religious and
spiritual development (Boyatzis et al., 2005). Several
reasons seem to apply. First, mothers maintain a higher
profile in matters of religious practices such as church
attendance and family prayer (Beit-Hallahmi & Argyle,
1997). Also, mothers are more likely than fathers to
converse with their children about religion. For example,
Strommen and Hardell (2000), in a study of mainline
protestant youth, found that mothers had conversations
with their children about faith and life issues nearly
two-and-a-half times more frequently than did fathers.
Finally, mothers are most often the ones who introduce
children to religious practices, for example, by leading
them in family prayer and taking them to religious ser-
vices (Hood et al., 1996).
One of the most interesting findings has to do with
the extent to which parents influence their children’s re-
ligious practices as compared to their religious beliefs.
There are stronger correlations between the religious
practices of parents and those of their children than
there are between the religious beliefs of parents and
those of their children. Gibson (Gibson, 1990) found
that parents’ church attendance correlated with that of
TABLE 17.5 Parental and Peer Inf luence Compared
Parent-Child Friend-Child
Religious behavior .57 .20
Political behavior .32 .16
Entertainment .16 .10
Sports played .13 .16
978 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
their young adult offspring more powerfully (r = .60)
than with their attitudes toward Christian beliefs (r =
.50). Similarly, Ozorak (1989) found that family cohe-
sion influenced children’s religious practices but not
their beliefs. Beliefs, it seems, become increasingly indi-
vidual as children grow older. Furthermore, a more
powerfully individualized faith is accompanied by
higher intellectual aptitude.
In the family, the available research suggests that re-
ligious development is furthered by a number of factors,
including a climate of support characterized by encour-
agement to have independent views, encouragement to
engage in discussion, and closeness between parents and
children. For example, closeness between parents and
their children predicts higher positive correlations be-
tween the religiousness of parents and the religiousness
of their children. This still is the case when children be-
come adolescents (Erickson, 1992).
In two parent families, support also depends on
whether parents share the same religious convictions
with each other. When parents share the same religious
convictions, they influence the religiousness of their
children more powerfully than when they hold opposing
convictions (Hoge & Petrillo, 1982). Parents holding op-
posing convictions are associated with their offspring’s
religious apostasy (Caplovitz & Sherrow, 1977).
The phenomenon of giving up one’s religious origins
(apostasy) has been the subject of a number of studies
(Caplovitz & Sherrow, 1977; Hood et al., 1996).
Caplovitz and Sherrow (1977) identified familial strain
and dissociation from parents as the main psychological
antecedents of apostasy. L. Hunsberger (1980), too,
found that the antecedents of apostasy included poor re-
lations with parents. In addition, B. Hunsberger and
Brown (1984) found that apostates reported consider-
ably less emphasis on religion in their childhood home
as compared to matched controls who remained faithful
to their original religion. Thus, apostasy is not so much
the result of an excess of religious teaching as it is a re-
sult of too little of it. In sum, apostasy can result from
not enough religious encouragement—which follows
from Niggli’s (1988) study that demonstrated that reli-
gious encouragement has indeed a significant effect on
religious development.
Niggli also developed scales to measure style of reli-
gious instruction and their effects on religious develop-
ment: in particular, the styles of religious compulsion
and religious encouragement. In Niggli’s study, young
people who reported greater religious encouragement by
their parents (e.g., “When I had ideas of my own in mat-
ters of religion, my mother/father took me seriously.”)
were significantly higher on the stage scale of religious
judgment (Oser & Gmünder, 1991) than were young
people with little or no religious encouragement.
However, influence goes both ways, and children’s
developmental level is a determining factor in their atti-
tudes toward religion and in the religious climate of the
family as a whole. For example, in a random sample of
Swiss parents and children, Klaghofer and Oser (1987)
found that children evaluated as being at stage 2 on the
Oser and Gmünder (1991) scale had a more positive fam-
ily climate than did children evaluated as being at stage
3. This finding was expected, since persons at stage 3 at-
tribute a lower status to religiousness than do persons at
stages 4 and 2.
Similarly, recent research has emphasized the posi-
tive role played by conversational dialogues between
parents and children on children’s religious and spiri-
tual development. In a study of diary entries recording
conversations between parents and children, Boyatzis
and Janicki (2003) found that children play an active
role in initiating, terminating, and driving religious con-
versations. Furthermore, they found that parents tended
to ask questions that were open-ended, and the ques-
tions themselves were devoid of suggestions revealing
parents’ personal views. In another study, of young Jew-
ish adults, Herzbrun (1993) found that the frequency of
religious discussion in the family had an enduring influ-
ence on young people, especially on girls.
In sum, the collective picture painted of religious
socialization in the family supports a constructivist
perspective and reveals a reciprocity process such
that parents and children are inf luenced by what the
other has to say (Boyatzis, Dollahite, & Marks, 2005).
Through conversations with parents, children are af-
forded the opportunity to puzzle over religious and spir-
itual matters and to construct their own personal views.
Further, the transmission of religious views from parent
to child happens not as a result of didactic teaching so
much as it happens as a result of parent and child co-
constructing their spiritual identities. Therefore, chil-
dren’s participation in their own religious development
supports rather than undermines continuity between
generations.
There is sufficient evidence to show the deep extent
to which the family influences religious development,
particularly by the type of religiousness or religious in-
struction practiced in the family. Most people remain in

the denomination in which they are born and in which
they grow up. Even in cases when young people turn to
radical forms of religion, there are usually continuities
with their parents’ religion. An example is the Jesus-
people movement, which made such a stir in the 1970s.
Most of the followers came from fundamentalist Chris-
tian families. Although these young people were re-
belling against their parents, they had internalized their
parents’ religious attitudes and were living them out, al-
beit in a radicalized form (Richardson, Stewart, & Sim-
monds, 1979).
Religious development is also influenced by parent-
ing style. The available research suggests that parental
emphasis on obedience encourages a religious attitude
according to which human nature is corrupt, sin is to be
punished, and the Bible must be interpreted literally
(Ellison & Sherkat, 1993). At the beginning of the
1960s, 66% of the children interviewed by Nunn (1964)
reported that their parents threatened that God could
punish them, and although this happened much more
frequently in socially disadvantaged families, it also
took place when parents felt themselves to be powerless
and in need of a coalition with a strong and vengeful
God. Similarly, Potvin and Sloane (1985) found that
adolescents whose parents exercised powerful control
and constraint were more likely to perceive God as pun-
ishing deviant behavior.
Attachment
Images of God become even more relevant in research
about attachment. The influence of parents on the reli-
gious and spiritual development of their children is not
limited to the direct way in which they teach, encourage,
and transmit faith traditions. There is a second, more
subtle, type in which parents influence their children’s
spiritual development indirectly, through the ways they
interact with their children and determine the quality of
their attachments.
Ana-Maria Rizzuto (1979) made an important con-
tribution in studying this indirect influence. Through
the use of her God and family questionnaires, Rizzuto
demonstrated how individuals’ images of God can be
strongly related to their images of their relations to
their parents.
Since Rizzuto’s work, research on parents’ indirect
influence has continued outside the framework of psy-
choanalytic theory. Most of this research has been con-
ducted using the constructs of attachment theory,
looking at how early attachment patterns between parent
Religious and Spiritual Development in Context 979
and child affect the relationship between person and
God in later life. As noted by Granqvist (1998) and
Kirkpatrick (1995), God functions as an attachment fig-
ure because many believers imagine God as a safe haven
and secure base who maintains proximity and is strong
in times of distress—all requirements for being an at-
tachment figure.
Most of the attachment research on religious and
spiritual development has made use of the Ainsworth
(e.g., Ainsworth, 1978) typology—to test for two possi-
bilities. The first is that persons who, early on, devel-
oped a secure attachment pattern with a caregiver tend
to image a close and always protective God. This possi-
bility is commonly referred to as the correspondence
thesis. According to the correspondence thesis, a secure
attachment attained during early childhood prepares an
individual to adopt a corresponding secure attachment
with God later on.
The second possibility is that persons who, in early
childhood, developed an insecure attachment pattern
(ambivalent or avoidant), tend to image God as a guaran-
tor of protection and security. This possibility is com-
monly referred to as the compensation thesis. According
to the compensation thesis, God becomes a surrogate at-
tachment figure who compensates for the absence of an
internalized secure attachment from childhood.
In a survey of 213 adults, Kirkpatrick and Shaver
(1990) found evidence for the compensation thesis.
They classified subjects according to the different at-
tachment types, and compared subjects’ images of
God, also taking into account subjects’ status with re-
gard to extrinsic and intrinsic religiousness. Subjects
assigned to the avoidant attachment type were clearly
the most religious. They scored highest on the loving
God and intrinsic scales, on attendance at service, and
on reporting a personal relationship with God. This
was especially the case for those reporting only infre-
quent religious practice in their parents’ home (Kirk-
patrick & Shaver, 1990, p. 325). Furthermore, half of
the avoidant group reported having experienced a sud-
den conversion, whereas in the two other groups this
happened to only one person in nine. The differences
between the securely attached and the ambivalently at-
tached were markedly lower.
In a later study, Kirkpatrick (1997) reproduced the
results of this first study using longitudinal data. Women
were first interviewed to determine their attachment sta-
tus, then, 4 years later, interviewed again about changes
in their religiousness. During the second interviews, 40%
980 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
of the women who had previously reported experiencing
an avoidant attachment relationship with a parent, re-
ported that, since the first interview, they had found a
“new relationship with God.” The percentage for those
who had reported having a secure attachment relation-
ship was significantly lower.
Grangvist (1998) also tested the compensation the-
sis. In a study of 203 Swedish students, he collected in-
formation about the attachment behavior of mothers and
fathers and about the remembered religiousness of both
parents. Combining ambivalent and avoidant groups into
one, insecurely attached group, Grangvist found that the
insecurely attached group scored higher on religious-
ness, on relationship with God, and on theism—but
only when parents were reported to be not very reli-
gious. However, among subjects remembering their fa-
thers as being highly religious, the securely attached
expressed greater religiousness and a closer relationship
with God: Under these conditions, the correspondence
thesis applied.
The correspondence thesis is further supported by a
comparison of deity figures in cultures possessing clear
differences in the behavior of parents. For example,
Lambert, Triandis, and Wolf (1959) demonstrated that
in child-centered societies, where children are sur-
rounded by loving care, God and deity figures tend to
be benevolent beings, but in cultures with rejecting par-
enting styles, God and other deity figures tend to be
malevolent.
From these results, it becomes clear that the connec-
tions between attachment experiences in early child-
hood and religiousness later on are complicated and not
straightforward. Religiousness can function not only in
a compensatory manner but also as an extension of the
young child’s relationships with his or her parents.
However, the patterns are not random. They simply de-
rive from more than one combination of antecedent
conditions.
Religious Schools and Religious Education
Most of the research on religious schools has been on
Christian, denominational sponsored schools in the
United States, Europe, and Australia. The main research
questions have been about religious schools’ influence
on pupils’ religious beliefs and practices. Differences
between school systems and student populations make
comparisons difficult (e.g., Hyde, 1990). However, the
composite picture drawn indicates that religious schools
do not influence religious development and attitudes in
any powerful way (Hood et al., 1996).
Francis (1987a) questioned almost 5,000 young per-
sons attending Catholic private schools in England, and
found that these schools had very little influence on stu-
dents’ attitudes toward Christian beliefs. A more deci-
sive factor was the influence of the parental home. When
the parental home follows the same religious educational
choices as the denominational schools, the school’s ef-
fect with regard to faith and later church practice is
greater. Spencer (1971) concluded that in the absence of
reinforcement from the family, there is no reason to ex-
pect that the religious school will modify values and
value-oriented behavior.
With regard to religious development, it seems that
religious schools possess not so much a compensatory or
independent function as a supplementary one, to the ex-
tent that they have any effect at all. The same conclusion
was reached in studies carried out on the effect of reli-
gious schools in Australia (Hyde, 1990). Anderson (An-
dersen, 1988) found that the choice of a Catholic private
school depended to a large extent on the religious and
philosophical attitudes of parents, especially mothers;
the schools themselves changed the attitudes and prac-
tices of the pupils only marginally.
As for explicit religious instruction in public schools,
practices differ depending on national policies. In
France, there is no teaching of religion at all in state
schools, but in the United Kingdom, religious education
is taught under the auspices of the government; in Ger-
many, religious education is taught by and under the aus-
pices of the Church but financed by the government.
With respect to the content of religious education,
opinions are divided about what constitutes religious
knowledge and the goals of religious education. The
spectrum of expectations ranges from the imparting of
general religious knowledge to the considerably more
ambitious aim of kindling faith and motivating religious
practice and church attendance.
The relatively few studies on the effects of religious
education are in agreement that its popularity decreases
markedly as children get older, especially in adoles-
cence. On the basis of questioning more than 800
schoolchildren in England, Francis (1987b), showed
that religious education is the second most popular sub-
ject among children in first grade ( junior year 1 in the
United Kingdom)—only sports (“games”) is more pop-
ular, but by the time students are in ninth grade (sec-
ondary year 4 in the United Kingdom), it is the least
 Positive Correlates of Religious and Spiritual Development
popular subject. A study of 7,000 schoolchildren car-
ried out in Germany on the popularity and perceived ef-
ficacy of religious education yielded similar results.
The popularity of religious education is high in elemen-
tary school, but in the 2nd year of high school it falls to
the lowest third, with only physics and Latin being less
popular (Bucher, 2000).
With increasing age there is also a marked diminish-
ing of the effects attributed to religious education; these
effects are highest in the area of general knowledge, in-
cluding knowledge of other religions, but the effects are
small in matters of church practice and devotion.
How can we account for such a significant drop in
popularity and influence of religious education? A first
possible explanation is that religious education loses its
popularity because the popularity of the school as a
whole decreases with age. However, this explanation
does not explain why the acceptance of other school sub-
jects (e.g., mathematics and English) remains constant.
A second possible explanation is provided by Oser
and Gmünder’s theory (Oser & Gmünder, 1991): Con-
vinced that God is able to intervene in the world and that
He can be influenced through prayers—indications of
stage 2—schoolchildren are considerably better dis-
posed toward religious education and toward consider-
ing religious education to be more relevant than are
adolescents, whose religious judgment is apt to be at
stage 3 (Bucher, 2000, p. 128). At stage 2, children find
it important to conform to God’s expectations, more so
than later on in adolescence when they have developed
to stage 3, the deistic stage, in which self-determination
is central.
However, whether religious education continues to
influence may depend on the character or methods of
that education. For example, in a quasi-experimental in-
tervention study, in which two experimental groups dis-
cussed religious dilemmas over a long period of time,
Oser and Gmünder (1996) found the average judgment
stage rose more significantly than did the average for a
control group lacking in opportunities to discuss and
problem solve collectively. Moreover, this difference re-
mained constant in a follow-up survey carried out 6
months later. A similar result was produced by Caldwell
and Berkowitz (1987) who had high school students
aged between 15 and 18 discuss religious dilemmas over
a period of 12 lessons. A subsequent test revealed that
for more than half of the students discussion sessions
lead to significant development with respect to stages of
religious judgment.
981
It is possible to use targeted teaching strategies as a
means of significantly modifying religious development
in positive ways, however, to do so requires engaging
students in religious discussion to encourage them to
question and modify their earlier religious interpreta-
tive patterns.
Congregations
Outside of the family, few contexts have a greater poten-
tial for influencing and supporting religious and spiri-
tual development than do congregations. Congregations
play a potentially important role in shaping religious be-
liefs as they, “provide spiritual environments where
young people can transcend their everyday concerns and
experience connectedness with the divine and human
others. . . . Congregations may provide a distinct context
in which a young person can explore (spiritual) issues
that are critical to commitment to identity” (King, 2003,
p. 200). Furthermore, congregations connect youth to
their community because they exist not on their own but
rather as a subcommunity in some broader community
(Roehlkepartain, 2005).
Given this potential, it is surprising that there is so little
empirical research on their influence on religious and spir-
itual development. Congregations have, as Roehlkepartain
notes, slipped through the cracks in the divide between
psychology’s focus on individuals and sociology’s focus
on institutions (Roehlkepartain, 2005).
Congregational influence on the individual is bidirec-
tional: The congregation shapes individual members,
and individuals in the congregation shape the congrega-
tion’s goals, climate, and activities.
Roehlkepartain (2005) outlines the conditions and
processes that are presumed to play a role in driving
spiritual development. First, congregations provide op-
portunities for the formation of meaningful, positive re-
lationships. Youths are able to forge relationships with
adults and peers who are invested in them and those re-
lationships become the forum for the transmission and
construction of beliefs and values. Second, congrega-
tions establish a climate for supporting spiritual devel-
opment. Presumably, congregations that are welcoming
and warm and that are encouraging of thought and ser-
vice are more likely to promote spiritual development
and faith maturity than those that do not.
However, there seems to be a gap between congrega-
tions’ actual influence and their potential for in-
fluence (e.g., Osmer & Schweitzer, 2003; Prell, 1995;
982 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
Roehlkepartain, 2005, Yust, 2003). The National Con-
gregational Life Survey (Woolever & Bruce, 2004)
found that 50% or fewer of the surveyed congregations
(n = 2,000) had effective caring for children and youth,
and that a majority was reported to have fewer than 5 of
the 10 strengths researchers examined. Based on these
results, it appears that too few young people are spend-
ing time in congregations that are vibrant, spiritually
enriching, communities of faith (Roehlkepartain,
2005).
However, these results are somewhat offset by the
more positive reports from young members of congre-
gations themselves. For example, C. Smith (2003) re-
ported that 62% of teenagers surveyed in one study
said congregations helped them think about important
matters, 75% said their congregation was both warm
and welcoming to teenagers, and 82% said that their
congregation regularly provided opportunities for lead-
ership and service.
Therefore, congregations present an interesting para-
dox. They have tremendous potential for shaping and
guiding spiritual and religious development. However,
they have not been the focus of a great deal of empirical
research, and what research there is suggests that we
are a long way from determining any actual influence.
Furthermore, the existing body of data on congrega-
tions is largely from samples that are both Christian
and North American—and there is no scientific reason
for assuming that results from these samples can be
generalized elsewhere.
POSITIVE CORRELATES OF RELIGIOUS
AND SPIRITUAL DEVELOPMENT
What effects do religiousness and spirituality have on
individuals’ health and sense of well-being? Does reli-
giousness produce neurotic behavior, as Freud (1961)
asserted, or does it increase the morality of believers, as
is generally assumed (Walker & Pitts, 1998)? Does spir-
ituality, especially at higher stages of development, ex-
pand social consciousness and capacity to cope? In this
section, we examine how religiousness and spirituality
relate to the following:
• Health and well-being
• Moral development and social conscience
• Coping
• Adjusting to old age
Health and Well-Being
A good number of studies have addressed the effects of
religiosity and spirituality on health and physical and
psychological well-being. Plante and Sherman (2001)
refer to at least 350 studies on physical health and 850
studies on mental health that treat religiosity as an inde-
pendent variable. The majority of these studies show
that religious involvement and spirituality are associated
with better health outcomes. Even when excluding those
studies with serious methodological flaws, the evidence
suggests that religiosity and spirituality have significant
and positive effects on health and on expanding the life
span. Those who regularly frequent religious meetings
have a 30% reduced risk on mortality. This effect re-
mains highly significant even after controlling for de-
mographic and socioeconomic variables. Furthermore,
persons who regularly attend religious services live
longer (Oman, Kurata, Strawbridge, & Cohen, 2002).
Undoubtedly, these positive correlations relate to re-
ligion’s promoting not simply participation at religious
services but also a healthy lifestyle. As measured by
participation and attendance at religious services, reli-
gious persons practice fewer health risk behaviors such
as smoking, drinking, and sexual promiscuity.
Powell, Shababi, and Thoresen (2003) demonstrated
this connection between religiosity and healthy lifestyle
with specific regard for cardiovascular disease and can-
cer. Their findings suggest that the social support pro-
vided by religious communities can reduce distress and
feelings of loneliness, both of which can undermine
physical health. A similar finding has been found with
respect to religious support and drugs and alcohol—with
religion serving to help addicts avoid or turn away from
drugs and alcohol (Blakeney, Blakeney, & Reich, 2005).
Meditation has long been a religious and spiritual
practice for promoting health and well-being. Most reli-
gious traditions have developed meditative practices, in
part, for this reason. The effects of meditation are one
of the best investigated subjects in the psychology of re-
ligion (Andresen, 2002) and the majority of studies re-
port positive effects. Meditative practices, such as
Transcendental Meditation and yoga, lower systolic and
diastolic blood pressure, increase nonrenal blood flow,
and decrease respiratory and heart rate (Andresen,
2002). These physiological effects reduce anxiety, de-
pression, and stress (Austin, 1997). The long-term prac-
tice of meditation produces more intense experiences of
joy, meaning, love, and awareness (Andresen, 2002).
 Positive Correlates of Religious and Spiritual Development
With regard to mental disorders and religious and
spiritual development, probably the single most consis-
tent finding has been that there is a negative correlation
between substance-related disorders and religiosity, es-
pecially when religiosity is measured by involvement in
a faith-based community. Put another way, all other
things being equal, religious and spiritual development
appears to be a significant protective factor preventing
an individual from developing a substance-related disor-
der (Benson, 1992).
The quality or character of religiousness also affects
health, not just whether an individual is involved in a re-
ligious community. Intrinsic religiousness has stronger
and more positive effects on physical and mental health
than extrinsic religiousness (Argyle, 2000). Batson,
Schoenrade, and Ventis (1993) analyzed 115 studies and
found that most studies reported that intrinsic religios-
ity correlated positively with health, especially mental
health, but extrinsic religiosity correlated more nega-
tively (see also Plante & Bovccaccini, 1997). Further-
more, intrinsic religiosity positively correlated with a
sense of coherence, which itself enhances mental and
physical well-being. In addition, individuals practicing
intrinsic religiosity are, on average, happier, especially
if they feel close to God (Pollner, 1989).
In sum, religiosity can positively influence physical
and mental health and well-being and happiness. Argyle
(1999, p. 366) discussed these findings as, in part, due
to the effect of the social support provided by the reli-
gious communities.
Moral Development
In the history of social science research, religion has
been depicted as serving only a weak influence on
morality, or none at all. This view has been supported in
several well-known studies. For example, Hartshorne
and May (1928) showed that neither religious affiliation
nor religiously directed character education had any ef-
fects on moral behavior. Darley and Batson (1973)
found that almost two-thirds of the undergraduates they
observed entering a chapel to hear a sermon on the
Good Samaritan, failed to help a man lying on the side-
walk and in need of help. And in the current debate over
character education, there often is a determined effort
to keep religion out of the discussion (Damon, 2002;
Schwartz, 2002). However, by far the most important
support for this view of religion’s relationship with
983
morality being separate has been the research and
legacy of Lawrence Kohlberg.
Moral Judgment
For more than 2 decades, Lawrence Kohlberg (1981) la-
bored to have moral development considered as a sepa-
rate, autonomous domain—with the main engine of
moral development being those mundane conflicts that
confront children and adolescents daily. In doing so,
Kohlberg argued against divine command theory and all
those who believe that morality derives from the pre-
scriptions of religion. For most of Kohlberg’s career,
moral development was independent of religious and
spiritual development. If anything, religion had, for him,
a potential stultifying effect because of those times
when religion suppresses the individual’s taking an ac-
tive role in distinguishing right from wrong.
However, in his later years, Kohlberg softened his
stance toward religion as he confronted the meta-ethical
question of “Why be moral in an immoral world?”
Doing so led to his adopting a positive view of how reli-
gious development (or, more specifically, faith develop-
ment) can support moral development. He came to
believe that the primary function of religious structures
is to validate and thereby support being moral. Religious
structures do this by grounding morality not in promises
of personal gain but in faith in human nature and in a
cosmic order (Kohlberg, 1981).
To an extent, Kohlberg saw religious development as
the by-product or outcome of moral development. There-
fore, just as logical structures are necessary but not suf-
ficient for the development of moral structures, moral
structures are necessary but not sufficient for the devel-
opment of religious (faith) structures (Kohlberg, 1981).
This reverses the usual way of relating moral and reli-
gious development. Usually, morality is thought of as the
outcome of religious and spiritual development. This is
the way that laypersons think, and it was also the way
that William James thought. In James’s (1902) discourse
on saintliness, he began not with morality but with the
saint’s experience of being connected to an unseen,
beneficent power. The by-product or “ fruit ” of this expe-
rience was, for James, a powerful and positive morality.
How should we understand this relationship between
moral development and religious and spiritual develop-
ment—in Kohlberg’s terms, in James’s terms, or of
some alternative? And how do the findings of research
help us decide?
984 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
The necessary but not sufficient hypothesis (Kohlberg
& Power, 1981, p. 227) has been tested by several stud-
ies—with mixed results. Caldwell and Berkowitz (1987)
found in their interviews with 50 Wisconsin students
(mean age = 16.4 years) that students’ stages of moral
judgment were, as a rule, higher then their stages of reli-
gious judgment, as measured by the Oser and Gmünder
scales. In contrast, studies by Gut (1984) found that a
quarter of her sample scored higher on stages of religious
judgment than on stages of moral judgment. Considering
inconsistent results such as these, more research is
needed to determine the exact relationships between the
development of moral and religious judgment.
However, recent research on moral functioning as dis-
tinguished from moral judgment, has shown a more inti-
mate and subtle connection between moral development
and religious and spiritual development than that char-
acterized in discussions about stages of moral and reli-
gious judgment. For example, in a study of adult moral
exemplars, Colby and Damon (1992) found that the ma-
jority of their sample acted out of some sense for the
transcendent and that morality, spirituality, and identity
were fused in such a way as to sustain their lives of car-
ing. In other words, caring was, for them, who they were
or who they became. In a similar vein, Walker and his
colleagues found general support for William James’s
thesis that authentic religious experience is evidenced in
mature moral functioning (Walker, 2003; Walker &
Pitts, 1998; Walker, Pitts, Hennig, & Matsuba, 1995;
Walker & Reimer, 2005).
These findings refer to “authentic religious experi-
ence” and to “mature moral functioning.” But what about
religious experience that may not be authentic or true to
the core values and beliefs of a faith tradition? The re-
sults show negative or ambiguous connections between
religion and morality: For example, a number of studies
have found a clear and positive correlation between ritual
attendance, orthodox beliefs, and racial prejudice (Bat-
son et al., 1993). Other studies (B. Hunsberger, 1995)
have found a curvilinear effect such that the most reli-
gious and the totally irreligious are the least prejudiced.
With regard to prejudice, there are no straightforward in-
fluences of religion on morality. Similarly, several stud-
ies have found only a weak effect of religion in preventing
delinquency (Hood et al., 1996). It seems that positive re-
lationships between moral development and religious and
spiritual development are most evident at higher stages or
when religious and spiritual experience becomes authen-
tic and in accord with positive faith traditions.
Service
Reference to moral exemplars reminds us that moral de-
velopment involves much more than judgment and rea-
soning. It also involves action. One measure of moral
development is service to others. How does religious
and spiritual development relate to community service
in those who have yet to become moral exemplars?
Most of the research has been about adolescents and
their involvement in religious institutions and commu-
nity service.
A number of studies have demonstrated a positive re-
lationship between involvement in religious institutions
and community service. For example, Youniss et al.
(1999) found that high school students who valued reli-
gion were vibrantly engaged in their schooling and in the
betterment of their communities.
For adolescents, community service in the context of
religious institutions seems to have a different and
more positive meaning than community service in
other contexts. For example, Donnelly and his col-
leagues (Donnelly et al., 2005) have demonstrated that
adolescents doing community service in the context of
religious institutions as compared to those doing com-
munity service in other contexts are more likely to do
community service later on, in their adult lives.
Coping
One of the fundamental and undoubtedly universal func-
tions of religiousness is coping, especially in critical life
events such as the death of a loved relative and serious
illness. Certainly, long before psychologists studied cop-
ing processes, religions have disposed resources for fa-
cilitating coping.
In the past decades, coping has become a very impor-
tant concept in the psychology of religion (Pargament &
Brant, 1998). Pargament and Brant distinguished the
following types of religious coping:
• Self-directed coping, as when subjects use God-given
resources to individually solve their problems.
• Deferring coping, as when individuals, especially in
seemingly hopeless situations, give up control to a
higher power or God, thereby paradoxically gaining
control (Baugh, 1988).
• Collaborative coping, as when individuals appraise
God as a helping partner.

Out of the hundreds of studies on religious coping, most
support the following points:
• One of the most frequently used religious coping
strategies is prayer.
• Religious coping is more frequent among females, older
individuals, blacks, and those who are less educated.
• If individuals have faith in a loving God, the outcomes
of religious coping are more apt to be less stress, less
anxiety, a greater sense of well-being, and greater ca-
pacity for handling difficulties than if they evaluate
negative life events as God’s punishment.
• Usually, the outcomes of collaborative religious cop-
ing are more promising than are the outcomes of
other styles.
But how does a person develop competencies in coping?
And why do people prefer different coping styles? The
lack of explicitly developmental analyses (coping styles at
different stages of religious judgment, etc.) is a limitation
in this research—a limitation that makes it difficult to an-
swer these and other important questions having to do with
coping and religious and spiritual development.
Positive Correlates in Advanced Age
The considerable benefits of religiousness and spiritu-
ality in advanced age warrant special attention. From
his studies, Argyle (1987) concluded that for older peo-
ple, religiousness and well-being are closely tied to-
gether. Levin (1997) also demonstrated that for many
older people, religiousness has significant and positive
effects.
Religiousness obviously has a striking effect on how
old age is experienced. For example, in one study, out of
1,011 elderly men surveyed, a distinct majority said re-
ligiousness was more important to them than it was in
their middle years (Koenig, 1994). This seems to be es-
pecially true for older women (Mc Fadden, 1996). The
older the subjects are, the more powerful are their be-
liefs in a personal God, and the more their faith provides
help with problems in living (Jörns, 1997).
Yet, religious activities diminish in old age (Blazer &
Palmore, 1976). Many seniors, on account of their
frailty and illness, are no longer capable of active partic-
ipation in congregations. However, this lack is compen-
sated for by an increase in unorganized, private religious
practice, especially prayer.
Negative Correlates and Pathology 985
The obvious benefits produced by religiousness and
spirituality in old age are integration and social support,
the creation of meaning and purpose, fostering a greater
sense of control and maintaining better health. These
points can be summarized as follows:
• Religious communities offer integration and social
support. Scales for loneliness are more powerfully
correlated in a negative way for the elderly than for
younger people, and the benefits of church member-
ship are greater for people in retirement or who have
been widowed (Argyle, 1987). Religious communi-
ties create a bolstering environment in which burden-
some life events, such as bereavements, can more
easily be coped with. Religious communities also
produce an atmosphere of acceptance, hope, and for-
giveness (Koenig, 1992). In her wide ranging Yale
Health and Aging Project, Idler (1994) found that
being integrated with a religious community pre-
dicted less depression and lower suicidal tendencies.
• Religions can additionally create an inner sense of se-
curity by offering meaningful rites and symbols (Ar-
gyle, 1987). They can provide a sense that life as a
whole, with its high-points, its lows, and its finiteness,
is meaningful. Religiousness is a protective factor
against problems of meaning (Dittmann-Kohli, 1990).
• Through the lens of religion, death, which looms ever
more inexorably in old age, can be interpreted as the
beginning of a better world, as the transition into
eternal life or as something natural and positive. As
Meadow and Kahoe (1984) report that immortality
seems to be the single item of faith that increases
substantially with age.
• Religiousness has always been connected with con-
victions about control, even though we might believe
that the religious person is ceding control to a divine
being (control illusion). Well-being presupposes pos-
sibilities of control. Baugh (1988) reduced this con-
trol paradox to the formula, “Gaining control by
giving up control.” Ceding control to a higher power
unburdens the spirit and makes it easier to cope. For
example, in the Duke longitudinal study, 100 elderly
participants, when asked how they dealt with stress-
ful experiences (death of relatives, etc.), frequently
named having trust and belief in God (Koenig,
George, & Siegler, 1988).
• Most religions prescribe a code of behavior, which
promotes good physical health, and this correlates
986 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
highly with happiness and satisfaction with life
(Argyle, 1987, p. 176). The greater extent of well-
being enjoyed by religious people in old age is also
explained by pointing out that they rarely smoke or
drink alcohol and eat with greater moderation.
NEGATIVE CORRELATES
AND PATHOLOGY
The preceding section has shown that spirituality and re-
ligiousness exert positive influences. The term religion,
however, also elicits images of September 11th, 2001 and
of Jonestown, Guyana. We need to look at the evidence
for negative and not just positive correlates. However, be-
fore doing so, we begin by discussing the negative biases
against religion, which, in the social sciences, have im-
peded progress in sorting out negative from positive.
With respect to religious and spiritual development,
the history of both psychological research and clinical
practice has been a history of negative bias and preju-
dice. Bias and prejudice persist today but has perhaps
lessened—both because of a new tolerance for cultural
diversity and because of empirical research that has
challenged old negative stereotypes. Nevertheless, we
begin with a brief discussion of the most obvious nega-
tive biases and prejudices because their persistence
presents a significant roadblock to understanding nega-
tive correlates and pathology associated with religious
and spiritual development.
Negative bias is particularly evident in stereotyping—
in collapsing meaningful distinctions into one negative
category. Stereotyping the religious and a failure to make
distinctions has been the hallmark of negative bias among
research psychologists and clinicians. An overview of the
literature indicates that rarely are distinctions made
when discussing central religious concepts such as belief,
faith, and revelation. Yet, there are many meanings for
each of these three, and the differences matter.
With regard to the concept of belief, research psycholo-
gists and clinicians have customarily equated the meaning
of religious belief with the meaning of belief as it is used
when speaking of, say, belief in trees and dogs, though the
two meanings differ from one another (Blackstone, 1963).
With regard to the concept of faith, and, as previously dis-
cussed, research psychologists and clinicians have cus-
tomarily equated faith with belief despite these two
concepts having quite different meanings in the history of
faith traditions (W. C. Smith, 1998a). With regard to the
concept of revelation, they have generally given one single
meaning to revelation when there are several, including
meanings that acknowledge multiple interpretations of sa-
cred texts and religious experience (Dulles, 1994).
Without making important distinctions between the
meanings of these and other central religious concepts,
religion easily appears to consist mostly of irrational be-
lief and dogmatic, childish denial that truth is a matter of
interpretation and argument. Add a quantitative dimen-
sion to the discussion, and such negative views of religion
often turn into pathologizing religion whenever religion
is taken seriously. One is reminded of Albert Ellis’s
(1980) remark, “ The less religious (people) are, the
more emotionally healthy they will tend to be” (p. 637).
Failure to make meaningful distinctions has been one
problem. Making false distinctions has been another.
Perhaps the most obvious example of making a false dis-
tinction is between science and religion, such that one is
pitted against the other. This distinction often goes un-
challenged, despite the fact that the majority of religious
persons who are also scientists find no contradiction in
being both, and despite the fact that only a small minor-
ity of the religious people believe in unscientific theo-
ries such as creationism (Gould, 2003b).
This last reference to creationist theory brings up a
third prejudicial practice among researchers and clini-
cians—the practice of selecting unrepresentative exam-
ples to support arguments against religion. An example
of this practice occurred on the DSM III-R’s glossary of
terms for defining mental disorders—where an inordi-
nate number of examples with religious content were
given to illustrate what is meant by various mental disor-
ders (Larson et al., 1993).
A fourth prejudicial practice has been to report, as
objective fact, findings based on flawed, value-laden
measures that are biased against religion. For example,
on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
(MMPI ), answering positively to the statement, “I am
orthodoxly religious” lowers one’s overall score (Gart-
ner, 1996). Such soft measures express the value system
of a select group—often proponents of secular human-
ism and self-actualizing theory (Maslow, 1971).
Researchers in religious psychology have been particu-
larly harsh on fundamentalist groups. Fundamentalists
are routinely lumped together to form a negative stereo-
type consisting of character traits such as immature, dog-
matic, rigid, and prejudiced. There is evidence to support
the claim that religious fundamentalism is indeed associ-
ated with higher levels of prejudice, authoritarism, and an

“us versus them” mentality (Altemeyer, 2003), however,
at least one study suggests that prejudice is not confined
to any one group and that groups of so-called healthy,
quest-orientated individuals are also prejudiced, espe-
cially toward fundamentalists (Goldfried & Miner, 2002).
The point is not that the religious are problem free or
that there is no pathology associated with religious and
spiritual development. We need not go to the opposite
extreme. However, in the history of religious research
and clinical practice, there has been persistent negative
bias against religion. Religious and spiritual develop-
ment is a complex phenomenon that challenges us to
make numerous distinctions and be scrupulous about ev-
idence and measures. Pathology is real and does not re-
side in the eyes of the diagnostician, but pathology, as a
concept, needs to be used with care.
Having clarified some misunderstandings that have
impeded progress, we can turn now to recent research on
psychopathology as it relates to religious and spiritual
development. We discuss the subjects of cults, occultist
practices, terrorist groups, mental disorders, and patho-
genic (toxic) religious practices and beliefs—as they re-
late to religious and spiritual development.
Cults, Occultist Practices, and Terrorist Groups
With regard to cults, occultist practices, and terrorist
groups, the literature suggests two points in particular.
The first point is that problems of definition have cre-
ated biases that impede the progress of research on
cults. The second point is that there is no conclusive ev-
idence that members of so-called cults are any more de-
velopmentally disturbed or pathological than are
individuals who do not join cults or terrorist groups.
Cults and Occultist Practices
Historically, the term cult has had a neutral meaning—
both in faith traditions and in the sociology of religion.
However, since the 1960s and especially since the
Jonestown and Waco tragedies (in Jonestown 912 people
of the Temple Sect died by an organized mass suicide; in
Waco, 74 disciples of David Koresh perished by a mas-
sacre), the term has been defined by the media and cer-
tain government agencies as referring to a particular
kind of group, one with a self-appointed, dogmatic, and
charismatic leader who promotes deceptive-coercive re-
cruitment practices to ensnare individuals to join a total-
itarian community organized to solicit funds and secure
Negative Correlates and Pathology 987
favors that benefit neither the group’s members nor so-
ciety (Barrett, 2001). The media sometimes adds nega-
tive terms such as brain-washing to characterize the
socialization of cult members. This negative definition
of cults works well as an ideal type for identifying
harmful cults, but the definition has been applied indis-
criminately and to religious groups that do not fit the
definition. As a result, discussions of cults are often
polemical and groups of researchers are divided into
“cult critics” and “cult sympathizers.”
Cult sympathizers are more likely to use the terms
new religious movements (NRM) and alternative reli-
gions instead of cult, though these terms, too, have their
problems. Certain groups considered by most to be cults
are not new and in some contexts would not be alterna-
tives to the mainstream. The International Society for
Krishna Consciousness, otherwise known as the Hare
Krishna, is an example (Daner, 1976). Nevertheless, new
religious movements or alternative religions have be-
come accepted terms. Cult sympathizers point out,
tongue in cheek, that the difference between a cult and a
religion is about a million members (D. Barrett, 2001).
There is also misunderstanding about the average age
of cult members. Cults are associated with “ youth reli-
gions,” which came into prominence in the 1970s. How-
ever, the average age of cult members is estimated to be
between 25 and 40 (Schmitz & Friebe, 1992). For those
in Bhagwan Shree Rajneesch, living in Oregon, the aver-
age age is 34 years (Richardson, 1995).
Concerning the second point about who joins cults, the
available evidence suggests that members generally are
no more pathological than are nonmembers (Richardson,
1995). In explaining why and how a person comes to join
a cult, a more historical, less psychological approach may
work best because circumstances play a decisive role. For
example, a newly arrived freshman at college may, along
with other freshman, feel lonely and disoriented but ad-
just without joining a cult, however if that freshman hap-
pens to meet and talk with a cult member, he or she may
well end up joining a cult (D. Barrett, 2001).
These words of caution about rushing to judge cults
aside, the extreme example of religion taking the wrong
course is still taken to be the norm. A clear majority of Eu-
ropeans live in a state of alert on account of religious cults
(Schmidtchen, 1987), and in the United States, there is a
similar negative view as well. Pfeiffer (1992) showed that
the overwhelming majority of American students (82%)
described cult members purely in negative terms, deeming
them to be less happy, less intelligent, and less free.
988 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
Of particular relevance to developmental psychology is
the question of what leads individuals to join cults. Sev-
eral clinical studies conducted mostly with persons who
had left cults, established that before joining cults, many
members had serious family and nonfamily problems
(Klosinski, 1996). By some accounts, life before joining a
cult was characterized by a history of poor relationships
with both parents and peers (Silverstein, 1988). In her
sample, Rollett (1996) also found that young people with a
high exposure to crises tended more strongly toward join-
ing cults. Others have characterized those who join cults
as persons who have suffered from the absence of a father
during childhood and who have difficulty dealing with the
complexities of life (Ullman, 1982). This is consistent
with the finding of one study that showed that new con-
verts to cults held stronger authoritarian values than did
nonconverts (Shaver, Leneuaer, & Sadd, 1980).
Popular empirical accounts often deliver the blanket
judgment that cults rob their members of freedom, individ-
uality, and wealth. These accounts accuse cults of fostering
dislocation from reality, thought paralysis, and regression
(Lademann-Priemer, 1998). The doctrines of many cults do
seem to operate on lower developmental stages—as when
cults divide humanity into small groups of those who are
good and saved, from the great majority who are bad and
lost (Brickerhoff & MacKie, 1986). As another example,
the Krishnas, who consider a doll to be the Divine itself,
seem to collapse the distinction between a religious symbol
and its referent (Cassirer, 1955; Fowler, 1981).
However, negative characterizations of those joining
cults may well be the result of interviewing mostly those
who have left cults because they were dissatisfied—the
research may be biased toward having a negative view
because the sample of former cult members is a biased
sample (Richardson, van der Lans, & Derks, 1986).
As for the effects of joining cults, in the worst cases,
the results have been fatal, especially authoritarian
leaders or closed groups hinder development toward reli-
gious maturity and autonomy, respectively if they pro-
duce a childish and inflexible dependence. Fatal or
otherwise, seriously harmful effects may happen, espe-
cially when cult members engage in occultist practices.
In the past decade, occult forms of religiousness among
adolescents have become, at least in Europe, a popular
theme (Helsper, 1992). Headlines have covered tragic
deaths of young people after they performed occult
practices such as moving glasses and holding séances.
However, some researchers have shown positive
effects of cults. Salzman (1953) found that cults some-
times help members to cope. In a survey of 517 members
of the Unification Church and of Ananda Marga, Kuner
(1981) showed that long-term membership produced “re-
socializing” and “therapeutic” effects. Schibilsky (1976)
found that joining cults helped members cope with devel-
opmental tasks such as forming an identity and developing
self-discipline. As another example of positive effects,
Wicca groups have been described as empowering women
and helping them to heal wounds inflicted on them in so-
cieties where women, especially lesbians, have been dis-
empowered or hurt by homophobia (Warwick, 1995).
Positive views of the effects of cults are sometimes
accompanied by the observation that cults help individ-
uals make a transition. People often belong to cults on a
temporary basis and experience them as “ havens”
(Hood et al., 1996). In his thorough meta-analysis of
clinical studies on the psychological effects of joining
cults, Richardson (1995) concluded that membership is
often therapeutic instead of harmful.
Related findings on occultist practices have shown
that what may at first appear to be psychopathology of a
religious or spiritual nature can be, on closer inspection,
a means for spiritual growth. For example, Streib (1999)
described the occultist practices of the groups of Euro-
pean adolescents he observed as “off-road religion,” im-
plying that they were age and stage appropriate for those
who have yet to achieve an adult identity. Furthermore,
and contrary to popular negative views, the overwhelm-
ing majority of studies have shown that only a minority
of teenagers regularly perform occult practices, and for
most in this minority, occult practices are performed out
of curiosity and not from existential engagement.
Occult practices, rather than expressing pathology,
can express religious affiliation and religious stage. Rol-
lett (1992) demonstrated that catholic youth are more
attracted to occultism than are youth without any reli-
gious denominations, and Bucher (1994) showed that
adolescents at stage 2 of religious judgment according to
Oser and Gmünder (1991) consider occult practices as
being plausible, more so than do adolescents at stage 3.
Terrorist Groups
Similar to what was has been said about cults, what con-
stitutes a terrorist group depends on one’s perspective
(Scarlett, 2003). Those identifying with or participating
in such groups define the groups very differently than
outsiders—as aggrieved victims of violent injustice
(Silke, 2003). For them, the group is all about justice and
freedom, not what is implied by the term terrorist group.

Becoming a member of a terrorist group can be seen and
experienced as entirely natural and normal—somewhat
akin to joining the army or police in times of war or crisis
(Silke, 2003). In sum, terrorists, on average, have no ap-
preciable psychopathology and are average with respect
to level of education and socioeconomic status. It seems
that terrorism is more a group phenomenon than it is an
individual phenomenon—and should be studied as such.
There is a particular need for research on religion’s
role in stimulating terrorism and for understanding bet-
ter what leads to religiously sponsored evil. Kimball
(2002) provides a framework for explaining—using the
following list of symptoms for evaluating when religion
is in danger of supporting evil:
• Inhibition of (religious) autonomy and freedom
• Absolute truth claims
• Blind obedience
• Establishing an ideal time
• Claiming the end justifies the means
• Declaring Holy War
What should we conclude from this overview of how the
literature discusses cults, occultist practices, and terrorist
groups? If there is no more psychopathology, on average,
within these cults and terrorist groups than without, are
there no problems? Obviously, there are severe problems.
There are cults that deceive, abuse, and kill, and terrorist
groups inflict immeasurable harm and suffering on thou-
sands of innocents. However, the problems do not fit neatly
into the category of psychopathology—unless the category
itself is expanded to fit just about everyone. With respect
to cults, the main conclusions are the following:
• We need to distinguish harmful cults from those new
religious movements that do no harm. In doing so, we
can apply criteria such as deception, manipulation,
coercion, and developmental stage but not without a
careful examination of the evidence.
• We need to develop reliable measures to evaluate
cults in short- versus long-term functioning.
With respect to terrorist groups, the main conclusions
are the following:
• We need to focus on changing the social and political
conditions leading to essentially normal religious in-
dividuals joining terrorist groups.
Negative Correlates and Pathology 989
• We need to focus on educating the general public about
those social and political conditions to minimize the
demonizing that continues the cycle of violence.
Mental Disorders
As used here, the concept of a mental disorder is the
same as used in major classification systems such as the
American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Sta-
tistical Manual (DSM). These classification systems
have a number of conceptual and practical advantages
over dimensional approaches (Cantwell & Rutter, 2002).
However, they also have disadvantages. Professionals
agree that classification systems should be used in con-
junction with dimensional approaches to correct for
their inherent deficiencies. With this cautionary point
made, we can proceed to discuss how the current litera-
ture treats religious and spiritual development with re-
spect to mental disorders as defined by classification
systems, particularly by the DSM-IV.
First, with regard to the DSM-IV itself, this revised
form includes a V-code for “Other Conditions”—those
conditions that occasionally warrant a clinician’s help
but which do not constitute mental disorders. “Medica-
tion-induced movement ” disorder is one example, and
“Religious or spiritual problem” is another.
Including the V-Code “Religious or spiritual prob-
lem” marks a step forward—because it says that prob-
lems with a religious or spiritual content should not be
automatically pathologized. However, some have ar-
gued that the inclusion of religious and spiritual prob-
lems as one of several “other conditions” marginalizes
these problems when, in certain cases, they should not
be marginalized (Scott, Garver, Richards, & Hath-
away, 2003).
As for the other categories defining mental disorders,
the picture is more complex. Perhaps the best overall
characterization of the research is that with these other
categories (psychotic disorders, mood disorders, etc.),
religiosity and spirituality can define the content of the
disorders (e.g., having delusions with religious content),
but there is no evidence that religiosity and spirituality
cause these disorders. For example, the frequency of re-
ligious delusions in groups of psychotic individuals
varies considerably depending on the group sampled—
as much as between 7% and 45% (Kingdom, Siddle, &
Rathod, 2001)—suggesting psychotic individuals use
whatever content is available in their culture to con-
struct their delusions.
990 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
A further point about complexity is made with regard
to individuals with the same diagnosis but who differ from
one another in their religiosity. For example, when accom-
panied by strong religious faith, depression may have a
very different and more positive meaning with respect to
ability to function than depression without faith (Stone,
2000). Stage dependence should also be considered.
Pathogenic (Toxic) Religious Beliefs, Practices
and Attitudes
Perhaps the best researched problem of this sort has been
that of prejudice and its relationship with religion. One of
the most consistent findings has been that moderate and
superficial levels of religious involvement predict high
levels of prejudice (Allport & Ross, 1967). The distinc-
tion here is between extrinsic and intrinsic religious ori-
entation or those who use religion for self-serving means
such as making social connections versus those whose
core identity is defined by their faith tradition. It is not
that religion fosters prejudice so much as it is how individ-
uals use their religion. Just why intrinsic types are similar
on measures of prejudice to nonreligious types is unclear.
However, there are clear instances of religiously spon-
sored prejudice that should be distinguished from the
psychological prejudice manifest in extrinsic religious
orientation. For example, certain fundamentalist groups
find in the Bible grounds for considering homosexuality a
sin. Religiously sponsored prejudice and the psychologi-
cal prejudice in extrinsic religious orientation are quite
different in nature and should be discussed, explained,
and treated separately. This distinction between psycho-
logical problems of individuals and problems associated
with a group’s thinking comes up when discussing cults
and terrorist groups as well.
Religious attributions (see Spilka & McIntosh, 1995)
can foster self-esteem and psychic equilibrium, but they
can also weaken them. In particular, a person’s ability to
cope can be impeded when critical events in life are attrib-
uted to the punishment of God, which traditional religious
instruction used to encourage. Such attributions foster
feelings of anger, helplessness, shame, and fear (Parga-
ment, Ensing, & Falgout, 1990), and they undermine self-
effectiveness (Di Loreto & Oser, 1996). For example, 13%
of the cardiac patients interviewed by Croog and Levine
(1972), convinced themselves that their illness was a pun-
ishment for earlier sins, and, in so doing, damaged their
ability to cope—as measured by their recovery time being
longer and their sense of well-being being poorer than for
those without negative religious attributions. An avenging
God brings about guilt feelings and can drive the self into
punishing itself if it perceives itself to be disobedient in
the eyes of God (Hood 1992, p. 118). As another example
and on the basis of clinical studies, Frielingsdorf (1992)
described shocking examples of casuistry, where people
lost all self-respect and felt themselves to be “like dirt” on
account of demonic images of God. He found that these
people were often unwanted and neglected as children.
What can we conclude about the research reported on
negative correlates and pathology related to religious and
spiritual development? For one thing, we seem to be just at
the beginning stage. To build an adequate research base,
we need to develop a more nuanced description system for
defining problems of a religious and spiritual nature. There
are, for example, conceptual reasons for distinguishing be-
tween different forms of problematic faith. There is idola-
trous faith, structurally immature faith, dysfunctional
faith, and structurally developed faith whose content pro-
motes evil (Scarlett, 2003). We need more research to es-
tablish whether these and other distinctions can be used
scientifically to further define problematic religious and
spiritual development. One of the main reasons for our
adopting a normative, stage-structural analysis of religious
and spiritual development becomes clear when discussing
problems relating to religiosity and spirituality. A norma-
tive analysis is crucial for evaluating these problems and
for developing the right means to solve them.
CONCLUSIONS
One goal for this chapter was to connect disparate voices
in developmental science in general and in the study of
spiritual and religious development in particular. Obvi-
ously, a field is enriched by there being different voices
and alternative perspectives. Especially when the topics
in the study of religious and spiritual development have
been about culture, stages of development, and the rela-
tionship between belief and faith development, additional
perspectives and more research are needed. Nevertheless,
we have argued in this chapter that there are meaningful
ways to attend to individual and cultural differences
while still attending to what is universal and normative.
We need to find ways to attend integratively to both di-
versity and general principles, and we also need to attend
to matters of belief as well as to matters of faith.
Another goal of this chapter was to make our own
position clear, and to explain why we believe that a con-
structivist and normative, stage-structural approach

will always be needed. Stage theory is indispensable for
defining religious and spiritual development, and it pro-
vides possibilities for guiding interventions designed to
support religious and spiritual development. In addi-
tion, a stage-structural approach can provide ways to ex-
plain universals in religious and spiritual development.
We contend that higher stages of positive religious
and spiritual development provide adaptive functions.
The current body of evidence seems to bear us out. The
main functions provided by mature, positive faith have
to do with giving humans hope for a better world, foster-
ing greater tolerance and respect for others, and provid-
ing motivation to work for justice, demonstrate care,
and experience well-being even in the face of adversity.
However, the main goal of this chapter has been to show
the richness and importance of research and thinking in the
study of spiritual and religious development. This chapter
is the first on religious and spiritual development to appear
in the Handbook of Child Psychology, although its inclusion
was anticipated about a decade ago (Cairns, 1998; see also
Cairns, Chapter 3; Lerner, Chapter 1, this Handbook, this
volume), We hope and trust that it will not be the last—
given that the study of religious and spiritual development
is so central to our understanding of human development.
Furthermore, this field is expanding rapidly, and the
next edition of the Handbook will likely be reporting on
exciting new research findings in areas not even noted in
the present chapter. For example, there are beginning ef-
forts to connect research on brain development to religious
and spiritual development, and, while there are currently
no good bridge theories (J. A. Feldman, in press) that ade-
quately connect mind to brain to make the brain a truly
useful source of explanations for religious and spiritual
development, those theories are likely to be in place by the
time of the next edition. The same predication may be for-
warded about other areas either not discussed at all in this
chapter or reported on only slightly. For example, we ex-
pect that the research now being conducted on the role of
spirituality in youth development will yield a much better
account of interactions between organismic and contex-
tual factors central to religious and spiritual development.
In sum, the future of theory and research on religious and
spiritual development seems, at this writing, to be a bright
and scientifically productive one.
REFERENCES
Ainsworth, M. D. S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological
study of the strange situation. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum.
References 991
Allport, G. W. (1950). The individual and his religion: A psychologi-
cal interpretation. New York: Macmillan.
Allport, G. W., & Ross, J. (1967). Personal religious orientation and
prejudice. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 5, 432–443.
Altemeyer, B. (2003). Why do religious fundamentalists tend to be
prejudiced? International Journal for the Psychology of Religion,
13(1), 17–28.
Andersen, D. S. (1988). Values, religion, social class and the choice
of private school in Australia. International Journal of Educa-
tional Research, 12, 351–373.
Andresen, J. (2002). Meditation meets behavioral medicine: The
story of experimental research on meditation. In I. J. A. R. K. For-
man (Ed.), Cognitive models and spiritual maps (pp. 17–64).
Charlottesville, VA: Imprint Academic.
Anthony, S. (1940). The child’s discovery of death. London: Rout-
ledge & Kegan.
Argyle, M. (1987). The psychology of happiness. London: Methuen
& Co.
Argyle, M. (1999). Causes and correlates of happiness. In I. D.
Kahnemann, E. Diener, & N. Schwartz (Eds.), Well-being: The
foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 353–373). New York:
Russell Sage Foundation.
Argyle, M. (2000). Psychology of religion: An introduction. New
York: Routledge.
Aronoff, J. S., & Lynn, S. (2000). Are cultic environments psycholog-
ically harmful? Clinical Psychology Review, 20(1), 91–111.
Atran, S., & Norenzayan, A. (2005). Religion’s evolutionary land-
scape: Counterintuition, commitment, compassion, communion.
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 27(6).
Austin, J. A. (1997). Stress reduction through mindfulness meditation:
Effects on psychological symptomatology, sense of control, and spir-
itual experiences. Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, 66, 97–106.
Baltes, P. B., Lindenberger, U., & Staudinger, U. M. (1998). Life-
span theory in developmental psychology. In W. Damon (Editor-
in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child
psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th
ed., 1029–1144). New York: Wiley.
Barnes, E. (1892). Theological life of a Californian child. On Peda-
gogical Seminary, 2, 442–448.
Barrett, D. (2001). The new believers: A survey of sects, cults, and al-
ternative religions. London: Cassell.
Barrett, J. (2001). Do children experience God as adults do. In J. An-
dresen (Ed.), Religion in mind: Cognitive perspectives on religious
belief, ritual, and experience (pp. 173–191). Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press.
Barrett, J., & Keil, F. (1996). Conceptualizing a non-natural en-
tity: Anthropomorphism in God concepts. Cognitive Psychology,
31, 219–247.
Barth, C. (1911). Der Himmel in der Gedankenwelt 10- und 11-
jähriger Kinder. Monatsblätter für den Evangelischen Religionsun-
terricht, 4, 336–338.
Batson, C. D. V. W. L., Schoenrade, P., & Ventis, W. L. (1993). Reli-
gion and the individual. New York: Oxford University Press.
Baugh, J. R. (1988). Gaining control by giving up control: Strategies
for coping with powerlessness. In I. W. R. Miller & J. E. Martin
(Eds.), Behavior therapy and religion (pp. 125–138). Newbury
Park, CA: Sage Publications.
Beile, H. (1998). Religiöse Emotionen und religiöses Urteil: Eine em-
pirische Studie über Religiosität bei Jugendlichen. Ostfildern:
Schwabenverlag.
992 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1989). Prolegomena to the psychological study of
religion. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press.
Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1996a). Psychanalytic studies of religion: A criti-
cal assessment and annotated bibliography. Westport, CT: Green-
wood Press.
Beit-Hallahmi, B. (1996b). Sense in nonsense: The psychoanalytic
approach to religion. In J. Rozenberg (Ed.), Sense and nonsense:
Philosophical, clinical and ethical perspectives. Jerusalem: Hebrew
University Magnes Press.
Beit-Hallahmi, B., & Argyle, M. (1997). The psychology of religious
behavior, belief, and experience. New York: Routledge.
Benish, G. (2001). Heart and home: Embracing the spiritual in every-
day life. New York: Kensington.
Benson, P. L. (1992). Religion and substance use. In I. J. Schumaker
(Ed.), Religion and mental health (pp. 157–179). New York: Ox-
ford University Press.
Benson, P. L., Donahue, M. J., & Erickson, J. A. (1993). The faith
maturity scale: Conceptualization, measurement, and empiri-
cal validation. Research in the Social Scientific Study of Reli-
gion, 5, 1–26.
Benson, P. L., Roehlkepartain, E. C., & Rude, S. P. (2003). Spiritual
development in childhood and adolescence: Toward a field of in-
quiry. Applied Developmental Science, 7, 205–213.
Berg, M. (2001). The way: Using the wisdom of Kabbalah for spiritual
transformation and fulfillment. New York: Wiley.
Blackstone, W. (1963). The problem of religious knowledge. Engle-
wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Blakeney, C. D., & Blakeney, R. F. (2005). Delinquency: A quest for
moral and spiritual integrity? In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. King, L.
Wagener, & P. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual develop-
ment in childhood and adolescence (pp. 371–383). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Blakeney, C. D., Blakeney, R. F., & Reich, K. H. (2005). Leaps of
faith: The role of spirituality in recovering integrity among Jew-
ish alcoholics and drug addicts. Mental Health, Religion and Cul-
ture, 8, 1–19.
Blazer, D., & Palmore, E. (1976). Religion and aging in a longitudinal
panel. Gerontologist, 16, 82–85.
Boyatzis, C., Dollahite, D., & Marks, L. (2005). The family context
of children’s spiritual and religious development. In E. C.
Roehlkepartain, P. King, L. Wagener, & P. Benson (Eds.), The
handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence
(pg. 297–309). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Boyatzis, C. J., & Janicki, D. (2003). Parent-child communication
about religion: A survey and diary assessment of unilateral trans-
mission and bi-directional reciprocity. Review of Religious Re-
search, 44, 252–270.
Boyer, P., & Walker, S. (2000). Intuitive ontology and cultural input
in the acquisition of religious concepts. In K. Rosengren, C. John-
son, & P. Harris (Eds.), Imagining the impossible (pp. 130–156).
New York: Cambridge University Press.
Brickerhoff, M. B., & MacKie, M. (1986). The applicability of so-
cial distance for religious research. Review of Religious Research,
28, 151–167.
Brown, L. B. (1967). Egocentric thought in petitionary prayer: A
cross-cultural study. Journal of Social Psychology, 68,
197–210.
Brown, L. B. (1987). The psychology of religious belief. London: Aca-
demic Press.
Brown, L. B. (1994). The human side of prayer: The psychology of
praying. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Bucher, A. (1991). Understanding parables: A developmental analy-
sis. In F. K. Oser & G.W. Scarlett (Eds.), New Directions for child
development: Religious development in childhood and adolescence
(pp. 101–105). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Bucher, A. (1994). Ist Okkultismus die neue Jugendreligion? Eine
empirische Untersuchung an 650 jugendlichen. Archiv fur Reli-
gionpsychologie, 21, 248–266.
Bucher, A. (2000). Religionsunterricht zwischen Lernfach und
Lebenshilfe: Eine empirische Untersuchung zum katholiscchen
Religionsunterricht in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.
Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.
Bucher, A. (2004). Psychobiographien religioser Entwicklung
Glaubensprofile zwischen Individualitat und Universalitat.
Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.
Burgardsmeier, A. (1951). Gott und Himmel in der psychischen Welt
der Jugend: Vom dritten Schuljahr bis zum Ausgang des Volksschu-
lalters. Düsseldorf, Germany: Schwann / Patmos-Verlag.
Burkert, W. (1996). Creation of the sacred: Tracks of biology in early
religions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cairns, R. B. (1998). The making of developmental psychology. In
W. Damon (Editor-in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. ed.), Handbook
of child psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human develop-
ment (5th ed., pp. 25–105). New York: Wiley.
Caldwell, J. A., & Berkowitz, M. L. (1987). Die Entwicklung re-
ligiösen und moralischen Denkens in einem Programm zum Reli-
gionsunterricht. Unterrichtswissenschaft, 15, 157–176.
Calvin, J. (1834). Commentarius in Epistolam ad Ephesios. Corpus
Reformatorum, Berlin, 79, 141–240.
Cantwell, D., & Rutter, M. (2002). Classification: Conceptual is-
sues and substantive findings. In S. B. Thielman (Ed.), Child
and adolescent psychiatry (4th ed., pp. 3–19). Cambridge, MA:
Blackwell Science.
Caplovitz, D., & Sherrow, F. (1977). The religious drop-outs: Apos-
tasy among college graduates. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Case, R. (1985). Intellectual development: Birth to adulthood. New
York: Academic Press.
Cassirer, E. (1955). The philosophy of symbolic forms: Vol. 2. Mythi-
cal thought. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Cavilli-Sforza, L. (1982). Theory and observation in cultural trans-
mission. Science, 218, 19–27.
Colby, A., & Damon, W. (1992). Some do care: Contemporary lives of
moral commitment. New York: Free Press.
Coles, R. (1990). The spiritual life of children. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Condorcet, J. A. (1976). Entwurf einer historischen Darstellung der
Fortschritte des menschlichen Geistes. Frankfurt, Germany:
Suhrkamp. (Original work published 1789)
Cronon, W. (Ed.). (1997). John Muir: Nature writings. New York:
Penguin Putnam.
Croog, S., & Levine, S. (1972). Religious identity and response to se-
rious illness: A report on heart patients. Social Science and Medi-
cine, 6, 17–32.
Daecke, M., & Schnakenberg, J. (2000). Gottesglaube—ein Selek-
tionsvorteil? Religion in der Evolution. München, Germany: Kaiser.
Damon, W. (Ed.). (2002). Bringing in a new era in character educa-
tion. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.

Daner, F. (1976). The American children of Krsna: A study of the
Hare Krsna movement. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Darley, J. M., & Batson, C. D. (1973). From Jerusalem to Jericho: A
study of situational and dispositional variables in helping behav-
ior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 100–108.
Deconchy, J.-P. (1967). Structure génétique de l’idée de Dieu chez des
Catholics Français. Brussels, Belgium: Lumen Vitae Press.
Denz, H. (2002). Die europäische Seele: Leben und Glauben in Eu-
ropa. Wien: Czernin Verlag.
Dick, A. (1981). Drei transkulturelle Erhebungen des religiösen
Urteils: Eine Pilotstudie. Unveröffentlichte Lizentiatsarbeit,
Freiburg, Switzerland: CH.
Di Loreto, O., & Oser, F. (1996). Entwicklung des religiösen
Urteils und religiöser Selbstwirksamkeitsüberzeugung: Eine
Längsschnittstudie. In F. Oser & K. H. Reich (Eds.), Eingebettet
ins Menschsein: Beispiel Religion (pp. 69–87). Lengerich, Ger-
many: Papst.
Dittmann-Kohli, F. (1990). Sinngebung im Alter. In P. Mayring & W.
Saup (Eds.), Entwicklungsprozesse im Alter (pp. 145–166).
Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.
Donnelly, T., Matsuba, M. K., Hart, D., & Atkins, R. (2005). The re-
lationship between spiritual development and civic development.
In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L. M. Wagener, & P. L. Ben-
son (Eds.), Handbook of spiritual development in childhood and
adolescence (pp. 239–251). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Dowling, E., Gestsdottir, S., Anderson, P., von Eye, A., Almerigi, J.,
& Lerner, R. (2004). Structural relations among spirituality, reli-
giosity, and thriving in adolescence. Applied Developmental Sci-
ence, 8 (1), 7–16.
Dulles, A. (1994). Models of revelation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Durkheim, E. (1995). Elementary forms of the religious life (Karen
E. Fields, Trans.). New York: Free Press. (Original work pub-
lished 1915)
Elkind, D. (1961). The child’s conception of his religious denomina-
tion: Vol. 1. The Jewish child. Journal of Genetic Psychology,
99, 209–225.
Elkind, D. (1962). The child’s conception of his religious denomina-
tion: Vol. 2. The Catholic child. Journal of Genetic Psychology,
101, 185–193.
Elkind, D. (1963). The child’s conception of his religious denomina-
tion: Vol. 3. The Protestant child. Journal of Genetic Psychology,
103, 291–304.
Elkind, D. (1964). Piaget’s semiclinical interview and the Study of
the Spontaneous Religion. Journal for the Scientific Study of Reli-
gion, 4, 40–46.
Ellis, A. (1980). Psychotherapy and atheistic values: A response to
A. E. Bergin’s “Psychotherapy and religion values.” Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 48, 639–653.
Ellison, C. G., & Sherkat, D. E. (1993). Obedience and autonomy: Re-
ligion and parental values reconsidered. Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion, 32, 313–329.
Erickson, J. A. (1992). Adolescent religious development and commit-
ment: A structural equation model of the role of family, peer
group, and educational inf luences. Journal for the Scientific Study
of Religion, 31(2), 131–152.
Erikson, E. (1958). Young man Luther: A study in psychoanalysis and
history. New York: Norton.
References 993
Faulkner, K. W. (1993). Children’s understanding of death. In A.
Armstrong-Daily & S. Z. Goltzer (Eds.), Hospice Care for Chil-
dren (pp. 9–21). London: Oxford University Press.
Feldman, D. H. (1980). Beyond universals in cognitive development.
Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Feldman, D. H. (in press). Piaget’s stages: The unfinished symphony
of cognitive development. New Ideas in Psychology.
Feldman, J. A. (in press). From molecules to metaphor: A neural the-
ory of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Fernhout, J. W. (1986). Where is faith? Searching for the core of the
cube. In C. Dykstra & S. Parks (Eds.), Faith development and
Fowler (pp. 65–89). Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Fischer, K. W., & Bidell, T. R. (1997). Dynamic development of psy-
chological structures in action and thought. In W. Damon (Editor-
in-Chief ) & R. M. Lerner (Vol. Ed.), Handbook of child
psychology: Vol. 1. Theoretical models of human development (5th
ed., pp. 467–561). New York: Wiley.
Fischer, K. W., & Rose, S. P. (1999). Rulers, models, and nonlinear
dynamics: Measurement and method in developmental research.
In G. Savelsbergh, H. van der Maas, & P. van Geert (Eds.), Non-
linear developmental processes (pp. 197–212). Amsterdam, the
Netherlands: Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Flammer, A. (1994). Mit Risiko und Ungewissheit leben: Zur psychol-
ogischen Funktionalität und Religiosität in der Entwicklung. In G.
Klosinski (Ed.), Religion als Chance oder Risiko (pp. 20–34).
Bern, Switzerland: Huber.
Flavell, J. H. (1972). An analysis of cognitive-developmental se-
quences. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 86, 279–350.
Fowler, J. (1980). Faith and structuring of meaning. Morristown, NJ:
Silver Burdett.
Fowler, J. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human develop-
ment and the quest for meaning. New York: Harper & Row.
Francis, L. (1987a ). Denominational schools and pupils’ attitudes
towards Christianity. British Educational Research Journal,
12, 145–152.
Francis, L. (1987b). The decline in attitudes towards religion among
8- to 15-year-olds. Educational Studies, 13, 125–134.
Freeman, N. (1980). Strategies of representation in young children:
Analysis of spatial skills and drawing processes. London: Aca-
demic Press.
Freud, S. (1907). Obsessive actions and religious practices. In J.
Strachey (Ed.), The standard edition of the complete works of Sig-
mund Freud (pp. 432–451). London: Hogarth Press and the Insti-
tute of Psychoanalysis.
Freud, S. (1923a). The ego and the id. Standard Edition, 19, 3–66.
Freud, S. (1923b). A seventeenth-century demonological neurosis.
Standard Edition, 19, 67–105.
Freud, S. (1961). The future of an illusion. In J. Strachey (Ed.),
The standard edition of the complete works of Sigmund Freud
(Vol. 21, pp. 1–56). London: Hogarth Press and the Institute of
Psychoanalysis.
Frielingsdorf, K. (1992). Dämonische Gottesbilder: Ihre Entste-
hung, Entlarvung und Überwindung. Mainz, Germany:
Grünewald.
Gandhi, M. K. (1993). Gandhi: An autobiography—The story of my
experiments with truth. Boston: Beacon Press.
Gartner, J. (1996). Religious commitment, mental health, and
prosocial behavior: A review of the empirical literature. In
E. Shafranske (Ed.), Religion and the clinical practice of
994 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
psychology (pp. 301–319). Washington, DC: American Psycho-
logical Association.
Gesell, A. (1977). The child from five to ten. New York: Norton.
Gibson, H. (1990). The relationship between social class and attitude
towards Christianity among 14- and 15-year old adolescents. Per-
sonality and Individual Dif ferences, 11, 631–635.
Gnos, C. (2003). Bewältigungsverhalten, religiöses Urteil und
Werthaltungen. Unpublished master’s thesis, University of
Freiburg, Educational Department, Freiburg, Switzerland.
Godin, A. (1968a). From cry to word: Contributions toward a psy-
chology of religion. Brussels, Belgium: Lumen Vitae Press.
Godin, A. (1968b). Genetic development and the symbolic function:
Meaning and limits of the work of Goldman. Religious Education,
63, 439–445.
Goethe, J. W. (1974). Faust: Erster Teil. Frankfurt am Main, Ger-
many: Insel.
Goldfried, J., & Miner, M. (2002, December). Quest religion and the
problem of limited compassion. Journal for the Scientific Study of
Religion, 41, 685–695.
Goldman, R. (1964). Religious thinking from childhood to adoles-
cence. New York: Seabury.
Gottlieb, A. (2005). Non-western approaches to spiritual de-
velopment among infants and young children. In P. L. Benson,
P. E. King, L. M. Wagener, & E. C. Roehlkepartain (Ed.), The
handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adoles-
cence (pp. 150–162). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Gould, S. J. (2003a). Ontogeny and phylogeny. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press.
Gould, S. J. (2003b). The hedgehog, the fox, and the magister’s pox:
Mending the gap between science and the humanities. New York:
Harmony Books.
Grangvist, P. (1998). Religiousness and perceived childhood attach-
ment: On the question of compensation or correspondence. Jour-
nal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 37, 350–367.
Greve, W., & Roos, J. (1996). Der Untergang des Ödipuskomplexes:
Argumente gegen einen Mythos. Bern, Switzerland: Huber.
Gut, U. (1984). Analyse der vorraussetzungen der stufen des moralis-
chen und des reliosen urteils. Zurich, Switzerland: Benzinger.
Hall, G. S. (1900). The religious content of the child-mind. In I. N. M.
Butler (Ed.), Principles of religious education (pp. 161–189). New
York: Longmans, Green.
Hall, G. S. (1904). Adolescence: Its psychology and its relation to
physiology, anthropology, sociology, crime, religion, and educa-
tion. Boston: Appleton.
Hall, G. S. (1908). A glance at the phyletic background of genetic
psychology. American Journal of Psychology, 19, 149–212.
Hall, G. S. (1923). Life and confessions of a psychologist. New York:
D. Appleton.
Halperin, D. (Ed.). (1983). Psychodynamic perspectives on religion,
sect, and cult. Littleton, MA: PSG.
Hanisch, H. (1996). Die zeichnerische Entwicklung des Gottesbildes
bei Kindern und Jugendlichen. Stuttgart, Germany: Calwer.
Harms, E. (1944). The development of religious experience in chil-
dren. American Journal of Sociology, 50, 112–122.
Harris, P. L. (2000). On not falling down to earth: Children’s
metaphysical questions. In K. S. Rosengren, C. N. Johnson, &
P. L. Harris (Eds.), Imagining the impossible: Magical, scien-
tific, and religious thinking in children (pp. 157–178). Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Harris, P. L. (2003). Les dieux, les ancêtres et les enfants [Gods, an-
cestors and children]. Terrain, 40, 81–98.
Hart, T. (2005). Spiritual experiences and capacities of children and
youth. In P. L. Benson, P. E. King, L. M. Wagener, & E. C.
Roehlkepartain (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual development in
childhood and adolescence (pp. 163–178). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Hartshorne, H., & May, M. A. (1928). Studies in the nature of charac-
ter: Vol. 1. Studies in deceit. New York: Macmillan.
Hay, D., & Nye, R. (1998). The spirit of the child. London: Fount.
Helsper, W. (1992). Okkultismus, die neue Jugendreligion? Die Sym-
bolik des Todes und des Bösen in der Jugendkultur. Opladen, Ger-
many: Leske & Budrich.
Herzbrun, M. (1993). Father-adolescent religious consensus in the
Jewish community: A preliminary report. Journal for the Scien-
tific Study of Religion, 32, 163–166.
Hill, P. C. (2000). Conceptualizing religion and spirituality: Points of
commonality, points of departure. Journal for the Theory of Social
Behavior, 30, 51–77.
Hitschmann, E. (1947). New varieties of religious experience: From
William James to Sigmund Freud. In G. Roheim (Ed.), Psycho-
analysis and the social sciences (pp. 195–233). New York: Inter-
national Universities Press.
Hoge, D., & Petrillo, D. (1978). Development of religious thinking in
adolescence. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 17,
139–154.
Hoge, D., & Petrillo, D. (1982). Transmission of religious and social
values from parents to teenage children. Journal of Marriage and
the Family, 44, 569–580.
Hood, R. W. (1992). Sin and guilt in faith traditions: Issues of self-
esteem. In J. Schumaker (Ed.), Religion and Mental Health
(pp. 110–121). New York: Oxford University Press.
Hood, R. (Ed.). (1995). Handbook of religious experience. Birming-
ham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Hood, R., Spilka, B., Hunsberger, B., & Gorsuch, R. (1996). The
psychology of religion: An empirical approach. New York: Guil-
ford Press.
Hunsberger, B. (1995). Religion and prejudice: The role of religious
fundamentalism, quest, and right-wing authoritarianism. Journal
of Social Issues, 51, 113–129.
Hunsberger, B., & Brown, L. B. (1984). Religious socialization, apos-
tasy, and the impact of family background. Journal for the Scien-
tific Study of Religion, 23, 239–251.
Hunsberger, L. (1980). A re-examination of the antecedents of apos-
tasy. Review of Religious Research, 25, 21–38.
Huntington, S. P. (1996). The clash of civilsations. New York: Simon
& Schuster.
Huntington, S. P. (1998). Kampf der Kulturen: Die Neugestaltung der
Weltpolitik im 21—Jahrhundert. München, Germany: Siedler.
Huxel, K. (2000). Die empirische Psychologie des Glaubens: His-
torische und systematische Studien zu den Pionieren der Religion-
spsychologie. Stuttgart, Germany: Kohlhammer.
Hyde, K. (1965). Religious learning in adolescence. Edinburgh, Scot-
land: Oliver & Boyd.
Hyde, K. (1990). Religion in childhood and adolescence. Birmingham,
AL: Religious Education Press.
Idler, E. (1994). Cohesiveness and coherence: Religion and the health
of the elderly. New York: Taylor & Frances.
James, W. (1902). The varieties of religious experience. New York:
Longmans, Green.

James, W. (1961). The principles of psychology (Rev. ed.). New York:
Holt. (Original work published 1892)
Jarvis, G., & Northcott, H. (1987). Religion and differences in mor-
bidity and mortality. Social Science and Medicine, 25, 813–824.
Johnson, C. N., & Boyatzis, C. J. (2005). Cognitive-cultural foun-
dations of spiritual development. In E. C. Roehlkepartain,
P. E. King, L. M. Wagener, & P. L. Benson (Eds.), The hand-
book of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence
(pp. 211–223). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Jörns, K. P. (1997). Die neuen Gesichter Gottes: Was die Menschen
heute wirklich glauben. München, Germany: Beck.
Jung, C. G. (1968). Concerning the archetypes, with special refer-
ence to the anima concept. In M. F. H. Read & G. Adler (Eds.),
The collected works of C. G. Jung (2nd ed., Vol. 9, pp. 54–72).
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Kager, A. (1995). Die Stufen des religiösen Urteils in Ordensgemein-
schaften. Eine Pilotstudie: Unveröffentliche Magisterarbeit an
der Universität Wien.
Kaplan, B. (1983a). Genetic-dramatism: Old wine in new bottles. In
S. Wapner & B. Kaplan (Eds.), Toward a holistic developmental
psychology (pp. 53–74). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kaplan, B. (1983b). Ref lections on culture and personality from the
perspective of genetic-dramatism. In S. Wapner & B. Kaplan
(Eds.), Toward holistic developmental psychology (pp. 95–110).
Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Kimball, C. (2002). When religion becomes evil. San Francisco:
Harper & Row.
King, P. E. (2003). Religion and identity: The role of ideological, social,
and spiritual contexts. Applied Developmental Science, 7, 196–203.
King, P. E., & Boyatzis, C. (2004). Exploring adolescent spiritual and
religious development: Current and future theoretical and empiri-
cal perspectives. Applied Developmental Science, 8(1), 2–6.
King, P. E., & Furrow, J. L. (2004). Religion as a resource for positive
youth development: Religion, social capital, and moral outcomes.
Developmental Psychology, 40(5), 703–713.
Kingdom, D., Siddle, R., & Rathod, S. (2001). Spirituality, psychosis,
and the development of “normalising rationales.” In I. Clarke
(Ed.), Psychosis and spirituality (pp. 177–198). London: Whurr.
Kirkpatrick, L. (1995). Attachment theory and religious experience.
In I. R. W. Hood (Ed.), Handbook of religious experience
(pp. 446–475). Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Kirkpatrick, L. (1997). A longitudinal study of changes in religious
belief and behavior as a function of individual differences in
adult attachment style. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
36, 207–217.
Kirkpatrick, L., & Shaver, P. (1990). Attachment theory and religion:
Childhood attachments, religious beliefs, and conversion. Journal
for the Scientific Study of Religion, 29, 315–334.
Klaghofer, R., & Oser, F. (1987). Dimensionen und Erfassung des re-
ligisen Familienklimas. Unterrichtswissenschaft, 15, 190–206.
Klepsch, M., & Logie, L. (1982). Children draw and tell. New York:
Brunner/ Mazel.
Klosinski, G. (1996). Psychokulte: Was Sekten für Jugendliche so at-
traktiv macht. München, Germany: Beck.
Koenig, H. (1992). Religion and mental health in later life. In J. F.
Schumaker (Ed.), Religion and mental health (pp. 155–174). New
York: Oxford University Press.
Koenig, H. G. (1994). Aging and God: Spiritual pathways to mental
health in midlife and later years. New York: Haworth Pastoral Press.
References 995
Koenig, H., George, L., & Siegler, I. (1988). The use of religion and
other emotion-regulating coping strategies among older adults.
Gerontologist, 28, 303–310.
Kohlberg, L. (1981). Essays on moral development: Vol. 1. The philos-
ophy of moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.
Kohlberg, L., & Power, C. (1981). Moral development, religious
thinking, and the question of a seventh stage. Zygon, 16, 203–258.
Kroh, O. (1965). Entwicklungspsychologie des Grundschulkindes.
Weinheim, Germany: Beltz.
Kuner, W. (1981, September). Jugendsekten: Ein Sammelbecken für
Verrückte? Psychologie Heute, 8, 53–61.
Kushner, H. (1981). When bad things happen to good people. New
York: Avon Books.
Kwilecki, S. (1999). Becoming religious. Cranbury, NJ: Associated
University Press.
Lademann-Priemer, G. (1998). Warum faszinieren Sekten? Psychologis-
che Aspekte des Relgionsmissbrauchs. München, Germany: Claudius.
Lambert, W., Triandis, L., & Wolf, M. (1959). Some correlates of be-
liefs in malevolence and benevolence of supernatural beings: A
cross-societal study. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology,
58, 162–169.
Langdon, A. (1969). A critical examination of Dr. Goldman’s re-
search study on religious thinking from childhood to adolescence.
Journal of Christian Education, 12, 37–63.
Larson, D. B., Thielman, S. B., Greenwold, M. A., Lyons, J. S., Post,
S. G., Sherrill, K. A., et al. (1993). Religious content in the DSM-
III-R glossary of technical terms. American Journal of Psychiatry,
150(12), 1884–1885.
Lerner, R. (2002). Concepts and theories of human development (3rd
ed.). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Lerner, R., Dowling, E., & Anderson, P. (2003). Positive youth devel-
opment: Thriving as the basis of personhood and civil society. Ap-
plied Developmental Science, 7(3), 172–180.
Leuba, J. (1912). A psychological study of religion. New York: Macmillan.
Levin, J. S. (1997). Religious research in gerontology, 1980–1994: A
systematic review. Journal of Religious Gerontology, 10, 3–31.
Lindenthal, J. J., Myers, J. K., Pepper, M. P., & Stern, M. S. (1970).
Mental status and religious behavior. Journal for the Scientific
Study of Religion, 9(2), 143–149.
Long, D., Elkind, D., & Spilka, B. (1967). The child’s conception of
prayer. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 6, 101–109.
Maslow, A. H. (1971). The farther reaches of human behavior. New
York: Viking.
May, A. (1997). Psychopathology and religion in the era of “enlight-
ened science”: A case report. European Journal of Psychiatry,
11(1), 14–20.
McFadden, S. H. (1996). Religion and spirituality. In J. E. Birren
(Ed.), Encyclopedia of Gerontology (Vol. 2, pp. 387–397). San
Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Meadow, M. J. (1992). Personality maturity and Teresa’s interior cas-
tle. Pastoral Psychology, 40(5), 293–302.
Meadow, M. J., & Kahoe, R. D. (1984). Psychology of religion: Reli-
gion in individual lives. New York: Harper & Row.
Meissner, W. W. (1984). Psychoanalysis and religious experience.
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Miller, W. R., & Martin, J. E. (1988). Spirituality and behavioral psy-
chology: Toward integration. In W. R. Miller & J. E. Martin (Eds.),
Behavior therapy and religion: Integrating spiritual and behavioral
approaches to change (pp. 13–23). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
996 Religious and Spiritual Development throughout the Life Span
Murphy, R. J. L. (1978). A new approach to the Study of the De-
velopment of Religious Thinking in Children. Educational Stud-
ies, 4, 19–22.
Niggli, A. (1988). Familie und religiöse Erziehung in unserer Zeit:
Eine empirische Studie über elterliche Erziehungspraktiken und
religiöse Merkmale bei Erzogenen. Frankfurt, Germany: Lang.
Nipkow, K. E., Schweitzer, F., & Fowler, J. W. (1988). Glaubensen-
twicklung und Erziehung. Gütersloh, Germany: Gerd Mohn.
Nobiling, E. (1929). Der Gottesgedanke bei Kindern und Jugendlichen.
In W. Gruehn (Ed.), Atrchiv für Religionspsychologie und Seelen-
führung (Vol. 4, pp. 43–216). Leipzig, Germany: Eduard Pfeiffer.
Nunn, C. Z. (1964). Child-control through a “coalition with God.”
Child Development, 34, 417–432.
Nye, R. (1999). Relational consciousness and the spiritual lives of
children: Convergence with children’s theory of mind. In H.
Reich, F. K. Oser, & W. G. Scarlett (Eds.), Psychological studies
on spiritual and religious development (pp. 57–82). Lengerich,
Germany: Pabst Science.
Nye, W. C., & Carlson, J. S. (1984). The development of the concept
of God in children. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 145, 137–142.
Oerter, R. (1980). Moderne Entwicklungspsychologie. Donauwörth, Ger-
many: Auer.
Ohlig, K. H. (2002). Religion in der Geschichte der Menschheit: Die
Entwicklung des religiösen Bewusstseins. Darmstadt, Germany:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Oman, D., Kurata, J. H., Strawbridge, W. J., Cohen, R. D. (2002).
Religious attendance and cause of death over 31 years. Interna-
tional Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 32, 69–89.
Oser, F. (1988a). Genese und Logik der Entwicklung des religiösen
Bewusstseins: Eine Entgegnung auf Kritiken. In K. E. Nipkow,
F. Schweitzer, & J. W. Fowler (Eds.), Glaubensentwicklung und
Erziehung (pp. 48–88). Gütersloh, Germany: Güterloher Ver-
lagshaus Gerd Mohn.
Oser, F. (1988b). Wieviel Religion braucht der Mensch? Erziehung
und Entwicklung zur religiösen Autonomie. Gütersloh, Ger-
many: Güterloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn.
Oser, F. (1991). The development of religious judgment. In F. Oser &
W. G. Scarlett (Eds.), Religious development in childhood and
adolescence (pp. 5–26). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Oser, F. (2002). Mystische und psychologische Stufen der religiösen
Entwicklung: Inkompatibel, analog, ergänzungsbedürftig? Ein
spekulativer Vergleich. In W. Simon (Ed.), Meditatio (pp. 67–80).
FS für Günter Stachel, Münster, Germany: Lit-Verlag.
Oser, F., & Gmünder, P. (1991). Religious judgement: A developmental
approach. Birmingham, AL: Religious Education Press.
Osmer, R. R., & Schweitzer, F. (2003). Religious education between
modernization and globalization: New perspectives on the United
States and Germany. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans.
Ozarak, E. (1989). Social and cognitive inf luences on the develop-
ment of religious beliefs and commitment in adolescence. Journal
for the Scientific Study of Religion, 28, 448–463.
Pargament, K. I. (1997). The psychology of religious coping: Theory,
research, practice. New York: Guilford Press.
Pargament, K., & Brant, C. (1998). Religion and coping. In H. Koenig
(Ed.), Handbook of religion and mental health (pp. 112–129).
Boston: Academic Press.
Pargament, K. I., Ensing, D. S., & Falgout, K. (1990). God help me:
Religious coping effects as predictors of the outcomes of signifi-
cant negative life events. American Journal of Community and
Psychology, 18, 793–824.
Pascual-Leone, J. (1983). Growing into human maturity: Toward a
metasubjective theory of adulthood stages. In P. B. Baltes &
O. G. J. Brim (Eds.), Life-span development and behavior (Vol.5,
pp. 117–156). New York: Academic Press.
Pfeiffer, J. E. (1992). The psychological framing of cults: Schematic
representations and cult evaluations. Journal of Applied Social
Psychology, 22, 531–544.
Pfister, O. (1911). Hysterie und Mystik bei Margaretha Ebner
(1291–1351). Zentralblatt für Psychoanalyse und Psychotherapie,
1, 468–485.
Pfister, O. (1925). Die Frömmigkeit des Grafen Ludwig von Zinzen-
dorf: Eine psychoanalytische Studie. Zweite verbesserte Auf lage,
Leipzig, Germany und Wien: Franz Deuticke.
Piaget, J. (1928). Immanence et transcendence. In J. Piaget & J. de la
Harpe (Eds.), Deux types d’attitude religieuse: Immanance et tran-
scendence (pp. 5–40). Editions de L’Association Chretienne dE’-
tudiants de Suisse Romande, Depot, Geneva, Switzerland: Labor.
Piaget, J. (1929). The child’s conception of the world. New York:
Harcourt.
Pitts, V. P. (1977). Drawing pictures of God. Learning for Living,
16, 123–131.
Plante, T. G., & Bovccaccini, M. T. (1997). The Santa Clara strength
of religious faith questionnaire. Pastoral Psychology, 45, 375–387.
Plante, T. G., & Sherman, A. (Eds.). (2001). Faith and health: Psy-
chological perspectives. New York: Guilford Press.
Pnevmatikos, D. (2002). Conceptual changes in religious concepts of
elementary schoolchildren: The case of the house where God
lives. Educational Psychology, 22, 93–112.
Pollner, M. (1989). Divine relations, social relations, and well being.
Journal of Health and Social Behaviour, 30, 92–104.
Potvin, R. H., & Sloane, D. M. (1985). Parental control, age, and reli-
gious practice. Review of Religious Research, 27, 3–14.
Powell, L. H., Shahabi, L., & Thoresen, C. E. (2003). Religion and
spirituality: Linkages to physical health. American Psycholo-
gist, 58, 36–52.
Pratt, J. B. (1910). An empirical study of prayer. American Journal of
Religious Psychology and Education, 4, 48–67.
Prell, R.-E. (1995). Ref lections on the social science of American
Jews and its implications for Jewish education. In A. Aron, S.
Lee, & S. Rossel (Eds.), A congregation of learners: Transform-
ing the synagogue into a learning community (pp. 139–153). New
York: URJ Press.
Pruyser, P. (1991). Forms and functions of the imagination in reli-
gion. In H. N. Maloney & B. Spilka (Eds.), Religion in psychody-
namic perspective (p. 179). New York: Oxford University Press.
Ramachers, G. (1994). Entwicklung und Bedingungen von
Todeskonzepten bei Kindern. Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany:
Peter Lang.
Ratcliff, D. (1985). The development of children’s religious concepts:
Research review. Journal of Psychology and Christianity, 1, 35–43.
Regnerus, M., & Elder, G. H., Jr. (2003). Staying on track in school:
Religious inf luences in high- and low-risk settings. Journal for the
Scientific Study of Religion, 42(4), 633–649.
Reich, H. (1993). Integrating different theories: The case of religious
development. Journal of Empirical Theology, 6(1), 39–49.
(Reprinted from The psychology of religion: Theoretical ap-
proaches, pp. 105–113, by B. Spilka & D. M. McIntosh, Eds.,
1997, Boulder, CO: Westview)

Reich, H. (1997). Do we need a theory for the religious development
of women. International Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 7,
67–86.
Reich, H. (2004, November). The role of cognition in religious devel-
opment: The contribution of Relational and Contextual Reasoning
(RCR) to religious development. Unpublished doctoral disserta-
tion, Universität Utrecht, Theologische Fakultät.
Reich, H. (2005). Jean Piaget’s views on religion. Unpublished manu-
script, University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
Reich, H., Oser, F. O., & Scarlett, W. G. (1999). Spiritual and reli-
gious development: Transcendence and transformations of the
self. In K. H. Reich, F. O. Oser, & W. G. Scarlett (Eds.), Psycho-
logical Studies on Spiritual and Religious Development: Vol. 2.
Being human—The case of religion. Scottsdale, AZ: Pabst Science.
Reimer, K. S., & Furrow, J. L. (2003). A qualitative exploration of re-
lational consciousness in Christian children. Pasadena, CA: Fuller
Theological Seminary, Graduate School of Psychology.
Rest, J. R. (1983). Morality. In P. H. Mussen (Series Ed.) & J. Flavell
& E. Markman (Vol. Eds.), Handbook of child psychology: Vol. 3.
Cognitive development (4th ed., pp. 556–629). New York: Wiley.
Richardson, J., Stewart, M., & Simmonds, R. (1979). Organized mira-
cles. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
Richardson, J. T. (1995). Clinical and personality assessment of par-
ticipants in new religions. The International Journal for the Psy-
chology of Religion, 5, 145–170.
Richardson, J. T., van der Lans, J., & Derks, F. (1986). Leaving and
labeling: Voluntary and coerced disaffiliation from new religion
movements. Social Movement, Conf lict, and Change, 8, 385–393.
Rizzuto, A.-M. (1979). The birth of the living God: A psychoanalytic
study. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (1995). Youth development in congregations: An
exploration of the potential and barriers. Minneapolis, MN:
Search Institute.
Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2005). Congregations: Unexamined crucibles
for spiritual development. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King,
L. M. Wagener, & P. L. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual
development in childhood and adolescence (pp. 324–336). Thou-
sand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Rollett, B. (1992). Religiöse Entwicklung und Interesse an Jugendsek-
ten. Forschungsbericht Universität Wien: Abteilung für Entwick-
lungspsychologie und Pädagogische Psychologie.
Rollett, B. (Ed.). (1996). Religiose Entwicklung im Jugendalter. Göt-
tingen, Germany: Hogrefe.
Rollett, B., & Kager, A. (Eds.). (1999). Post-modern religiousness: A
prerogative of the “new religion”? Religious emotions and reli-
gious development—Finding of a pilot study. Lengerich, Ger-
many: Papst.
Rosenberg, R. (1989). Die Entwicklung von Gebetskonzepten. In
A. Bucher & K. H. Reich (Ed.), Entwicklung von Religiosität
(pp. 175–198). Fribourg, Germany: Universitätsverlag.
Rousseau, J. J. (1979). Emile: Or, On Education. New York: Basic
Books. (Original work published 1762)
Salzman, L. (1953). The psychology of religious and ideological con-
version. Psychiatry, 16, 177–187.
Scarlett, W. G. (2003 July). Healthy and pathological spirituality.
Paper presented at the Association for Moral Education,
Krakow, Poland.
Scarlett, W. G., & Perriello, L. (1991). The development of prayer in
adolescence. In F. Oser & W. G. Scarlett (Eds.), Religious devel-
References 997
opment in childhood and adolescence (pp. 63–76). San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass.
Schibilsky, M. (1976). Religiöse Erfahrung und Interaktion: Die
Lebenswelt Jugendlicher Randgruppen. Stuttgart, Germany:
Kohlhammer.
Schjelderup, H., & Schjelderup, K. (1932). Über drei Haupttypen der
religiösen Erlebnisformen und ihre psychologische Grundlage.
Berlin, Germany: W. de Gruyter.
Schmidtchen, G. (1987). Sekten und Psychokultur: Reichweite und At-
traktivität von Jugendreligionen in der Bundesrepublik Deutsch-
land. Freiburg, Germany: Herder.
Schmitz, E., & Friebe, S. (Eds.). (1992). Die neuen Jugendreligionen:
Öf fentliche Akzeptanz und Konversionsmotive. Göttingen, Ger-
many: Hogrefe.
Schroedter, T. (1908). Erotogenese der Religion. Zeitschrift für Religion-
spsychologie: Grenzfragen der Theologie und Medizin, 1, 445–455.
Schwartz, A. (2002). Transmitting moral wisdom in an age of the au-
tonomous self. In W. Damon (Ed.), Bringing in a new era in charac-
ter education (pp. 1–22). Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press.
Schweitzer, F. (1992). Die Religion des Kindes: Zur Prob-
lemgeschichte einer religionspädagogischen Grundfrage.
Gütersloh, Germany: Gerd Mohn.
Scott, S., Garver, S., Richards, J., & Hathaway, W. (2003). Religious
issues in diagnosis: The V-Code and beyond. Mental Health, Reli-
gion and Culture, 6(2), 160–173.
Shafranske, E. P. (1995). Freudian theory and religious
experience. In R. W. Hood Jr. (Ed.), Handbook of religious ex-
perience (pp. 200–230). Birmingham, AL: Religious Education
Press.
Shaver, P., Leneuaer, M., & Sadd, M. (1980). Religousness, conver-
sion, and subjective well-being: The “ healthy-minded” religion
of modern American women. American Journal of Psychiatry,
137, 1563–1568.
Silke, A. (Ed.). (2003). Terrorists, victims, and society: Psychological
perspectives on terrorism and its consequences. Southern Gate, En-
gland: Wiley.
Silverstein, S. M. (1988). A study of religious conversion in North
America. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs,
114, 261–305.
Slaughter, V., Jaakola, R., & Carey, S. (1999). Constructing a co-
herent theory: Children’s biological understanding of life and
death. In M. Siegal & C. Peterson (Eds.), Children’s understand-
ing of biology, health, and ethics (pp. 71–96). Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Slee, N. (1986a). Goldman yet again: An overview and critique of
his contribution to research. British Journal of Religious Educa-
tion, 8, 33–84.
Slee, N. (1986b). A note on Goldman’s methods of data analysis with
special reference to scalogram analysis. British Journal of Reli-
gious Education, 8, 168–175.
Smith, C. (2003). Religious participation and network closure among
American adolescents. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion,
42(2), 259–267.
Smith, W. C. (1998a). Faith and belief: The dif ference between them.
Oxford, England: Oneworld Publications.
Smith, W. C. (1998b). Patterns of faith around the world. Boston:
Oneworld Publications.
Socha, P. (1999). The existential human situation: Spirituality as a
way of coping. In H. K. Reich, F. Oser, & W. G. Scarlett (Eds.),
998 References
Psychological studies on spiritual and religious development: Vol.
2. Being human—The case of religion. Langerich, Germany: Pabst
Science Publishers.
Spencer, A. E. (1971). The future of Catholic education in England
and Wales. London: Catholic Renewal Movement.
Spilka, B., & McIntosh, D. N. (1995). Attribution theory and reli-
gious experience. In R. W. Hood Jr. (Ed.), Handbook of religious
experience: Theory and practice (pp. 421–445). Birmingham, AL:
Religious Education Press.
Stark, R. A. (1965). A taxonomy of religious experience. Journal for
the Scientific Study of Religion, 5, 97–116.
Steele, S. (1994). The multistage paradigm and the spiritual path of
John of the cross. Journal of Transpersonal Psychology, 26, 55–80.
Stone, M. (2000). Psychopathology: Biological and psychological cor-
relates. Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis,
28(2), 203–235.
Streib, H. (1999). Off-road religion? A narrative approach to fun-
damentalist and occult orientations. Journal of Adolescence,
22(2), 255–267.
Streib, H. (2001, September). Faith development research at 20 years.
Paper presented at the 14th Conference of the International As-
sociation for the Psychology of Religion, Soesterberg, The
Netherlands.
Strommen, M. P., & Hardel, R. A. (2000). Passing on the faith: A
radical new model for youth and family. Winona, MN: Saint
Mary’s Press.
Tamminnen, K. (1976). Research concerning the development of reli-
gious thinking in Finnish students. Character potential, 7, 206–219.
Tamminnen, K. (1991). Religious development in childhood and youth.
Helsinki, Finland: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.
Tamminnen, K. (1994). Comparing Oser’s and Fowler’s developmen-
tal stages. Journal of Empirical Theology, 7, 75–112.
Taylor, C. (2002). Varieties of religion today: William James revisted.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Thouless, R. H., & Brown, L. B. (1964). Petitionary prayer: Belief in
its appropriateness and causal efficacy among adolescent girls.
Lumen Vitae, 23, 123–136.
Thun, T. (1959) Die Religion des Kindes: Eine Untersuchung nach
Klassengesprächen mit katholischen und evangelischen Kindern in
der Grundschule. Stuttgart, Germany: Ernst Klett.
Thurman, R. (1991). Wisdom and compassion: The scared art of
Tibet. New York: Thames and Hundson.
Ullman, C. (1982). Cognitive and emotional antecedents of reli-
gious conversion. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology,
43, 183–192.
Vidal, F. (1987). Jean Piaget and the liberal Protestant tradition. In
M. Ash & W. Woodward (Eds.), Psychology in twentieth-century
thought and society (pp. 271–294). Cambridge University Press.
Vogel, P. (1936). Ein Beitrag zur Religionspsychologie des Kindes.
Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie, 36, 311–466.
Voss, T. (1926). Die Entwicklung der religiösen Vorstellungen.
Archiv für die Gesamte Psychologie, 57, 1–86.
Walker, L. (2003). Morality, religion, spirituality: The value of saint-
liness. Journal of Moral Education, 32(4).
Walker, L., & Pitts, R. (1998). Naturalistic conceptions of moral ma-
turity. Developmental Psychology, 34, 403–419.
Walker, L., Pitts, R., Hennig, K., & Matsuba, M. K. (1995). Reason-
ing about morality and real-life problems. In M. Killen & D. Hart
(Eds.), Morality in everyday life: Developmental perspectives
(pp. 371–407). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
Walker, L., & Reimer, K. S. (2005). The relationship between moral
and spiritual development. In E. C. Roehlkepartain, P. E. King, L.
Wagener, & P. Benson (Eds.), The handbook of spiritual develop-
ment in childhood and adolescence (pp. 224–238). Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage.
Warwick, L. (1995). Feminist Wicca: Paths to empowerment.
Women and Therapy, 16(2/3), 121–133.
Wenger Jindra, I. (2004). Konversion und Stufentransformation: Ein
kompliziertes Verhältnis. Münster, Germany: Waxmann.
Wilson, E. O. (1998). Consilience: The unity of knowledge. New York:
Alfred A. Knopf.
Wimmer, H., & Perner, J. (1983). Beliefs about beliefs: Representa-
tion and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young chil-
dren’s understanding of deception. Cognition, 13, 103–128.
Wink, P. D. M. (2002). Spiritual development across the adult life
course: Findings from a longitudinal study. Journal of Adult De-
velopment, 9(1), 79–94.
Wittkowski, J. (1990). Psychologie des Todes. Darmstadt, Germany:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Woolever, C., & Bruce, D. (2004). Beyond the ordinary: 10 strengths of
U.S. congregations. Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press.
Woolley, J. (2000). The development of beliefs about direct mental-
physical causality on imagination, magic, and religion. In K. S.
Rosengren, C. N. Johnson, & P. L. Harris (Eds.), Imagining the
impossible: Magical, scientific, and religious thinking in chil-
dren (pp. 99–129). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press.
Wulff, D. M. (1991). Psychology of religion: Classic and contempo-
rary views. New York: Wiley.
Wulff, D. M. (1993). On the origins and goals of religious develop-
ment. The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion,
3(3), 181–186.
Wunderle, G. (1932). Glaube und Glaubenszweifel moderner Jugend:
Das ja und nein katholischer Schüler und Schülerinnen zur
Glaubensdarbietung. Düsseldorf, Germany: Pädagogischer Verlag.
Youniss, J., McLellan, J. A., Su, Y., & Yates, M. (1999). Religion,
community service, and identity in American youth. Journal of
Adolescence, 22, 243–253.
Yust, K.-M. (2003, June). Challenges of faith formation in children’s
ministries. Paper presented at the Children’s Spirituality Confer-
ence, Christian Perspectives, Chicago, IL.
Zeligs, D. F. (1974). Psychoanalysis and the Bible: A study in depth of
seven leaders. New York: Bloch Publishing.
Zenklusen, B. (2003). Witwen—Erlebter Verlust durch den Tod und
religiöses Urteil: Eine Untersuchung über den Zusammenhang
zwischen den religiösen Stufen und dem erlebten Verlust des
Ehepartners durch den Tod. Unpublished master’s thesis,
University of Freiburg, Educational Department, Freiburg,
Switzerland.
Zinnbauer, B. J., Pargament, K., Reye, B., Butter, M., Blavich, E.,
Hipp, T., et al. (1997). Religiousness and spirituality: Unfuzzing
the fuzzy. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 36(4),
549–564.
Zondag, H. J., & Belzen, J. A. (1999). Between reduction of uncertainty
and ref lection: The range and dynamics of religious judgment. In-
ternational Journal for the Psychology of Religion, 9, 63–81.
Zulehner, P., Hager, I., & Polak, R. (2001). Kehrt die Religion wieder:
Religion im Leben der Menschen 1970–2000. Ostfildern:
Schwabenverlag.
Author Index

Abbott, A., 667 Allard, T. T., 283 Ames, R. T., 753

Abbott, R. D., 906, 925
Abbott, S., 276, 725
Abel, L., 230
Abeles, R. P., 551
Abelson, R. P., 325, 372, 522, 524,
541, 542, 543
Abraham, J. D., 591, 611, 644
Abramson, L. J., 547
Ackerman, P. L., 600, 605, 607
Acredolo, L., 54, 280, 300
Adams, G. R., 928
Adams, M. D., 7, 9, 223
Adlai-Gail, W. S., 481
Adler, M. J., 490
Adolfsson, R., 448
Adolph, K. E., 134, 246, 279
Aebli, H., 522, 532
af Klinteberg, B., 415
Agarwal, G. C., 296
Aggen, S. H., 632
Agostiani, H., 758
Aharonovich, E., 706
Ahern, F., 614
Ainsworth, M. D., 151, 153, 377,
384, 406, 422, 500, 737, 740,
815, 979
Aitken, J. K., 439
Ajzen, I., 410, 522
Akiyama, H., 696
Albersheim, L., 377
Alberts, J. A., 246
Alberts, J. R., 242
Aldwin, C. M., 635, 640, 641
Alexander, K. J., 749
Alexander, K. L., 680, 681
Alibali, M., 349, 365
Allen, G. E., 222 Amick, B. C., 683
Allen, J. J. B., 628 Amorim, K., 202
Allen, J. P., 919 Anastasi, A., 33, 43, 416
Allen, M. J., 183 Anderman, E., 503, 505, 506
Allen, P., 178 Anders, T. F., 725
Allen, V. L., 408, 427 Andersen, C., 45, 72
Allen, W. R., 379, 835, 839, 857, Andersen, D. S., 980
868 Anderson, A. R., 532
Allport, A., 537 Anderson, D. I., 384
Allport, G., 59, 119, 409, 432, 433, Anderson, J. D., 880
751, 813, 947, 989 Anderson, J. E., 125, 126, 130, 147
Alm, M., 415 Anderson, J. R., 339, 340, 347, 606
Alm, P. O., 415 Anderson, N. H., 605
Almasy, L., 233, 239 Anderson, P., 898, 904, 915, 918,
Almazan, E. P., 704 920, 948, 971
Almerigi, J., 12, 13, 895 Andersson, T., 404, 417, 445
Alonso, J. M., 238 Andreas, J. B., 335
Alpern, L., 377 Andresen, J., 982
Alpert, N., 638 Andrews, D. W., 917
Alpert, R., 149 Angell, J. R., 414, 415, 416
Alsaker, F. D., 412 Angleitner, A., 620, 623, 633
Altaha, M., 242, 245 Angoff, W. H., 417
Altemeyer, B., 986 Angold, A., 156
Altman, I., 488 Anni, H., 237
Altmann, J., 507 Anokhin, K. V., 216, 247
Alvarez, J., 772 Anscombe, G. E. M., 75, 76
Alwin, D., 668, 688, 696 Anthony, A., 685
Amanatides, P. G., 223 Anthony, E. J., 841, 886, 887, 905
Amann-Gainotti, M., 197 Anthony, S., 974
Amari, S., 300 Antonucci, T. C., 587, 696
Amato, P., 682, 691, 703 Apel, R., 688
Amatruda, C. S., 132 Aperia, A., 424
Amaya-Williams, M., 549 Apfel, A., 915
Amell, J. W., 668 Appelbaum, M. I., 30
Ames, C., 505 Appley, M. H., 407
Ames, L. B., 297 Apter, M., 469, 480

999
1000 Author Index

Arbreton, A. J. A., 912 Axel, R., 404 586, 589, 590, 591, 593, 594,
Archer, S. L., 620, 622 Axelrod, R., 624 597, 602, 604, 610, 611, 619,
Arcus, D., 438, 442 Ayer, A. J., 73, 74 624, 634, 635, 637, 638, 668,
Ardelt, M., 607, 821 Ayoub, C., 316, 317, 321, 326, 327, 671, 904
Ardila, R., 57 328, 334, 335, 349, 350, 357, Baltes, P. B., 5, 11, 12, 167, 182,
Arend, R. A., 501 365, 376, 377, 378, 379, 380, 267, 405, 408, 417, 418, 419,
Arendt, H., 537 381 421, 433, 436, 437, 441, 442,
Arenson, K. W., 873 Azuma, H., 756, 759 443, 445, 448, 449, 473, 491,
Argyle, M., 945, 952, 977, 982, 983, 493, 520, 527, 528, 530, 539,
985 Babigian, H., 427 547, 548, 551, 552, 553, 569,
Armistead, L., 922 Bach, G. R., 149 570, 571, 572, 573, 574, 575,
Armour, J. D., 876 Bachman, M., 772 576, 577, 578, 579, 580, 581,
Armstrong, K., 452 Bachnik, J. M., 758 582, 583, 584, 585, 586, 587,
Arn, I., 416 Bäckman, L., 448, 548, 553, 578, 588, 589, 590, 591, 592, 593,
Arnett, M., 925 580, 593, 597, 601, 602, 609, 594, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599,
Arnheim, R., 470 610, 612 600, 601, 602, 603, 604, 605,
Aronoff, J. S., 991 Bacon, S., 624 606, 607, 608, 609, 610, 611,
Aronson, J., 834, 839, 845, 846, 870, Baddeley, A. D., 601 612, 613, 614, 615, 616, 617,
871 Bader, J. S., 237 618, 619, 620, 621, 624, 625,
Arrington, E. G., 849 Badley, E. M., 595 626, 627, 630, 632, 634, 636,
Arrington, R. E., 135 Baer, D., 150, 521 637, 638, 639, 640, 641, 643,
Arsenio, W. F., 25 Bahrick, L., 240, 241, 243, 245, 284 644, 668, 669, 670, 671, 676,
Arterberry, M. E., 241 Baillargeon, R., 61, 278, 303, 324, 757, 904, 915, 944
Arthur, M. W., 901 333, 339, 340, 341, 344, 345, Baltes-Götz, B., 554, 578
Aschersleben, G., 418, 436, 583, 353 Baltissen, R., 626, 628
596, 598, 599, 600, 609, 615, Baird, J., 777 Balzer, W., 531, 532
616 Bakan, D., 485 Bamberg, M., 185
Aseltine, R. H., 688 Bakeman, R., 500 Banaji, M., 315, 322, 327, 376, 379,
Asencio, M., 762 Baker, R. M., 689 380, 410, 750
Asendorpf, J. B., 20, 623 Bakhtin, M., 80, 200, 495, 748 Banarjee, R., 771
Ash, M., 171, 185 Baldwin, A., 143, 146 Bandura, A., 149, 150, 151, 264,
Ashman, S. B., 416 Baldwin, B. T., 126 364, 411, 424, 453, 481, 520,
Aslin, R., 195, 240, 605 Baldwin, D., 287, 308 522, 527, 536, 537, 539, 543,
Aspinwall, L., 416, 585, 607, 626 Baldwin, J. M., 2, 37, 39, 40, 60, 95, 547, 572, 587, 620, 634, 639,
Assanand, S., 634 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 811
Astington, J. W., 765, 777 113, 121, 122, 172, 187, 188, Bane, M. J., 682, 683
Astuti, R., 61 192, 199, 247, 248, 365, 494, Banich, M. T., 612
Atchley, R. C., 539, 544, 551 495, 501, 507, 508, 683, 762 Banker, H., 213, 245
Atkins, R., 49, 919, 945, 984 Baldwin, M. W., 762 Banks, M. K., 420
Atkinson, J. W., 522 Bales, K. R., 223 Banks, W. C., 834
Atnafou, R., 919 Bales, R. F., 496 Baquedano-López, P., 744
Atran, S., 717, 729, 777, 970, 971 Balkenius, C., 288 Barbano, H. E., 637
August, D. L., 548 Balkin, J. M., 871, 872, 873, 874 Barbee, A. H., 574
Austad, S. N., 576 Ballard, D., 287, 288, 305 Barber, B. L., 919
Austin, G., 321 Balle-Jensen, L., 725, 726, 756 Barbu-Roth, M. A., 384
Austin, J. A., 982 Balsano, A. B., 904, 930 Bargh, J., 63, 522, 554, 584, 621
Austin, J. L., 523 Baltes, B. B., 591, 594, 643 Bar-Joseph, Z., 237, 238
Averill, J. A., 534, 540 Baltes, M., 449, 527, 548, 553, 570, Barker, M., 135
Avia, M. D., 620, 633 576, 579, 580, 581, 582, 583, Barker, R., 146, 421, 481, 833
 Author Index 1001

Barkow, J. H., 623 Bausano, M., 725 Bengtson, V. L., 551, 622, 637, 670,
Barlow, C., 223 Bavelier, D., 279 697
Barnes, E., 135, 973 Bayer, U., 540 Benigni, L., 168
Barnes, H., 425, 426 Bayles, K., 498 Benish, G., 945
Baron, H., 834 Bayley, N., 134, 666 Ben-Shlomo, Y., 668
Baron-Cohen, S., 348 Bayley, R., 743, 744 Benson, C., 750
Barone, M., 226 Bean, R. A., 929 Benson, F. B., 612
Barrell, B. G., 183 Bearer, E., 1, 7, 156, 705 Benson, P., 12, 895, 896, 899, 900,
Barrett, A. E., 684 Bearer, R., 416 901, 902, 905, 906, 908, 911,
Barrett, D., 987 Bearman, P., 697, 705, 920, 922 912, 913, 914, 915, 918, 920,
Barrett, J., 959, 972, 975 Beasley, A. B., 223 921, 922, 923, 924, 925, 927,
Barrett, K. C., 321 Beattie, O., 538, 541 929, 930, 931, 948, 954, 971,
Barrett, L. F., 370, 372 Beatty, J., 172 982
Barron, F., 484 Beaudet, L., 223 Benton, L. A., 576
Barsalou, L. W., 284, 303 Beaver, A. P., 135 Benzeval, M., 684
Barth, C., 947, 974 Becker, B., 905, 915, 916 Bereiter, C., 349
Bartko, T., 768 Becker, H. S., 672, 682, 696 Berg, C. A., 597, 600, 613
Bartley, M., 683, 684, 692 Beckmann, J., 522, 536, 544 Berg, K., 819
Bartok, J., 376 Beckwith, L., 811 Berg, M., 945
Barton, S., 437, 582 Bee, H., 469 Berg, S., 614, 615
Bartsch, K., 301 Beer, R. D., 305 Bergeman, C. S., 819
Bashore, T. R., 601 Beier, M. E., 605 Bergenn, V. W., 128
Basinger, O., 245 Beile, H., 952, 963 Berger, C. R., 525
Basov, M., 194 Beilin, H., 342, 343 Berglund, M. L., 896, 897, 900, 901,
Basseches, M., 495, 646 Beit-Hallahmi, B., 945, 948, 949, 916
Basso, K., 745, 749 952, 977, 991 Bergman, L. R., 5, 49, 156, 417,
Batchelder, W. H., 774 Bekhterev, V. M., 200 420, 431, 432, 438, 442, 444,
Bates, E., 10, 279, 303, 304, 306, Belansky, E., 922 445, 446, 447, 449, 587, 589,
356, 357, 597, 605 Belfiore, P. J., 537 611, 668, 794
Bates, J. E., 498, 626, 627, 628, 629, Belfrage, H., 415 Bergson, H., 177, 193, 197
924 Belknap, J. K., 223, 224 Berkas, T. H., 919
Bates, K. E., 235 Bell, A. C., 928 Berkowitz, M. L., 981, 983
Bateson, G., 145 Bell, D. A., 875, 877, 878 Berkowitz, W., 915, 932
Bateson, P., 41, 46, 156, 421 Bell, M. A., 348, 384 Berlin, I., 717, 723, 724
Bateson, W., 222, 235, 239 Bell, R. Q., 134, 406, 425, 434, 545, Berlyne, D. E., 469, 508
Batson, C. D., 982, 983, 984 623 Berman, J. J., 750
Batterman, N., 534 Bell, S., 500, 846 Berman, R., 745
Battey, J. F., Jr., 224 Bellah, R. N., 755, 756 Bermudez, J. L., 54
Bauer, D., 685, 688 Beller, A. H., 694 Berndt, T. J., 426
Bauer, I. O., 233, 239 Bellugi, U., 213, 214 Bernheimer, L. P., 773
Baugh, J. R., 984, 985 Belnap, N. D., Jr., 532 Bernstein, J. H., 335
Baughman, J. W., 698 Belsky, J., 44, 426, 500 Bernstein, N. A., 298
Bauman, K. E., 920, 922 Belzen, J. A., 964 Berry, J. W., 721
Bauman, R., 742 Bem, D. J., 612, 642, 683, 692, Berry, T. D., 246
Baumeister, R. F., 543, 544, 549, 694 Bertelson, P., 240
619, 640, 752, 753 Ben-Avie, M., 913 Bertenthal, B. I., 246, 280, 302, 384
Baumert, J., 668 Benedict, R., 375, 376, 728 Berthier, N., 302
Baumrind, D., 406, 425, 485, 496, Benes, F., 385 Berthier, W. E., 241
527 Benetka, G., 170 Berzonsky, M., 537
1002 Author Index

Betts, S. C., 928 Bloom, B., 530, 587 Borstlemann, L. J., 90

Beuhring, T., 928 Bloom, L., 1, 24, 50 Bosman, E. A., 597, 605, 609
Bialystok, E., 571, 577, 596, 597, Bloom, M., 901 Bossom, J., 54
601, 602 Blossfeld, H.-P., 589, 673 Bothell, D., 339, 340, 347
Bickhard, M. H., 50 Bluck, S., 641 Bott, H., 126, 136
Biddle, F. G., 231 Blum, R. W., 914, 920, 922, 928 Botuck, S., 243
Bidell, T., 154, 155, 199, 315, 319, Blumberg, B., 289 Bouchard, T. J., Jr., 226, 614, 615,
325, 336, 341, 342, 343, 344, Blumberg, H. P., 409 702
347, 365, 383, 944 Blumenfeld, P., 768 Boudreau, J. P., 242
Biggs, J., 323 Blyth, D., 12, 683, 900, 901, 905, Bouffard, L. A., 687
Bigi, L., 548 906, 908, 912, 913, 915, 918, Bound, J., 689
Bijou, S. W., 150, 521 919, 920, 922, 925, 930 Bourdieu, P., 195, 518, 522, 725,
Binet, A., 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, Bobek, D. L., 904, 930 732, 763, 770, 773, 775
115, 118, 122, 132 Bock, H. H., 446 Bourgeois, J.-P., 382, 384, 385
Birch, H., 241 Bode, C., 620 Bourne, L., 752, 753
Birns, B., 143 Boehm, S. L., II, 235 Bovaird, J., 668
Biro, D., 192 Boesch, E. E., 24, 38, 49, 67, 188, Bovccaccini, M. T., 982
Birren, J. E., 491, 493, 551, 573, 195, 199, 200, 201, 517, 519, Bowen, K. R., 605
576, 581, 601, 640, 646 522, 525, 597, 717 Bowlby, J., 37, 151, 153, 265, 406,
Bishop, K. M., 225 Bogdahn, U., 609 500, 507, 815, 816
Bishop, Y. M. M., 446 Bogenschneider, K., 905 Bowman, R. E., 231
Bizzi, E., 298 Bohan, J. B., 549 Boyatzis, C., 944, 970, 971, 976,
Bjorklund, D., 41, 240, 600, 601, Bohman, M., 441 977, 978
605 Bohner, G., 639 Boyce, C., 837
Black, I. B., 215 Boje, D. M., 485 Boyd-Franklin, N., 835
Black, J. E., 235 Boklage, C. E., 232 Boyer, P., 959, 970
Blackhart, G. C., 629 Bolk, L., 506 Boykin, A. W., 835, 856, 857
Blackmore, C., 244 Bolles, C., 423 Bracken, B. A., 752
Blackstone, W., 986 Bolstrom, B., 906, 908, 915, 924, Bradley, R. M., 242
Blaich, C. F., 213 928, 929 Bradway, R., 589
Blair, C., 231 Bonanno, G. A., 621 Brainard, M. S., 244
Blair-Loy, M., 673 Boncinelli, E., 410 Brainerd, C. J., 332, 333, 531
Blakeney, C. D., 964, 982 Bond, M. H., 761 Brame, R., 688
Blakeney, R. F., 964, 982 Bond, T. G., 30, 350, 351, 352 Brammer, G. L., 415
Blanchard-Fields, F., 597, 606, 620, Bonilla-Silva, E., 832, 884 Branchi, I., 239
622, 636 Bontempo, R., 753 Branco, A. U., 174, 176, 178, 193,
Blane, D., 692 Boomsma, D. I., 447, 613, 614 195
Blaney, P. H., 554 Booth, A., 677, 682, 688, 703, Brand, M., 517, 522
Blanton, H., 636 913 Brandtstädter, J., 6, 51, 411, 517,
Blatt, S. J., 688, 753 Booth, C. L., 816 519, 520, 524, 525, 526, 527,
Blavich, E., 953 Borden, L. M., 13, 898, 900 528, 529, 530, 532, 534, 536,
Blazer, D., 540, 551, 552, 985 Boring, E. G., 2, 91 537, 538, 539, 540, 541, 543,
Bledsoe, C., 727, 736 Borkenau, P., 442 545, 548, 549, 550, 551, 552,
Blehar, M., 153, 377, 384, 740, 815 Borkowski, W., 362 554, 555, 570, 578, 579, 581,
Bleicher, J., 64 Born, D. E., 219 582, 584, 585, 587, 593, 620,
Blenkinsop, T. G., 320 Bornstein, M., 1, 4, 7, 10, 33, 36, 622, 628, 634, 635, 636, 637,
Block, J., 6, 49, 352, 446, 450, 478, 182, 612, 759, 779, 915 638, 641, 903, 904
480, 481, 530, 574, 619, 621, Borsboom, D., 431 Brant, C., 984
639, 666, 811 Borst, S., 376 Braver, T. S., 386
 Author Index 1003

Brazelton, T., 499, 545, 726 Broughton, J., 39, 60, 90, 108, 112, Bull, J. J., 231
Breazeal, C., 289 113, 494, 549 Bullock, D., 200, 248, 317, 318, 320,
Bredy, T. W., 236 Brouwer, C., 237 321, 330, 332, 339, 341, 344,
Brehm, J. W., 538, 544, 553, 691 Brower, A. M., 551 351, 354, 357
Brehm, S. S., 691 Brown, A. L., 317, 332, 349, 590, Bullock, H. A., 879, 880
Brehmer, Y., 604 605 Bullock, M., 545, 751
Breinlinger, K., 263 Brown, B., 488, 895, 901 Bulman-Fleming, B., 225, 230, 231
Bremner, J. G., 300 Brown, G. G., 409 Bumbarger, B., 896, 901
Brenner, S., 233 Brown, G. W., 424 Bumpass, L., 672
Brent, S. B., 269, 492, 574 Brown, J., 500, 639, 777 Bunge, M., 31, 57, 520, 528
Brentano, C., 898, 904, 915 Brown, L. B., 944, 952, 973, 974, Burgardsmeier, A., 974
Brentano, E., 409 977, 978 Burge, B., 201
Brentano, F., 51 Brown, T., 370 Burger, L. K., 745, 746
Bressler, R., 226 Bruce, D., 981 Burgeson, R., 683
Bretherton, I., 153, 377, 500 Brückner, H., 697, 705 Burgess, E. W., 698
Breuer, J., 115, 122, 380 Bruner, J., 153, 321, 325, 473, 494, Burgess, R. L., 647
Brewer, W. F., 102 507, 508, 517, 519, 521, 522, Burkert, W., 945
Breytspraak, L. M., 551 526, 530, 545, 546, 717, 741, Burkhart-Kasch, S., 235
Brickerhoff, M. B., 988 745, 750, 763, 911 Burns, B. D., 610
Brickman, P., 553 Brunstein, J. C., 541, 639 Burns, J., 930
Bridgman, P., 74 Brunswik, E., 213, 220, 246, 421 Burt, C., 129, 235
Briggs, C. L., 742 Brush, S. G., 170 Burton, L. M., 697
Briggs, J. L., 743, 744, 772 Bryant, P. E., 278 Burton, R. V., 150, 157
Brim, O. G., Jr., 5, 526, 527, 539, Buchanan, C. M., 429, 503 Busch, V., 609
544, 554, 569, 571, 573, 578, Buch-Bartos, K., 639 Busch-Rossnagel, N. A., 6, 14, 316,
579, 582, 584, 587, 619, 622, Bucher, A., 949, 959, 964, 973, 980, 492, 517, 528, 635, 798
639, 644 981, 988 Bush, K. R., 929
Brinker, G. P., 682 Buchmann, M., 680 Bushnell, E., 241, 242, 282
Broberg, G., 432 Bucholz, K. K., 702 Bushway, S., 688
Brody, G., 428, 696, 922 Buchsbaum, D., 289 Busnel, M. C., 232
Bronfenbrenner, U., 2, 5, 10, 11, 13, Buchsbaum, H. K., 317 Buss, A. H., 537, 648
14, 44, 50, 146, 156, 177, 195, Buck, K. J., 223, 224 Buss, D. M., 7, 41, 623
267, 341, 349, 408, 416, 421, Buck, L., 404 Butchart, R. E., 880
427, 480, 494, 503, 525, 535, Buckle, C. E., 227 Butler, S. C., 302
586, 613, 668, 669, 670, 679, Buckley, K. W., 130, 131, 132 Butter, M., 953
702, 703, 764, 793, 794, 795, Buckner, J. P., 747 Butterworth, G., 545
796, 797, 799, 802, 807, 810, Buckner, R. I., 601 Buunk, B. P., 640
814, 816, 818, 819, 821, 822, Budde, M., 602, 616 Bynner, J., 682, 692
823, 824, 833, 834, 841, 843, Buddin, B., 365 Byrd, M., 600
846, 847, 864, 865, 866, 878, Budwig, N., 185 Byrne, M. D., 339, 340, 347
881, 884, 900, 910, 911, 912, Buehler, C., 922 Byrnes, J., 12
918, 926 Bühler, C., x, 129, 135, 136, 139,
Brookins, G. K., 379, 835, 839, 857, 147, 167, 184, 517, 521, 541, Cabeza, R., 597, 602, 603, 616,
868 571, 620 627
Brooks, D. R., 46, 47 Bühler, K., 96, 98, 200 Cabral, E. A., 195
Brooks-Gunn, J., 13, 154, 408, 411, Bühler, R., 640 Cacioppo, J. T., 628, 629, 630
412, 430, 545, 546, 549, 682, Buhrmann, K., 242 Cahan, E. D., 91, 108, 109, 113,
685, 700, 900, 901, 905, 906, Buikhuisen, W., 410 119, 120, 741
912, 916 Buitelaar, J. K., 415 Cain, C., 745, 748, 749
1004 Author Index
Cairns, B., 154, 155, 406, 419, 426,
427, 433, 436, 441, 447, 683,
688, 794, 925
Cairns, R., 3, 6, 49, 90, 94, 99, 108,
109, 111, 114, 132, 151, 152,
154, 155, 156, 171, 176, 185,
197, 202, 213, 214, 219, 230,
240, 249, 316, 347, 405, 406,
408, 414, 415, 416, 417, 419,
426, 427, 432, 433, 436, 439,
440, 441, 447, 482, 521, 679,
683, 688, 701, 794, 991
Calamandrei, G., 216, 247
Caldwell, J. A., 981, 983
Callan, P., 340
Calverley, R., 381
Calvert, G., 240
Calvin, J., 946
Camburn, D., 668
Cameron, A. M., 547
Cameron, J., 772
Camic, C., 733
Campbell, B. H., 537
Campbell, D. T., 13, 349
Campbell, J. D., 150, 157, 633
Campbell, J. H., 247
Campos, J., 24, 25, 246, 280, 302,
321, 384
Camras, L. A., 372
Cannon, W. B., 416
Cantor, N., 541, 544, 545, 549, 551,
620, 636, 639, 751
Cantwell, D., 989
Cao, H. T., 845, 867
Caplan, G., 901
Caplovitz, D., 978
Capps, L., 745, 747, 748
Caprara, G. V., 438
Capriotti, R., 627, 629
Capron, C., 232
Carbonari, J. P., 641
Cardon, L. R., 612, 614
Care, N. S., 522
Carey, S., 61, 302, 338, 344, 345,
364, 372, 532, 777, 975
Carlier, M., 213, 220, 227, 228
Carlo, G., 633
Carlson, J. S., 603, 973
Carlson, M., 415, 437, 913, 914
Carlson, R., 441
Carlson, S. M., 741 Caudill, W., 725, 726, 739, 756, 758,
Carlson, V., 762 759
Carlton-Ford, S., 683 Cavilli-Sforza, L., 977
Carmichael, L., xi, xii, xiv, 90, 142, Cazden, C. B., 748
147 Ceci, S. J., 408, 586, 614, 679, 702,
Carnochan, P., 320, 325, 370, 371, 703, 799, 807, 819, 821, 822,
372 823, 824, 864, 865, 866, 889
Caron, A. J., 470 Celniker, S. E., 223
Caron, R. F., 470 Cerbone, F. G., 688
Carpendale, J. I. M., 63, 67, 68 Cerella, J., 601
Carpenter, P. A., 601 Cervantes, C. A., 744
Carpenter, W. B., 93 Cervone, D., 455, 619, 620, 640
Carr, L., 706 Challman, R. C., 136
Carriger, M. S., 613 Chalmers, D., 466
Carrithers, M., 753 Champagne, D. L., 236
Carroll, G., 867 Chan, A., 373, 374, 815
Carroll, J. B., 127, 132 Chandler, M., 27, 61, 269, 492
Carroll, V., 736 Chang, C. F., 835
Carstensen, L., 551, 553, 570, 579, Chang, H., 683
580, 591, 620, 629, 630, 639 Changeux, J.-P., 219
Carus, F. A., 527, 571 Chao, R. K., 759, 760
Carvalho, A. A., 202 Chapman, M., 61, 188, 197, 198,
Carver, C. S., 410, 522, 536, 537, 343, 517, 547, 601, 606
539, 540, 541, 543, 554, 620, Charles, N., 831
638, 639 Charles, S. T., 579, 620, 630, 639
Carver, L. J., 416 Charlesworth, B., 575
Casaer, P., 449 Charlesworth, W. R., 94
Case, R., 187, 199, 323, 333, 342, Charness, N., 367, 597, 606, 610
343, 344, 348, 350, 353, 357, Chartrand, T. L., 554
368, 369, 384, 545, 549, 601, Chase, W. G., 610
602, 944 Chassein, B., 539
Caspi, A., 233, 408, 415, 428, 429, Chaudhary, N., 168, 200
431, 434, 571, 613, 620, 621, Chaudhuri, A., 237
622, 623, 625, 628, 633, 642, Chaudhuri, J., 12
668, 679, 683, 684, 685, 688, Cheadle, J., 691
691, 692, 694, 695, 696, 703, Cheek, P. R., 553
705, 813 Chen, A., 223
Cassidy, E., 833, 846, 856, 859, 860, Chen, E. C., 748
861, 862, 870 Chen, H. M., 238
Cassidy, J., 377 Chen, L., 775
Cassirer, E., 58, 59, 956, 988 Cheng, C., 332, 354, 356
Castenell, L. A., Jr., 842, 857 Cheng, M.-F., 216
Castiglione, C. M., 227 Cheng, P. C.-H., 605, 609
Catalano, R. F., 896, 897, 900, 901, Cherif, C., 227, 228
906, 915, 916, 923, 925 Cherlin, A. J., 682
Cattell, A. K. S., 446 Chernoff, J. M., 184
Cattell, J., 102 Cherny, S. S., 613
Cattell, R. B., 446, 583, 596, 600, Chesler, E. J., 235
605, 613, 618, 622, 627 Chess, S., 477, 491, 493, 526, 623,
Catterall, J. S., 920 905
 Author Index 1005

Chestang, L. W., 834, 839, 845, 870, Coelho, N. E., Jr., 199 Connolly, J. A., 811
871, 872, 873 Cohen, D., 156, 637, 717, 723 Connolly, K. J., 167, 405
Cheung, T. S., 761 Cohen, J. D., 601 Conrad, H., 598
Chi, M. T., 263, 582, 606, 776 Cohen, L. B., 278, 470 Conrad, T., 385
Chiara, G., 640 Cohen, M. R., 19 Conway, A. R. A., 602
Child, I., 719, 725, 732 Cohen, N. H., 261 Cook, G., 190
Chin, H. R., 224 Cohen, N. J., 236, 612 Cook, M., 293
Chinen, A. B., 491 Cohen, R. D., 982 Cook, T. D., 683, 697, 924
Chisholm, R. M., 523 Cohen, R. L., 688, 696 Cooke, J., 260
Chomsky, N., 61, 303, 315, 338, Cohen, S. E., 500, 587, 811 Cookson, K., 28, 62
339, 340, 344, 346 Cohen, S. H., 587 Cooley, C. H., 111, 113, 485, 501
Christou, C., 343, 353 Cohler, B. J., 811 Cooley, D. H., 762
Chu, A. M., 238 Coie, J. D., 427 Coons, H., 424
Chudacoff, H. P., 524 Colby, A., 5, 156, 348, 449, 668, Cooper, B. P., 604
Chugani, H. T., 602 718, 722, 983 Cooper, C. R., 496, 771, 772, 773, 774
Church, M. A., 639 Colcombe, S., 604, 612 Cooper, H., 926
Church, R. B., 365 Cole, E., 276 Cooper, R., 881
Churchill, J. D., 420 Cole, M., 31, 66, 153, 200, 322, 347, Coopersmith, S. A., 753
Churchland, P., 282, 303 356, 522, 531, 576, 586, 597, Copeland, P., 624
Cianciolo, A. T., 607 644, 717, 718, 723, 725, 738, Coppotelli, H., 427
Cicchetti, D., 156, 248, 317, 377, 742, 751, 762, 765, 766, 770, Corbetta, D., 286, 293, 294, 295,
578, 637, 835, 905, 915, 916 772, 778, 794, 859, 869 296, 297
Cicero, M. T., 572 Coleman, H. L., 835 Corbit, J. D., 423
Clancy, P., 744 Coleman, J. C., 538, 543 Corcos, D. M., 296
Clark, C. D., 721, 741 Coleman, J. S., 401, 410, 421, 913 Corey, L. A., 819
Clark, C. L., 377 Coles, R., 748, 968 Cornelius, S. W., 448, 539, 586,
Clark, G. N., 500 Coley, J. D., 717, 729, 777 611, 676
Clark, H., 767 Coll, C. G., 705 Cornford, F. M., 56
Clark, J. E., 196 Collingwood, R. G., 732 Cornoni-Huntley, J., 637
Clark, K. B., 378, 871 Collins, L. M., 446, 668, 685 Corrigan, R., 332
Clark, M. K., 378 Collins, P. F., 628, 629 Corsaro, W. A., 721, 741, 743, 745,
Clark, M. P., 871 Collins, R. L., 225, 539 748, 770
Clarke, A. D. B., 527 Collins, S., 753 Cortés, D. E., 762
Clarke, A. M., 527 Collins, W. A., 1, 7, 10, 33, 36, 535, Cosmides, L., 41, 623
Clarke, P., 701 550, 580, 915 Costa, F. M., 901, 921, 923
Clarke-Stewart, K. A., 530 Collis, K., 323 Costa, P. T., Jr., 378, 488, 619, 620,
Clark-Kauffman, E., 689 Columbus, R., 244 621, 632, 633, 635, 637
Clausen, J. A., 574, 666, 669, 687, Colvin, C. R., 622, 639 Costall, A., 121
693 Comer, J., 913 Costanzo, P. R., 411, 439
Clayton, V. P., 491, 493 Commons, M. L., 323 Costello, E. J., 347, 679
Clifton, R., 241, 302 Compayré, G., 96, 98 Costigan, K. A., 629
Clingempeel, W. G., 808, 816 Condon, S. M., 496 Cote, L. R., 779
Clipp, E. C., 698, 821 Condorcet, J. A., 944 Cotman, C. W., 584, 594
Cloninger, C. R., 441, 620, 629 Conger, K. J., 924 Cott, C., 595
Clyman, R. B., 317 Conger, R. D., 428, 685, 688, 692, Cottrell, L., Jr., 145, 150, 930
Coats, E. J., 604, 639 696, 821, 924 Coulombre, A. J., 142
Coatsworth, J. D., 905 Connell, J. P., 548, 635, 906, 911, Courtier, J., 101
Cochran, D. L., 762 913, 914, 915, 924, 927, 932 Cousins, S. D., 757
Cochrane, C., 231 Connell, M. W., 366 Covitz, F. E., 811
Cocking, R., 542, 751, 752, 755, 758 Connelly, C., 238 Cowdry, E. V., 573
1006 Author Index

Cowen, E. L., 427 Csordas, T. J., 49 Davis, F. C., 238

Coyle, T. R., 364 Culver, C., 62 Davis, J. L., 282
Coyne, J. C., 553 Cunningham, C. L., 223, 224 Dawkins, R., 619
Crabbe, J. C., 223, 224, 225, 235, 239 Cunningham, M., 831, 838, 857, Dawson, G., 364, 416
Craig, I. W., 233 858, 859, 867, 869, 870, 881 Dawson, T. L., 30, 79, 323, 332,
Craik, F. I. M., 571, 577, 596, 597, Curnan, S. P., 898, 913 333, 334, 350, 351, 352
601, 602 Curran, P. J., 685 Dawson-Tunik, T. L., 387
Craik, K., 500 Cushman, P., 764 Deacon, T. W., 382
Cranston, M., 555 Dearing, R. L., 371
Crapo, L. M., 603 Dabholkar, A. S., 602 Deary, I. J., 616
Craven, R. G., 634 Daecke, M., 945 de Beer, G., 93, 94, 99
Crawford, C., 179 Dahlstrom, W. G., 127 DeCasper, A. J., 232
Cremin, L. A., 120 Dailey, M. E., 385 DeCharms, R., 837, 838
Crenshaw, K., 832, 867 Dalton, T. C., 128 Deci, E. L., 755
Crick, F., 170, 282, 403 Damasio, A., 38, 48, 49, 282, 285, Decker, S., 554
Crick, N. R., 25 370, 372, 386, 412, 415, 421, Deconchy, J.-P., 973
Criqui, M. H., 638 468 de Frias, C. M., 448
Crits-Christoph, P., 376, 377 Damasio, H., 421 DeFries, J., 340, 347, 498, 632, 866
Crocker, J., 542, 749 Damon, W., 2, 6, 11, 12, 27, 38, 63, de Gelder, B., 240
Crockett, L. J., 517 67, 69, 73, 336, 496, 533, 550, de Geus, E. J. C., 614
Croker, S., 605, 609 576, 756, 763, 845, 895, 896, Degrelle, H., 213
Cronbach, L. J., 104, 440, 446, 574, 900, 901, 913, 926, 983 Dehaene, S., 342
589 D’Andrade, R., 524, 576, 717, 718, DeKay, W. T., 623
Cronon, W., 969 723, 768 deLeeuw, N., 263
Croog, S., 990 Daner, F., 987 de León, L., 743
Crook, C., 751 Daniels, M., 230, 231 Delgado, R., 875, 876, 877, 878
Crosby, L., 917 Dannefer, D., 517, 519, 540, 586, Dell, T. C., 602
Crosnoe, R., 666, 691, 920 671 Dell’Angleo, T., 831, 887
Cross, D., 301, 777 Danziger, K., 170 Delle Fave, A. D., 471
Cross, W. E., Jr., 834, 835, 842, 843, Darity, W. A., Jr., 832 DelVecchio, W. F., 632
859, 867, 871, 878, 879, 880, Darley, J. M., 983 Dembo, T., 146
881, 882, 889 Darling, N. E., 817, 818 Demetriou, A., 26, 343, 353
Crossin, K. L., 216 Darlington, R. B., 444 Demick, J., 39, 69, 70
Crott, H. W., 616 Darwin, C., 159, 401, 412, 433 Dempster, F. N., 601
Crouch, C. H., 340 Daselaar, S. M., 602, 616 Dempster-McClain, D., 675
Crouter, A. C., 177, 416, 673, 677, Dasen, P. R., 721 Deng, F. M., 737
794, 799, 821, 833, 866, 913 Daston, L., 172 Dengler, D., 377
Crowell, J. A., 377 Datan, N., 586, 674 Denner, J., 773
Crowley, K., 72, 86, 364, 365, 590, Datnow, A., 881 Dennett, D., 51, 519, 521
603, 605, 775 Dauber, S. L., 680 Denney, N. W., 590
Crumbaugh, C., 769 Davey, M., 915 Dennis, A., 445
Crusio, W. E., 238 Davey, T. C., 613 Dent, C. H., 240
Crutchfield, F. L., 223 David, J. P., 641 Denz, H., 944
Csikszentmihalyi, I. S., 477 Davidson, A. L., 772, 845, 867 Depue, R. A., 628, 629
Csikszentmihalyi, M., 184, 423, Davidson, D., 521, 756 de Ribaupierre, A., 449
467, 468, 469, 470, 473, 477, Davidson, P., 67, 343, 533 Derks, F., 988
478, 479, 481, 484, 491, 497, Davidson, R. J., 627, 628, 629, 630 Derryberry, D., 555
498, 502, 504, 505, 506, 526, Davies, D. R., 537 Descartes, R., 56, 336, 337
538, 541, 900, 912, 918 Davies, K. I., 746 De Stefanis, I., 915
 Author Index 1007

Detterman, D. K., 234 Dollahite, D., 977, 978 Duncan, G., 5, 156, 682, 683, 688,
Devlin, B., 230, 231 Dollard, J., 144, 149 689
De Weerth, C., 291 Dominguez, E., 772 Duncan, S. C., 685
Dewey, J., 68, 69, 119, 120, 195, Donagan, A., 731 Duncan, T. E., 685
467, 470, 478, 497, 502, 508, Donahue, E. M., 634 Dunér, A., 425
750 Donahue, M. J., 948 Dunn, J., 413, 422, 738, 741, 777
Diacoyanni-Tarlatis, I., 373, 374 Donaldson, G., 417 Dupree, D., 831, 846, 847, 858, 859,
Diamond, A., 275, 283, 302, 348, Donde, S., 833, 846, 856, 859, 860, 862, 869, 870, 905
353, 613 861, 862 Duran, R., 919
Dias, M., 717, 718, 738, 756 Dong, H., 255 Duranti, A., 742
Diaz, I., 241 Dong, W., 604 Durham, W. H., 575, 576, 580, 596,
Diaz, R. M., 549 Donnelly, T., 945, 984 605, 644
DiBerardino, M. A., 219 D’Onofrio, B., 614 Durkheim, E., 944
Dick, A., 54, 61, 963 Doob, L. W., 144, 149 Durkin, K., 638
Dick, D. M., 233, 239, 428, 614, 702 Dorgan, K. A., 913, 927 Durlak, J. A., 901, 916
Dickinson, C. M., 590 Dorn, L. D., 686 Durnaret, A., 232
Dickson, M. W., 644 Dornbusch, S., 835, 838, 842, 920 Duster, T., 837
Dickson, N., 695 Dörner, J., 634 Duval, S., 537
Dickstein, S., 441 Dörner, O., 538 Duveen, G., 201
DiClemente, C. C., 641 Dorow, J., 235 Duyme, M., 232
Diedrich, F. J., 301 Dorsett, J. G., 644 Dweck, C. S., 517, 839
Diehl, M., 620, 634, 638 Dorsey, S., 922 Dworkin, J. B., 918
Diener, E., 630, 633 Douglass, S., 339, 340, 347 Dyer, A. B., 244
Diguer, L., 377 Doussard-Roosevelt, J. A., 628 Dyson, A. H., 745, 748
Di Loreto, O., 963, 990 Dowdney, L., 426
Dilthey, W., 521 Dowling, E., 12, 895, 898, 904, 915, Eaker, D. G., 915
Dimsdale, J. E., 438 918, 920, 930, 932, 948, 971 Eales, B. A., 231
Dionne, J. P., 751 Doyle, A., 811 Earls, F., 13, 415, 437, 913, 914, 926
Di Paula, A., 634 Drachman, D. B., 142 Early, D., 922
DiPietro, J. A., 629 Draganski, B., 609 Easterbrooks, M. A., 547
Diriwächter, R., 171, 176, 185, 195 Drake, D., 12, 912, 920 Easterlin, R. A., 676
Dishion, T., 427, 917 Draper, P., 44 Eaton, W. H., 698
Dissanayake, W., 753 Dray, W. H., 75 Eaves, L., 702, 819
Dittmann-Kohli, F., 550, 591, 596, Dreher, E., 550, 551 Ebaugh, H. R. F., 673
620, 634, 639, 904, 985 Driesch, H., 211, 218 Ebbinghaus, H., 103, 132
Dixon, R. A., 267, 347, 436, 548, Drillien, C. M., 799 Ebner, N. C., 579, 592, 631
551, 553, 569, 571, 578, 580, Drobnic, S., 673 Eccles, J. S., 12, 410, 411, 428, 429,
582, 583, 591, 593, 596, 606, Drummond, W. B., 119 503, 504, 506, 683, 690, 821,
611, 626, 632, 904 Dryfoos, J. G., 900, 901, 913 905, 917, 919, 922
Dixon, S., 735, 737, 738, 739 DuBois, D. L., 926 Eckenhoff, M. F., 382, 384, 385
Dodart, J.-C., 223 Du Bois, W. E. B., 867, 877, 880 Eckensberger, L. H., 38, 67, 200,
Dodd, B., 240 Dubow, E. F., 925 201, 517, 526, 717
Dodds, A. E., 190 Ducret, J.-J., 197 Edelman, G. M., 7, 27, 38, 46, 47,
Dodge, K. A., 25, 335, 416, 427, 924 Dudek, B. C., 235 48, 49, 216, 219, 240, 249, 260,
Doi, T., 718 Duke, K., 237 282, 285, 303, 410, 421, 434,
Dolan, C. V., 447, 613 Dukes, R., 920 582
Dolan, R. J., 606 Dulles, A., 986 Edelstein, W., 343, 348, 449, 526,
Dolby, R. G. A., 170 Dumais, S. T., 537 579, 752, 757
Dolcos, F., 602, 616 Dunbar, K., 368 Edenberg, H. J., 233, 239
1008 Author Index

Eder, R. A., 751, 757 Emler, N., 428 Fagan, J. F., 613
Edey, M. A., 507, 508 Emmerich, W., 7 Fagen, A. P., 340
Edwards, C. P., 321, 356, 364, 379, Emmons, R. A., 541, 631, 639 Fagen, R. M., 508
738, 739 Endler, N. S., 406, 419 Fairbairn, W. R. D., 60
Edwards, J. N., 682 Eng, P., 862 Fajans, J., 752
Edwards, L., 219, 222, 228, 249, 704 Engel, B. T., 627, 629 Falgout, K., 990
Efklides, A., 412, 413 Engel, S., 745 Farber, S. L., 233
Eggleston, E. P., 685 Engeström, Y., 765 Farde, L., 601
Eibach, R., 35 Engle, R. W., 597, 602, 605, 609, Farmer, E. M. Z., 156
Eichorn, D. H., 345, 348, 387, 574, 610 Farmer, M. E., 224
666 Engler, R., 187 Farmer, T. W., 156, 925
Eilers, R., 245 Ennis, M., 25, 30, 52 Farnham, S., 315, 322, 327, 376,
Eisen, M., 751 Ensel, M., 703 379, 380
Eisenberg, A. R., 743, 745 Ensing, D. S., 990 Farr, M. J., 776
Eisenberg, N., 902, 928 Entin, E. E., 543 Farrar, M. J., 321, 325, 333
Eisenstadt, S. N., 674 Entwisle, D. R., 680, 681 Farrington, D. P., 695
Eisner, T., 440 Ephron-Wertheim, T., 533 Farver, J. M., 742, 760
Ek, E. U., 777 Eppler, M. A., 246 Faulconer, J. E., 436
Ekman, P., 62, 373, 374, 628, 629 Epstein, D., 612 Faulkner, K. W., 974
Elbert, T., 609 Epstein, S., 411, 549, 751 Fawcett, P., 415
Elbogen, E. B., 633 Erickson, F. D., 721, 722 Feather, N. T., 522
Elder, G. H., Jr., 4, 6, 7, 13, 90, 347, Erickson, J. A., 948, 977 Featherman, D. L., 442, 581, 589,
428, 429, 438, 571, 573, 574, Erickson, K. G., 920 591
586, 587, 665, 666, 667, 668, Erickson, K. I., 611 Feffer, M., 380
670, 672, 674, 675, 676, 677, Erickson, M. A., 822 Fegley, S., 49, 752, 831, 846, 887
678, 679, 682, 683, 685, 686, Ericsson, K. A., 367, 415, 553, 582, Fein, G. G., 508, 530
688, 689, 691, 692, 693, 694, 593, 597, 605, 607, 609, 776 Feinberg, S. E., 446
696, 697, 698, 699, 700, 701, Erikson, E., 28, 37, 38, 60, 383, 469, Feinglos, M. N., 231
703, 813, 821, 822, 830, 904, 493, 508, 538, 541, 571, 579, Feldlaufer, H., 504
971 620, 621, 622, 625, 632, 669, Feldman, D. H., 956, 970
El-Khouri, B. M., 444, 446, 447, 670, 750, 842, 845, 846, 850, Feldman, J. A., 991
448, 668 949 Feldman, M. W., 7
Elkind, D., 958, 973, 974, 975 Erikson, J. M., 493 Feldman, S., 544
Ellen, J., 914 Erlenmeyer-Kimling, L., 230 Felser, G., 550
Ellias, M. F., 616 Escobar, A., 171 Fenichel, O., 117
Elliot, A. J., 639 Essed, P., 882 Fenigstein, A., 537
Elliott, D. S., 695 Essex, C., 174 Fensham, P., 423
Ellis, A., 537, 986 Essex, M. J., 637 Fentress, J. C., 433, 437
Ellis, L. A., 634 Estes, W. K., 146, 159, 329, 365 Fenwick, R. G., 225
Ellis, M. J., 508 Evans, C. A., 223 Ferber, T., 896, 900, 901, 906, 911
Ellison, C. G., 978 Evans, G. W., 794, 795, 797, 822, Féré, C., 100
Ellison, C. M., 835, 857 823 Ferguson, M. W. J., 231
Ellwood, D. T., 682, 683 Eyferth, K., 517 Ferguson, R. F., 913, 927
Elman, J., 10, 22, 279, 303, 306, Eyler Zorilla, L. T., 409 Fergusson, L. L., 433, 447
357, 596, 597, 605 Eysenck, H. J., 415, 499 Ferland, M. B., 241
Elson, S. E., 768, 770 Fernald, A., 759
Elster, J., 536, 750 Fabes, R. A., 902, 928 Fernandez, M., 835
Emde, R. N., 317, 422, 432, 527 Fabricius, W. V., 198 Fernhout, J. W., 964
Emerson, P. E., 151, 153 Fader, A., 744 Ferrar, M. J., 199
 Author Index 1009

Ferrer-Caja, E., 582 Flannery, D. J., 929 Fox, N. A., 348, 384
Ferri, E., 692 Flash, T., 298 Fox, N. E., 816
Feshbach, N., 902 Flavell, E. R., 762 Fox, P. W., 613
Festinger, L., 146, 538 Flavell, J., 2, 153, 332, 335, 341, Fraley, R. C., 373, 374, 377
Fetters, L., 293 346, 532, 548, 549, 600, 606, Francis, L., 98
Field, T., 496, 499, 500, 501 762, 844, 993 Frank, D., 837
Fiese, B. H., 441, 745 Fleeson, W., 541, 620, 638, 639, 641 Frank, L., 125
Figueiredo, L. C., 199 Fleishman, E. A., 352 Frankel, C., 75
Filipp, S.-H., 545, 551, 620, 626, Fleming, C. B., 906 Frankel, W. N., 224, 225
634, 638, 640, 641, 642 Fleming, W. P., 895, 901 Frankfurt, H. G., 525
Fillmore, C. J., 522 Fletcher, A. C., 817, 818 Franks, M. M., 634
Finch, C. E., 225, 575, 576, 584, 593 Flint, J., 224 Franz, S. I., 102
Fink, R. P., 335 Flom, R., 240, 245 Frasier, K., 922
Finkel, D., 613 Florin, P., 901, 915, 932 Fravel, D. L., 441
Fischbein, S., 819, 865 Flynn, J. R., 603, 611 Frazier, L. D., 636
Fischer, K., 30, 79, 154, 155, 187, Fodor, J., 303, 325, 339, 340, 343, Fredericks, L., 926, 932
199, 200, 213, 248, 291, 315, 344, 368 Fredricks, J., 768
316, 317, 319, 320, 321, 322, Fogel, A., 195, 240, 362 Fredrickson, B. L., 470, 638
323, 324, 325, 326, 327, 328, Folkman, S., 552, 635 Freedman, D., 499, 668
329, 330, 332, 333, 334, 335, Folkow, B., 628 Freeman, A. D., 875
336, 339, 340, 341, 342, 343, Foner, A., 573, 586, 587, 667, 668, Freeman, N., 241, 973
344, 347, 348, 349, 350, 351, 674, 675 Freeman, W. J., 273
352, 353, 354, 356, 357, 358, Fontaine, J. R. J., 374 Freeman-Moir, D. J., 60, 90, 108,
359, 360, 361, 362, 363, 364, Ford, D. H., 11, 30, 156, 177, 179, 112, 494
365, 366, 367, 368, 369, 370, 181, 182, 195, 196, 211, 213, Frese, M., 522
371, 372, 375, 376, 377, 378, 219, 228, 248, 249, 259, 267, Freud, A., 144
379, 380, 381, 382, 383, 385, 270, 432, 442, 446, 481, 522, Freud, S., 94, 114, 115, 116, 122,
386, 387, 388, 389, 521, 532, 528, 622, 679, 902 379, 380, 508, 948, 982, 993
533, 944 Ford, D. Y., 881 Freund, A., 570, 575, 576, 578, 579,
Fischer, L., 752 Fordham, S., 835, 836, 845, 878, 584, 585, 590, 591, 592, 593,
Fishbein, H. D., 247 879, 880, 881, 882 594, 595, 597, 601, 602, 605,
Fishbein, M., 410, 522 Forehand, R., 922 606, 608, 609, 620, 622, 630,
Fisher, C. B., 12, 156, 837, 898, 902, Foreman, N., 242, 245 631, 632, 635, 636, 638, 641,
905 Forest, K. B., 675 915
Fisher, D. M., 275, 292 Forgas, J. P., 406, 412, 422 Frey, K. S., 640
Fisher, L. M., 646 Forster, J. M., 641 Freyd, J., 277
Fisk, A. D., 603 Forsythe, A. B., 500 Friebe, S., 987
Fisk, J. E., 604 Foshee, V. A., 921, 928 Friedel, J., 768
Fiske, A., 718, 729, 753, 768, 770 Foss, B. M., 153 Friedes, D., 241
Fiske, D. W., 13 Foster, C., 552 Friedman, H. S., 623, 638, 652
Fiske, J., 99 Foster, K., 927 Friedman, J. M., 226
Fiske, S. T., 639 Foster, W., 916 Friedman, S. L., 542
Fitch, W. T., 338 Foucault, M., 775 Frielingsdorf, K., 973, 990
Fitts, P. M., 296 Foulkes, D., 380 Frierson, T., 441
Fivush, R., 701, 745, 747 Foushee, R., 242 Fries, J. F., 603
Flammer, A., 945 Fowler, J., 952, 959, 960, 964, 965, Friesen, W. V., 373, 374, 629, 630
Flanagan, C., 429, 503 966, 988 Frieze, I. H., 546
Flanagan, O., 750 Fox, B. A., 498 Frijda, N. H., 321, 370, 371, 534,
Flanders, M., 296 Fox, C. M., 30, 350, 351, 352 718, 766
1010 Author Index

Frith, C. D., 606 Gariépy, J.-L., 219, 220, 240, 249, Getzels, J., 484
Frohring, W., 604 433, 447, 701 Geuze, R., 449
Frye, D., 844 Gärling, T., 526 Gewirtz, J. L., 150
Fujita, F., 633 Garmezy, N., 578, 637, 805, 902, Ghisletta, P., 589. 598, 606, 611,
Fukuyama, F., 900 905, 919, 924 615, 616, 617, 624
Fuligni, A., 717, 718, 723, 767, 772 Garraghty, P. E., 420 Giaever, G., 238
Fulker, D. W., 613, 615 Garrett, H. E., 616 Gianutsos, J., 7
Fumerton, R., 78, 79 Garrett, L., 223 Gibbons, F. X., 640, 696
Funder, D. C., 619 Garrett, P. B., 744 Gibbs, J., 348
Fung, H., 551, 741, 744, 745, 746, Gartner, J., 986 Gibson, E. J., 241, 246, 287, 303
748, 749, 754, 759, 761 Gärtner, K., 225 Gibson, H., 977
Furby, R., 589 Garver, S., 989 Gibson, J. J., 63, 65, 241, 246, 309,
Furlong, M., 917 Garvey, C., 139, 741 316, 321, 518, 519, 546
Furrow, J. L., 968, 971 Garvik, B., 419 Gibson, K. R., 247
Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., 5, 156, 449, Garwood, M., 627, 629 Gibson, W. A., 446
668, 680, 683, 685, 686, 700, Gaser, C., 609 Giddens, A., 526, 763
900, 901, 908 Gaskins, S., 741 Gierer, A., 260, 261, 262
Furth, H. G., 67 Gasser, M., 291 Gigerenzer, G., 171, 172, 596, 605,
Fussell, E., 672, 686 Gatenby, D., 289 623
Gatz, M., 630 Gignac, M. A. M., 595
Gabrielian, S., 333, 334 Gauvain, M., 321, 765, 766 Gilbert, D. T., 520, 554
Gadamer, H. G., 58, 59, 63, 64, 65, Ge, X., 428, 685, 696 Gilbert, J. A., 103
73, 75 Geertz, C., 518, 522, 738, 755, 763 Gilbert, S. F., 46
Gage, F. H., 236, 420 Gegeo, D. W., 743, 744 Gilkey, L., 490
Gaines, B., 538 Gehlen, A., 518, 522, 580 Gillespie, A., 199, 201
Galambos, N., 408, 905 Geiselmann, B., 576 Gillett, G., 414
Galanter, E., 522, 536 Gelman, R., 54, 263, 278, 333, 341, Gilligan, C., 492
Galitski, T., 402 342, 344, 345, 346, 364, 372, Gilmore, P., 782
Gallagher, D., 641 778 Gilovich, T., 35
Gallese, V., 49, 53 Gelman, S. A., 343, 775, 776 Gimbel, C., 688
Gallimore, R., 736, 773 Genishi, C., 745 Ginzberg, S., 871
Gallistel, C. R., 263 Gentner, D., 368 Giorgi, A., 465
Galton, F., 102, 122, 437 George, L., 652, 689, 701, 703, 985 Giot, L., 237
Gambone, M. A., 906, 911, 912, Geppert, U., 546 Glaser, B. G., 672
913, 914, 924, 927 Gerard, J. M., 922 Glaser, D., 416
Gandhi, M. K., 969 Gerber, G. K., 237, 238 Glaser, R., 582, 776
Gangestad, S., 438 Gergen, K. J., 31, 517, 527, 530, Glatthorn, A. A., 782
Gannon-Rowley, T., 701 550, 745, 750, 753 Glei, D., 924
Garbarino, J., 900 Gergen, M. M., 550 Gleitman, L., 282
Garcia, C. A., 225 Gerlai, R., 238 Glenberg, A., 284, 287, 303
Garcia, R., 60, 343, 532, 605 Gershkoff-Stowe, L., 276, 279, 291, Glendinning, A., 429
Garcia Coll, C., 1, 156, 416, 771, 292 Gleser, G. C., 446
772, 774 Gershman, E. S., 427 Glotzbach, S. F., 725
Garcia-Mila, M., 45, 72 Gerton, J., 835 Glueck, E., 699
Gardner, C. O., 705 Gerzén, M., 418 Glueck, S., 699
Gardner, H., 321, 343, 367, 484, Gesell, A., 132, 133, 134, 297, 947 Gmünder, P., 946, 952, 959, 961,
485 Gest, S. D., 156, 919, 924 963, 964, 965, 966, 978, 980,
Gardner, J., 243, 247, 469 Gestsdottir, S., 12, 13, 895 981, 988
Gardner, W. P., 498 Getz, K., 379 Gnos, C., 964

Gobet, F., 605, 609
Gocayne, J. D., 223
Goddard, C., 722, 732
Goddard, H. H., 103, 126
Godin, A., 959, 974
Goethe, J. W., 993
Gogate, L., 284
Goldberg, D. T., 883
Goldberg, L. R., 604, 619, 621
Goldberg, S., 153
Goldberger, A. L., 273
Golden, G. Y., 655
Goldfield, B. A., 348
Goldfried, J., 986
Goldfried, M. R., 928
Goldin, P. R., 409
Goldin-Meadow, S., 213, 349, 364,
365, 745, 765
Goldman, A. I., 525
Goldman, D., 227
Goldman, R., 943, 958, 966, 973
Goldman-Rakic, P., 281, 382, 384,
385
Goldsmith, D., 725, 726
Goldsmith, H. H., 321
Goldstein, K., 187, 190
Goldstein, M. H., 266
Goldstein, W., 725, 726, 756
Goldthorpe, J. H., 681
Gollin, E. S., 527
Gollwitzer, P. M., 522, 540, 544,
553, 584, 622, 639
Göncü, A., 498, 499, 734, 741, 761
Gone, J. P., 749
González, N., 744
Goode, W. J., 685
Goodenough, F. L., 125, 126, 127,
135, 136, 147
Goodfield, J., 59
Goodhouse, J., 702
Goodnow, J., 321, 413, 421, 441,
535, 550, 717, 718, 723, 725,
742, 743, 752, 766, 767, 768,
769, 770, 773, 775, 776
Goodwin, B., 46, 261, 341, 451
Goodwin, C., 105, 742
Goodwin, M. H., 745, 748
Goodwyn, S. W., 54
Goody, E., 736
Author Index 1011
Goossens, L., 604 Grant, R. J., 236
Gopher, D., 602 Gray, E. K., 632
Gopnik, A., 762 Gray, J., 289
Gordon, C., 551, 622, 637 Gray, J. A., 629
Gordon, J., 688 Gray, J. R., 386
Gordon, W., 334 Gray, L., 245
Gore, J. C., 409 Gray, R. D., 219, 249
Gore, S., 688 Grayling, A. C., 79
Gorman, B. K., 703 Grebogi, C., 277
Gorman-Smith, D., 926 Green, F. L., 548, 762
Gorsuch, R., 944, 945, 948, 952, Green, M. C., 768, 770
953, 977, 978, 980, 984, 988 Green, S. H., 385
Goss, T., 833, 834, 835, 846, 856, Greenberg, G., 2, 7, 36, 156
859, 860, 861, 862, 867, 878, Greenberg, M. T., 896, 901, 926,
879, 880, 881 932
Gotanda, N., 832, 867 Greenberger, E., 426
Gottesman, I. I., 471, 613 Greenfield, P., 717, 718, 721, 723,
Gottfried, A. E., 503 751, 752, 755, 758
Gottlieb, A., 717, 720, 969 Greeno, J. G., 346
Gottlieb, D. E., 365 Greenough, W. T., 235, 236, 604
Gottlieb, G., 7, 9, 27, 39, 40, 46, 53, Greenspan, R. J., 223, 224, 230
94, 95, 99, 111, 142, 156, 160, Greenwald, A. G., 315, 322, 327,
169, 170, 177, 178, 187, 210, 376, 379, 380, 410, 538, 619
211, 215, 217, 218, 219, 220, Greenwold, M. A., 986
221, 222, 228, 231, 232, 233, Gregory, A., 12, 901
241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, Greve, W., 520, 523, 538, 539, 548,
247, 248, 259, 296, 318, 341, 549, 551, 552, 553, 554, 578,
408, 416, 417, 436, 449, 519, 579, 584, 589, 620, 634, 637,
529, 584, 603, 605, 728, 867, 641, 949
902, 903 Griffin, J. J., Jr., 538
Gottmann, J. M., 179 Griffin, P., 200
Gould, O. N., 606 Griffiths, P. E., 219, 249
Gould, S., 6, 8, 42, 46, 92, 93, 94, Grimm, J., 572
106, 116, 122, 222, 474, 506, Grisso, T., 837
507, 508, 519, 529, 576, 605, Groeben, N., 523
947, 986 Groffmann, K. I., 572
Goulet, L. R., 569, 571, 573, 589, Groos, K., 508
604 Gross, C. G., 7
Graber, M., 303 Gross, J. J., 630
Graf, P., 437, 597, 644 Gross, T. N., 831
Graham, M. A., 553 Grossberg, S., 318, 332, 357
Graham, S., 8, 449 Grossman, J. B., 917, 926
Gramer, M., 438 Grossmann, K., 739, 740, 757
Granger, R. C., 914 Grossmann, K. E., 739, 740, 757
Grangvist, P., 979 Grotevant, H. D., 38, 441, 496
Granic, I., 240 Gruber, H., 363, 367, 587
Granier-Deferre, C., 232 Grun, P., 227
Granott, N., 321, 349, 363, 364, 365, Grusec, J. E., 151
366, 367, 368, 369 Guardo, C. J., 549
1012 Author Index

Guenther, F. H., 318, 357 Hakim-Larson, J., 633, 636 Haring, M. J., 551
Guerra, G., 185 Haldane, J. B. S., 225 Harkness, S., 430, 449, 526, 717,
Guilford, J. P., 486, 487 Hale, S., 601 737, 738, 763, 766
Guisinger, S., 753 Halevy, E., 58 Harlow, H. F., 151, 152
Gullotta, T. P., 928 Haley, A., 613 Harlow, R. E., 639
Gump, P. V., 833 Halfon, N., 668, 914 Harman, G., 78
Gunnar, M. R., 547 Halford, G. S., 323, 342, 344, 384, Harmon, R. J., 527
Güntürkün, O., 609 601 Harmon-Jones, E., 629
Guo, G., 700, 703 Hall, G. S., 91, 94, 96, 105, 106, Harms, E., 973
Guo, S. W., 231 107, 121, 123, 125, 129, 144, Harold, R. D., 905
Gurwitsch, A., 194 167, 383, 573, 946, 947 Harpalani, V., 830, 831, 833, 834,
Gustafson, S. B., 411, 427, 430, Hall, S., 876, 882 835, 838, 839, 841, 843, 845,
439, 447 Hallett, D., 27 846, 848, 856, 859, 860, 861,
Gut, U., 983 Hallowell, A. I., 762 862, 864, 865, 866, 867, 869,
Guthke, J., 603 Hallqvist, J., 668 870, 871, 878, 879, 880, 881,
Guthrie, D., 773 Halperin, D., 994 882, 883, 884, 885, 886, 887
Guthrie, E. R., 131, 143 Halpern, C. T., 246, 247 Harper, L. V., 134
Guthrie, R., 834 Halverson, H. M., 292 Harré, R., 49, 414, 451, 523
Gutiérrez, K. D., 766 Hamagami, F., 583, 589, 616 Harrington, H., 233, 668, 685
Gutiérrez Peña, E., 5, 156 Hamaguchi, E., 754 Harris, C., 930
Gutman, L. M., 917, 921 Hambrick, D. Z., 597, 602, 605, Harris, D. B., 569, 573, 580
Guttman, L., 350 609, 610 Harris, J. J., 881
Gutzmann, H., 603, 612 Hamburg, D. A., 899 Harris, K. M., 700, 920, 922
Hamburger, V., 92, 217, 252 Harris, P. L., 345, 959, 970, 971,
Haan, N., 574, 666 Hamer, D., 624 976
Haber, D., 919 Hamerle, R., 589 Harris, T. O., 424
Habermas, J., 66 Hamilton, M. A., 896, 897, 902, Harris, W. A., 235
Habermas, T., 915 909, 911, 918 Harrison, C. R., 612
Hadamard, T., 484 Hamilton, S., 896, 897, 902, 909, Harrison, J., 283
Haden, C. A., 701 911, 918, 927 Hart, D., 27, 49, 67, 69, 550, 752,
Haeckel, E., 93, 94, 123 Hammerstein, P., 575, 584, 587, 756, 757, 919, 945, 984
Hagan, J., 693 603, 623 Hart, L. M., 468
Hagen, E. H., 575, 584, 603 Han, J. J., 746 Hart, T., 296, 968, 969
Hager, I., 945 Hand, H. H., 350, 378 Hartel, G. D., 923
Hagerman, S., 536 Hanisch, H., 973 Hartelman, P. A., 357
Hagestad, G. O., 524, 550 Hanks, W. F., 742 Harter, S., 109, 154, 330, 332, 352,
Haggerty, K. P., 906 Hanmer, T. J., 492 365, 379, 411, 525, 526, 544,
Haggerty, R. J., 901 Hansen, D., 918 545, 546, 549, 633, 751, 753,
Hagne, I., 387 Hanson, N. R., 74, 75, 76, 343 757
Hahn, A., 927 Hansson, R. O., 591, 611, 644 Hartman, J. L., 419
Hahn, H., 602 Harachi, T. W., 906 Hartmann, T., 831, 846, 847, 862,
Hahn, S., 612 Harackiewicz, J. M., 543 905
Haidt, J., 692, 717, 718, 738, 756 Haraway, M. M., 7 Hartshorne, H., 137, 147, 983
Haig, J., 632 Hardel, R. A., 977 Hartup, W. W., 419, 427, 696
Haight, W., 741, 746, 749, 769 Harding, S., 36 Hartwell, L., 419
Hailman, J. P., 95, 121 Hardy-Brown, K., 498 Harvey, J. H., 641
Haith, M. M., 613 Hare, B. R., 842, 857 Harwood, R., 761, 762
Haken, H., 271 Hareven, T. K., 668, 670, 678 Hasher, L., 601
 Author Index 1013

Hasin, D., 706 Heil, F. E., 525, 543, 550 Herzbrun, M., 978
Hastings, C. T., 620, 634, 638 Heiman, R. J., 718, 722, 723 Herzog, A. R., 619, 633
Hastings, T. J., 666 Hein, A., 54 Hess, B., 437
Hatano, G., 413, 421, 441, 765, 766, Hein, K., 895 Hess, R. D., 756
767, 768, 770, 775, 776, 777, Heine, S. H., 753, 756, 760 Hess, T. M., 606
778 Heine, S. J., 760 Hetherington, E. M., 1, 7, 10, 32, 33,
Hatchett, S. J., 762 Heinz, W. R., 680 36, 571, 574, 682, 808, 816,
Hathaway, W., 989 Heinze, H., 630 818, 837
Haugaard, J. J., 441 Hektner, J., 468 Hettema, P. J., 409
Hauser, M. D., 338 Held, R., 54 Hewlett, B. S., 737
Hauser, S., 471, 497 Helmchen, H., 11, 576, 614 Heydens-Gahir, H. A., 591, 595
Havighurst, R. J., 83, 469, 541, 573, Helmreich, R. L., 485 Hicinbothom, G., 213
586, 669, 698, 850, 869, 898 Helms-Erikson, H., 673 Hicks, D. A., 748
Hawkins, J. D., 695, 896, 897, 900, Helson, H., 423 Higgins, E. T., 327, 371, 525, 538,
901, 906, 915, 916, 925 Helson, R., 619, 633, 638 545, 549, 751, 752
Hay, D., 156, 968, 969 Helsper, W., 988 Higgins, R. L., 538, 539
Hayek, F. A., 517 Hempel, C. G., 73 Higuchi, S., 702, 706
Hayes, D. S., 427 Hencke, R., 316, 350, 378 Hilgard, E. R., 380
Hayes, J. R., 367 Henderson, B. B., 498 Hilgard, J., 128
Hayes-Roth, B., 542 Hendrickson-Smith, J., 930 Hill, P. C., 954
Hayes-Roth, F., 542 Hendry, L. B., 429 Hill, R., 670, 677, 684
Hayhoe, M., 287, 288 Henfry, A., 212 Hinde, R. A., 96, 156, 219, 249,
Hayley, J., 145 Hengst, J. A., 722, 742, 749, 778 421, 426, 445
Hayne, H., 286 Hennig, K., 984 Hintz, N., 913, 914, 927
Haynes, N. M., 913 Henri, V., 101, 102, 103, 118, 132 Hipp, T., 953
Hayward, M. D., 703 Henry, D. B., 926 Hirata, S., 169, 192
Hazan, C., 441 Henry, K. R., 231 Hirsch, J., 5, 7, 9, 11
He, A. W., 744 Heppen, J. B., 631 Hirschfeld, L. A., 343
Hearne, S., 155 Herbener, E., 688, 696 Hirschfield, P., 688
Hearst, E., 90 Herbst, D., 187 Hirschl, T. A., 682
Heath, A. C., 234, 702, 819 Herbst, J. H., 633 His, W., 211
Heath, S. B., 743, 745, 746, 749 Herder, J. G., 518 Hitlin, S., 679, 701
Heatherington, E. M., 915 Herdt, G., 717, 718 Hitschmann, E., 949
Heatherton, T. F., 544 Hergenhahn, B. R., 845 Hitzemann, R., 223, 224
Hebb, D. O., 469, 600 Herlitz, A., 611 Ho, D. Y., 752
Heber, M., 498 Herman, M., 697, 924 Ho, M.-W., 7, 225, 247
Heckhausen, H., 522, 544, 546, 547, Hermans, H. J., 201, 620, 638 Hoagwood, K., 12, 13, 837
548, 549 Hernandez, D. J., 696 Hobart, C. J., 633, 636
Heckhausen, J., 517, 528, 539, 548, Herrling, S., 919 Hobfoll, S. E., 593
551, 552, 578, 579, 586, 590, Herrmann, U., 296 Hobson, R. P., 38, 67
620, 621, 626, 631, 634, 635, Herrnstein, R. J., 7, 155 Hochstein, M., 668
640, 641, 671, 904 Herschberg, T., 900 Hock, H. S., 277
Heffler, B., 418 Hershberger, S. L., 613 Hodge, J. A., 227
Heft, H., 833 Hertenstein, M. J., 384 Hodgson, D. M., 628
Hegel, G. W. F., 34, 59, 61, 62, 530 Hertzman, C., 668, 684 Hofer, M., 152, 682
Heider, K., 373, 374, 376 Hertzog, C., 587, 589, 600, 604, Hofer, S. M., 340, 347, 364, 583,
Heidmets, M., 517 612, 613, 632, 688 597, 668, 682, 702
Heidrich, S. M., 640 Herzberg, P. Y., 641 Hofferth, S. L., 686
1014 Author Index

Hoffman, E. P., 225 Horney, K., 145 Hurford, J., 288

Hoffman, J. P., 688 Horowitz, F. D., 1, 7, 9, 10, 130, Hurlock, E. B., 132
Hoffman, L. W., 233 419, 856, 857 Husén, T., 432
Hoffman, M. L., 902 Horowitz, H., 54, 60 Husserl, E., 467
Hogan, A. E., 323, 332, 348, 385, Horvath, J. A., 606 Hutchings, M. E., 244
387 Horwitz, A. V., 703 Hutchins, E., 267
Hogan, D. P., 670 Houdé, O., 601 Huttenlocher, P. R., 282, 385, 602
Hogan, N., 298 House, J., 552, 683 Huxel, K., 946, 947
Hogan, R., 19, 80, 139 Howard, A., 717 Huxhold, O., 591, 597, 603
Hogarty, P. S., 345, 348, 387 Howe, G. W., 818 Huxley, J. S., 506
Hoge, D., 959, 978 Howrigan, G., 737 Huxley, T. H., 212
Höhn, E., 521 Hoyer, W. J., 597, 600 Hyde, K., 958, 973, 980
Holahan, C. K., 574, 638, 666, 693 Hrebickova, M., 620, 633 Hyman, J. B., 914
Holden, C., 413 Hsu, A. Y. C., 631 Hymes, D., 742
Holden, M. T. G., 183 Hua, J. Y., 320
Holland, D., 718, 745, 748, 749 Huang, L. N., 835 Iacono, W. G., 615
Holland, J. H., 362 Hubbard, E. M., 384 Ialongo, N., 917
Holland, P. W., 446 Hubbard, J. J., 919, 924 Ickes, W., 543
Holliday, B. G., 857 Hubel, D. H., 382, 422, 424 Ide, E., 760
Holliday, S. G., 492 Huber, H. P., 438 Ideker, T., 402
Hollingworth, H. L., 129, 573, 596 Hudley, E. V. P., 749, 769 Idler, E., 985
Hollister-Wagner, G. H., 921, 928 Hudspeth, W. J., 388 Ignatiev, N., 832
Holloway, B. E., 926 Huebner, A. J., 928 Iinuma, K., 387
Holmberg, D., 633 Hugdahl, K., 628, 629, 630 Ikegama, Y., 756
Holmes, J. G., 762 Hughes, D., 775, 898, 913 Imanishi, K., 179, 186
Holt, L. E., 131 Hughes, E., 669 Imazeki, H., 702, 706
Holt, R. A., 223 Huinink, J., 700 Immordino-Yang, M. H., 321, 323,
Hommel, B., 418, 436, 583, 596, Huizenga, H. M., 176, 177, 183, 325, 333, 335, 352, 353, 367,
597, 598, 599, 600, 602, 610, 184, 442, 607, 614, 685 388
616 Huizinga, J., 508 Inagaki, K., 766, 775, 777, 778
Honeycutt, H., 41, 179, 241, 416, Huizink, A. C., 415 Inghilleri, P., 471
417 Hull, C. L., 131, 143, 149, 408 Ingold, T., 41, 46, 49, 755, 762, 763
Honzik, M. E., 666 Hultsch, D. F., 603, 632 Ingvar, M. I., 604
Honzik, M. P., 574, 666 Humble, K., 415 Inhelder, B., 334, 532, 534
Hood, B., 302 Humle, T., 192 Inoue-Nakamura, N., 192
Hood, K. E., 156, 213, 214, 219, Humphreys, L. G., 613 Intieri, R. C., 598
230, 240, 249, 415, 482 Hundeide, K., 169 Ippolito, M. F., 925
Hood, L., 402 Hundert, E. M., 62, 79 Irby, M., 900, 906, 911, 912
Hood, R., 944, 945, 948, 952, 953, Huneycutt, W. S., 244 Irion, J. C., 636
977, 978, 980, 984, 988, 990 Hung Chan, Y., 752 Irizarry, N. L., 761
Hoogstra, L., 717, 743, 744, 749, Hunsberger, B., 944, 945, 948, 952, Irvine, J. J., 839, 858
761 953, 977, 978, 980, 984, 988 Irvine, S., 413
Hooker, C. A., 197 Hunsberger, L., 978 Irwin, C. E., 496
Hooker, K., 620, 636 Hunt, D. E., 425 Isaacowitz, D. M., 579, 620, 630,
Hopkins, B., 416, 449 Hunt, J. M., 153, 345, 350, 384, 387, 639
Hoppe-Graff, S., 44 422 Isabella, R. A., 500
Hoppe-Rooney, T., 898 Hunt, S. P., 216, 247 Ishii, K., 769
Horn, J. L., 127, 132, 340, 347, 364, Hunter, J. P., 918 Israel, Y., 237
417, 583, 597, 600, 613, 618 Huntington, S. P., 945, 994 Ivey, P. K., 791
 Author Index 1015

Ivinson, G., 201 Jensen, D. D., 130 Jones, S., 259, 604
Iwanaga, M., 735 Jensen, L. A., 718, 721, 738 Jones-Walker, C., 831
Izard, C. E., 62, 63, 499 Jensen, P., 12, 13 Jopling, D., 751
Izzo, L. D., 427 Jernigan, T. L., 213, 214 Jordan, J., 579
Jersild, A. T., 126, 128 Jörns, K. P., 985
Jaakola, R., 975 Jersild, C. L., 126 Josephs, I. E., 199
Jackendoff, R., 61 Jessberger, S., 236 Josephs, R. A., 758
Jacklin, C. N., 422 Jessor, R., 425, 718, 722, 901, 921, Josephsson, S., 612
Jackson, C., 921, 928 923 Joshi, H., 682
Jackson, D. C., 627, 628, 629, 630 Jessor, S. L., 425 Joyner, E. T., 913
Jackson, D. D., 145 Jiang, C. H., 255 Julien, J.-P., 223
Jackson, J., 54, 670, 762 Jiang, M., 237 Jung, C. G., 479, 949
Jacob, F., 437 Jihui, Y., 821 Juraska, J. M., 236
Jacobs, C., 833, 846, 856, 859, 860, Joanen, T., 231 Just, M. A., 601
861, 862 Joas, H., 190
Jacobs, F., 156, 169, 918 Joe, S., 838 Kaas, J. H., 283
Jacobs, J., 103 Johanson, D. C., 507, 508 Kafatos, F. C., 440
Jacobson, K., 263, 703 Johansson, B., 615 Kagan, J., 5, 49, 378, 415, 417, 438,
Jacobson, M., 221 Johansson, S. E., 434 442, 523, 527, 528, 531, 546,
Jaeger, D. A., 689 Johansson, T., 430 549, 574, 584, 612, 613, 619,
Jahoda, G., 200, 716, 718, 741 John, E. R., 388 622, 623, 628, 644, 666, 685,
Jahrsdoerfer, R., 245 John, O., 618, 634 811
Jain, E., 630 Johnson, C. N., 970, 976 Kager, A., 964, 966
James, W., 68, 69, 111, 123, 161, Johnson, D., 849 Kagitcibasi, C., 168
409, 411, 412, 414, 466, 497, Johnson, D. J., 857 Kahana, B., 526
502, 509, 549, 731, 951, 974, Johnson, D. R., 682 Kahana, E., 526
983 Johnson, F., 753 Kahlbaugh, P., 494
Janet, P., 188, 189 Johnson, M., 48, 54, 287, 319, 340, Kahn, R. L., 551, 580, 587
Janicki, D., 978 506, 573, 586, 587 Kahneman, D., 540
Janis, I. L., 698 Johnson, M. E., 667, 668, 674, 675 Kahoe, R. D., 985
Janney, J. E., 129, 573 Johnson, M. H., 10, 279, 303, 306, Kail, R., 597, 601
Janoff-Bulman, R., 553, 639 418, 597, 602, 605, 613 Kainz, H. P., 54, 59
Janson, H., 411 Johnson, M. K., 357, 691 Kakar, S., 468, 718, 749, 762
Jantsch, E., 178 Johnson, M. L., 348, 383 Kalicki, B., 550
Jaret, C., 832 Johnson, P. M., 636 Kalin, N. H., 627, 628, 629, 630
Jarjoura, G. R., 682 Johnson, T. E., 576 Kalverboer, A. F., 416, 449
Jarrett, R. L., 832, 835, 856 Johnson, T. R. B., 629 Kamin, L. J., 127, 129
Järvelä, S., 412 Johnson-Laird, P. N., 500 Kaminski, G., 533
Jarvis, G., 994 Johnson-Powell, G., 831 Kamlah, W., 555
Jasievicz, J., 438 Johnston, T. D., 219, 222, 226, 228, Kamm, K., 294
Jeannerod, M., 298 242, 246, 249, 704 Kandel, D. B., 427, 695
Jeeves, M., 410 Jolly, A., 507 Kandel, E. R., 441
Jelicic, H., 6 Jones, D. L., 881 Kane, M. J., 601, 602, 603
Jenkins, E., 321, 325, 365 Jones, E., 115, 116 Kanfer, F. H., 536
Jenkins, J. J., 100 Jones, G., 605, 609 Kanowski, S., 576
Jenkins, J. M., 820 Jones, H. E., 127, 131, 598 Kant, I., 61, 339, 368
Jenkins, W. M., 283 Jones, J., 920, 922 Kanwisher, N., 345
Jennings, H. S., 102, 121 Jones, M. C., 126, 130, 131, 134, Kaplan, A., 74
Jennings, S., 378 666 Kaplan, B., 60, 190, 432, 951, 966
1016 Author Index

Kaplan, M. S., 838 Kelvin, P., 438 King, A. P., 218, 266
Kaprio, J., 428 Kemmelmeier, M., 750 King, P. E., 932, 944, 952, 971
Kapstein, M., 750 Kempermann, G., 236, 420, 584, King, P. M., 333, 358, 386
Karasawa, M., 761 604, 610, 612 King, V., 821
Kardiner, A., 833, 835, 842, 867, Kendler, H. H., 154 Kingdom, D., 989
879 Kendler, K. S., 702, 705 Kingstone, A., 242
Karli, P., 408, 411 Kendler, T. S., 154, 348 Kinney, L., 629
Karmel, B. Z., 243, 247 Kennedy, B., 320, 329, 330, 332, Kinney, M. D., 152
Karmiloff-Smith, A., 10, 43, 61, 348, 349, 354, 356, 357, 358, Kinoshita, T., 702, 706
279, 303, 306, 357, 597, 605, 359, 360, 361, 362, 438 Kiraly, M., 237
777 Kennel, J., 839, 844, 890, 891 Kirkpatrick, J., 499, 717, 718
Karoly, P., 536, 537, 544, 641 Kenny, P., 242, 245 Kirkpatrick, L., 979
Kasai, H., 235 Kent, R. D., 266 Kirkwood, T. B. L., 225, 576, 597,
Kaschak, M., 284, 287, 303 Kent, T., 66 623, 628
Kashiwagi, K., 756 Kerckhoff, A. C., 680, 681 Kirschner, S. R., 199
Kastenbaum, R., 541 Kermoian, R., 384 Kirshner, B., 918
Kasulis, T. P., 753 Kern, D., 539 Kirson, D., 372, 373
Kath, W. L., 320 Kerr, J., 153 Kitayama, S., 354, 375, 717, 718,
Katz, B. B., 240 Kerr, M., 406, 410, 425, 428, 430 722, 723, 730, 749, 752, 753,
Katz, D., 139 Kertzer, D. I., 668, 672, 674 754, 756, 757, 758, 760, 762,
Katz, L. F., 688 Kessel, F., 717, 718, 723, 725, 742, 763, 769, 859, 860
Katz, R., 139 764, 766, 776 Kitchener, K. S., 332, 333, 351, 358,
Katzir-Cohen, T., 335 Kesselring, F., 520 386
Kaube, H., 606 Kessen, W., 94, 96, 107, 733, 764 Kitchener, R. F., 264, 347
Kauffman, S., 46, 47, 318, 320, 341, Kessler, R. C., 552, 573, 702 Kivnick, H. Q., 493
362 Kestenbaum, V., 466, 467, 468, 502 Klackenberg, G., 426, 450
Kaufman, J., 409, 689 Keverne, E. B., 216, 247 Klackenberg-Larsson, I., 411
Kaufman, S., 689 Key, C. B., 127 Klaczynski, P. A., 429
Kavsek, M., 612 Keyes, C. L. M., 633, 895, 896 Klaghofer, R., 978
Kawai, M., 169, 192 Keyes, S., 811 Klahr, D., 339, 346, 364
Kawamura, S., 169 Kidd, J. R., 227 Klauer, T., 551, 626, 634
Keefer, C., 735, 737, 738, 739 Kidd, K. K., 227 Klaus, C. R., 636
Kegan, R., 474, 475, 478, 482, 497, Kielsmeier, J. C., 919 Klaus, M., 839, 844, 890, 891
545 Kiesner, J., 428 Klaus, P. H., 891
Keil, F., 533, 534, 775, 776, 777, Kihlbom, M., 434 Klebanov, P. K., 682
959, 975 Kihlstrom, J. F., 410, 549, 751 Klein, M. W., 695
Keith, J., 13, 668, 672, 674, 898, Kim, C. J., 238 Klein, R., 538, 545
900 Kim, H., 758 Klem, A. M., 911, 914, 924, 927
Kellam, S., 917 Kim, K. J., 688 Klepsch, M., 972
Keller, E. F., 236 Kim, S. K., 237 Kliegl, R., 530, 577, 585, 591, 593,
Keller, H., 717, 718, 723 Kim, S. Y., 696 601, 602, 603, 611, 612
Keller, M., 526 Kim, U., 758 Kline, J. P., 630
Keller, T. A., 601 Kim, Y. K., 760 Kling, J., 688, 689
Kellman, P. J., 241 Kimball, C., 988 Klinger, E., 536, 538, 540, 552, 553
Kelly, G. A., 490 Kimball, M., 906 Klintsova, A., 235
Kelly, J., 837 Kindermann, T., 173, 179 Klix, F., 611, 623
Kelso, J. A. S., 273, 275, 276, 277, King, A., 265, 290 Kloep, M., 428
282, 306, 320, 403, 437 King, A. J., 244 Klopfer, P. H., 95, 121
 Author Index 1017

Klosinski, G., 987 Kramer, T., 741 Kuhl, P. K., 241

Kluckhohn, C., 7 Krampe, R., 415, 585, 591, 594, Kuhlen, J. E., 129
Knight, C. C., 329, 334, 335, 349, 597, 601, 602, 604, 605, 606, Kuhlen, R. G., 573
351, 378, 379 607, 609, 618 Kuhn, C. M., 231
Knorr Cetina, K., 170 Krampen, G., 522, 525, 543, 548, Kuhn, D., 45, 72, 213, 292, 494, 590
Knudsen, E. I., 244 550 Kuhn, T., 2, 76, 340, 343
Knudsen, P. F., 244 Krasnogorski, N. I., 130 Kukla, A., 532
Koch, C., 282 Kratz, C., 739 Kulick, D., 744
Koenig, H., 985 Krause, S. R., 323 Kumpfer, K. L., 901, 926, 932
Koeske, R. D., 605 Krauss, S. P., 629 Kunda, Z., 523, 538, 554, 555
Koestler, A., 421 Kray, J., 602 Kuner, W., 988
Kofsky, E., 334, 351 Krebs, D. L., 179 Kunzmann, U., 579, 607, 608, 609,
Kogan, N., 632 Krebs, H. A., 181, 182 626, 630, 635
Kohlberg, L., 112, 155, 332, 333, Krecker, M. L., 672 Kuo, H. H., 139
343, 348, 427, 528, 531, 533, Krein, S. F., 694 Kuo, Y., 489
534, 549, 966, 983 Kreipe, R. E., 926 Kuo, Z.-Y., 46, 96, 99, 141, 142,
Kohli, M., 586 Kreppner, K., 118, 406, 425, 426 219, 221, 240, 264, 265, 408
Kohn, M. L., 606, 815 Kretzmann, J., 906, 913, 914 Kuperminc, G. P., 688, 919
Koivisto, P., 448 Krewer, B., 200 Kupersmidt, J. B., 335, 427
Kojima, H., 182, 499 Kripal, J., 718 Kupkova, M., 320
Kokko, K., 550 Kris, E., 479 Kupperbusch, C. S., 631
Kolaric, G. C., 408 Kristel, O. V., 768, 770 Kurata, J. H., 982
Kolb, D. A., 467 Kristeva, J., 774 Kurtz, K. J., 368
Koller, S., 717, 718, 738, 756 Kroh, O., 947 Kurtz, S. N., 718
Komatsushiro, M., 387 Krueger, A. C., 311 Kushner, H., 971
Kondo, D., 753 Krueger, F., 186 Kusserow, A. S., 761
Konishi, M., 219 Krueger, J., 539, 640, 904 Küster, U., 546
Konner, M. J., 738 Kruger, A. C., 751, 762, 778 Kwan, V. S. Y., 618, 632
Kono, H., 702, 706 Kruger, H., 680 Kwilecki, S., 951, 967, 968
Koopmans, J. R., 702 Krüger, L., 172 Kyin, M., 702
Kopp, C. B., 546, 549 Kruglanski, A. W., 537, 541, 555,
Kornfein, M., 725 583, 584 Labouvie, G. V., 584, 590, 600, 603
Kosawa, Y., 756, 759 Kruhl, J. H., 320 Labouvie-Vief, G., 492, 493, 578,
Koshland, D. E., Jr., 225 Krupat, E., 423 579, 580, 581, 582, 583, 584,
Koshy, S., 868 Krus, D. J., 334 597, 619, 621, 629, 633, 636
Koslowski, B., 499, 545 Kruse, A., 587 Lachicotte, W., Jr., 745, 748, 749
Kosslyn, S. M., 395, 628, 629, 630 Krushel, L., 216 Lachman, M., 551, 571, 573, 609,
Kosterman, R., 923, 925 Kuang, B., 237 620, 634, 635, 636, 655
Kottak, C. P., 856 Kubey, R., 184 LaCrosse, J., 427, 528
Kottler, M. L., 213 Kubisch, A. C., 915, 932 Ladd, G. W., 670
Kouba, E., 741 Kubovy, M., 242 Lademann-Priemer, G., 987
Kouzes, J. M., 485 Kuczynski, L., 422, 424 Ladner, J. A., 835
Kovach, J. K., 247 Kuebli, J., 747 Ladson-Billings, G., 835, 839, 872
Kovacs, S. L., 54 Kuenne, M. R., 154 LaFromboise, T. D., 835
Kracke, B., 412 Kugler, P. N., 273, 274 Lagercrantz, H., 424
Kraemer, P., 242 Kuh, D., 668, 692 Laing, R. D., 54
Kramer, A. F., 602, 604, 612 Kuhl, J., 522, 536, 544 Laird, J. L., 172
Kramer, D. A., 492, 495 Kühl, K.-P., 603, 612 Lakatos, I., 70, 74, 76
1018 Author Index

Lakoff, G., 54, 287, 319, 340, 344, Layton, W. M., Jr., 225 228, 232, 240, 248, 249, 259,
369, 373, 506 Lazarus, R. S., 321, 370, 371, 408, 267, 270, 316, 347, 348, 408,
Lal, S., 871 540, 552, 635, 641, 655 409, 415, 416, 418, 421, 425,
Laland, K. N., 7 Leadbeater, B. J., 688, 751 426, 428, 432, 436, 442, 471,
Lalonde, C. E., 27 Leahy, R., 751 477, 481, 490, 491, 492, 506,
Lamb, M., 4, 321, 486, 547 Leavitt, H. J., 485 507, 508, 517, 519, 526, 527,
Lambert, W., 980 Lebiere, C., 339, 340, 347 528, 529, 530, 535, 569, 570,
Lamborn, S. D., 333 Lebra, T. S., 718, 753, 758 571, 574, 575, 580, 581, 582,
Lamiell, J. T., 183 Lecanuet, J. P., 232 585, 587, 589, 603, 614, 621,
Lamkin, C. A., 246 Lecci, R., 641 622, 623, 626, 635, 644, 669,
Lampert, M., 769 Lecours, A. R., 385 679, 701, 705, 798, 819, 895,
Lampl, M., 348, 383 LeDoux, J., 48, 412, 415 896, 898, 900, 901, 902, 903,
Lancy, D., 741 Lee, B., 546 904, 905, 915, 918, 919, 920,
Land, K. C., 685 Lee, C., 831, 835, 838, 859, 869, 930, 943, 948, 971, 976
Landau, B., 282 870 Leshner, A. I., 449
Landesman, C., 522 Lee, S. M., 226 Lesser, G., 848
Landy, F. J., 423 Lee, T. I., 237, 238 Leuba, J., 952
Lane, J., 190 Lee, Y., 760, 761 Leung, C., 760
Lane, P. C. R., 605, 609 Leffert, N., 12, 896, 900, 901, 905, Leung, M.-C., 155
Lang, F. R., 570, 580, 582, 591, 593, 906, 908, 911, 912, 913, 914, Levelt, W. J. M., 583
595, 597, 604, 611, 671 915, 918, 920, 921, 922, 923, Levenson, R. W., 627, 629, 630,
Langdon, A., 959 924, 925, 928, 929, 930 631, 638
Langer, E. J., 808, 809 Lefford, A., 241 Leventhal, H., 63
Langer, J., 54, 189 Lehman, D. R., 753, 756, 760 Leventhal, T., 13
Langer, S., 97 Lehman, H. C., 601 Levi-Montalcini, R., 433
Langman, J., 912 Lehrman, D. S., 46, 152, 155, 219, Levin, H., 149
Langston, C. A., 551 226, 264, 415 Levin, J. S., 985
Lanspery, S., 927 Leichtman, M. D., 746, 759 LeVine, B. B., 735
Lanz, P., 523 Leiderman, P. H., 735, 737, 738, Levine, J. M., 587
Lariviere, W. R., 235 739 LeVine, L. E., 751
Larsen, A., 425, 426 Leisering, L., 680 LeVine, R., 356, 413, 421, 441, 469,
Larson, D. B., 986 Leisse, T. J., 238 717, 718, 723, 725, 733, 735,
Larson, R., 184, 485, 496, 897, 900, Lemerise, E. A., 25 737, 738, 739, 740, 754, 759,
901, 902, 912, 918 Leneuaer, M., 987 762
Latash, M. L., 296 Lenk, H., 517, 523, 532 Levine, S., 245, 416, 990
Latham, G. P., 544 Leont’ev, A. N., 188, 200, 522, LeVine, S., 735, 737, 738, 739
Latour, B., 32, 37, 39 533, 546 Levins, R., 84
Laub, J. H., 5, 156, 672, 683, 685, Leopold, L., 226 Levinson, B., 603
687, 693, 695, 698, 699, 704, LePore, P. C., 688 Levinson, D. J., 469, 550, 619, 670
705 Lepper, M. R., 860 Lévi-Strauss, C., 468
Laudan, L., 70, 74, 76, 79 Leppert, J., 415 Levy, R. I., 717, 718
Laufer, R. S., 670 Lerner, J. S., 768, 770 Lewin, K., 2, 14, 118, 145, 146, 181,
Launier, R., 552 Lerner, J. V., 12, 13, 425, 477, 526, 182, 194, 195, 268, 402, 432,
Laursen, B., 696 623, 895, 915 442, 669, 725, 865
Lautrey, J., 353, 590 Lerner, R. M., 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, Lewis, C. C., 754, 756, 759
Lave, J., 200, 546, 717, 718, 723, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 21, 23, 30, Lewis, J., 177
738, 770, 776 36, 39, 43, 51, 52, 156, 169, Lewis, M., 27, 62, 154, 195, 240,
Lawrence, J. A., 190, 413, 549, 576, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 195, 280, 447, 499, 545, 546, 549,
597, 644 196, 199, 211, 213, 219, 226, 751, 771
 Author Index 1019

Lewis, S., 927 Lindenthal, J. J., 995 Lovallo, W. R., 627, 628, 629
Lewkowicz, D. J., 26, 27, 240, 241, Lindzey, G., 144 Lövdén, M., 606, 611, 612, 613,
242, 243, 245, 247, 469 Link, B. G., 683, 704 614, 615, 616
Lewontin, R., 7, 10, 42, 44, 46, 47, Linville, P. W., 554, 634 Love, G. D., 636
53, 84, 225, 507, 508, 519 Lipan, O., 238 Lovejoy, A. O., 56
Leyendecker, B., 762 Lipp, H. P., 238 Lowe, E. D., 717
Leykin, I., 238 Lippitt, R., 146 Lowe, J. C., 674
Lezza, A. M. S., 227 Lippman, L., 895, 901, 932 Lowe, R. C., 334, 351
Li, F., 685 Lipps, T., 199 Lu, H. H., 672
Li, J., 322, 356, 370, 372, 375, 376, Lipsitt, L. P., 128, 527, 572, 575, Lubart, T. I., 353
746, 769 580, 581, 582, 586 Luborsky, E., 377
Li, K. Z. H., 595, 597, 600, 602 Little, B. R., 541 Luborsky, L., 376, 377
Li, P. W., 7, 9 Little, T., 630, 635, 636 Luckmann, T., 199
Li, R. M., 930 Little, T. D., 442, 668 Lucy, J. A., 718
Li, S.-C., 408, 418, 420, 436, 451, Little, T. O., 757 Ludwig, J., 5, 156, 688
570, 574, 575, 576, 578, 583, Littman, R. A., 90 Luhmann, N., 32
584, 585, 586, 590, 591, 594, Liu, W. T., 835 Lukas, K. E., 602
595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, Liu, X., 706 Lukes, S., 753
601, 604, 603, 608, 609, 610, Lloyd, D., 242, 703 Lumley, M. A., 629
616, 628, 632, 644, 743 Lockard, J. S., 624 Lumsdaine, A. A., 698
Li, X., 930 Locke, B. Z., 637 Lumsdaine, M. H., 698
Li, Y., 237 Locke, E. A., 544 Lumsden, C. J., 247
Liang, C., 745, 746, 759 Locke, J., 337, 414 Lund, J., 237
Liben, L. S., 54 Lockhart, D. J., 255 Lundberg, U., 417
Licht, R., 388 Loeb, J., 146 Lupski, J. R., 225
Lickliter, R., 39, 41, 179, 213, 240, Loeber, R., 695 Luria, A. R., 31, 66, 139, 412, 413,
241, 242, 243, 244, 245, 246, Loehlin, J. C., 633, 866 441, 449, 519, 522, 544, 546
247, 284, 416, 417, 903 Loevinger, J., 497, 620 Lüscher, K., 679
Lidberg, L., 415 Löfgren, L., 450 Luster, T., 803, 805, 806
Lieberman, M., 348 Logie, L., 972 Luthar, S. S., 697, 835, 836, 841,
Liebman, J., 688, 689 Lohmann, H., 777 842, 869, 887, 905, 915, 916
Liebow, E., 833 Loiselle, L., 918 Lütkenhaus, P., 545, 751
Lienert, G. A., 446, 615 Lonczak, H. S., 896, 897, 900, Lutz, C., 717, 718
Lifton, R. J., 750 916, 925 Lykken, D. T., 614, 624
Lightfoot, C., 167 London, I. D., 248 Lynam, D., 408
Lillard, A., 752 Long, D., 974, 975 Lynch, C. L., 332, 351, 358, 386
Lin, L., 746 Looman, C. W., 684 Lynch, E., 777
Lin, N., 703 Loomis, A. M., 135 Lynch, J., 668
Lindberg, L. D., 923 Loomis, S. L., 703 Lynch, M., 245
Lindberg, U., 406, 434 Lopez, D., 608 Lynd, H. M., 667
Linden, M., 576, 579, 635, 640 Lord, S., 506, 821 Lynd, R. S., 667
Lindenberger, U., 11, 167, 405, 418, Lorenz, F. O., 685, 688 Lynn, S., 991
436, 442, 569, 570, 571, 572, Lorenz, K., 142, 226, 235, 264, Lyons, J. S., 986
577, 583, 585, 589, 590, 591, 506, 903 Lyons, N. P., 492
595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600, Lorion, R. P., 896 Lyons-Ruth, K., 377
601, 602, 604, 605, 606, 608, Lotman, J. M., 200 Lyra, M. C. D. P., 195, 362
609, 610, 611, 612, 613, 614, Lott, M. T., 227
615, 616, 617, 618, 626, 627, Louis, B., 603 Maarouf-Veray, F., 227, 228
634, 904, 944 Lourenço, O., 77, 342, 343, 606 Maas, I., 11, 579, 636, 641
1020 Author Index

Maccoby, E. E., 1, 7, 10, 33, 36, Maher, B. A., 143 Markus, H., 354, 375, 413, 421, 441,
149, 152, 419, 422, 425, 426, Maher, W. B., 143 545, 549, 618, 619, 633, 717,
496, 915 Mahoney, J., 156, 416, 420, 620, 925 718, 722, 723, 730, 749, 750,
MacCombie, D. J., 213, 214 Maier, G. W., 541 752, 753, 754, 756, 757, 758,
MacDonald, G. B., 932 Maier, N. R. F., 2 760, 761, 762, 763, 859, 860
MacDonald, K., 811 Maier, S. F., 131, 435 Marquis, D. B., 131
MacDonald, S. W. S., 603 Main, M., 377, 499, 545, 816 Marquis, J., 668
Mace, F. C., 537 Maitland, S. B., 598 Marriott, M., 468
Mace, W., 306 Major, B., 749 Marrow, A. J., 796
Macfarlane, J. W., 666 Malatesta, C. W., 62 Marrs, G. S., 385
Machado, A., 77, 342, 343, 606 Malatesta, C. Z., 62 Marschak, M., 521, 541
Maciel, A. G., 608, 621 Malinowski, B., 721 Marsh, H. W., 634
Maciel, D. A., 193 Mameli, M., 41 Marshall, E., 238
MacIntyre, A., 476 Mamman, Z., 706 Marshall, V. W., 680
Mack, K. J., 247 Mandelbaum, D. G., 741, 743 Marsiske, M., 552, 570, 578, 579,
Mack, P. A., 247 Mandl, H., 587 580, 582, 583, 591, 592, 594,
Mackenbach, J. P., 684 Mandler, G., 63 595, 597, 606, 611, 612, 625,
MacKenzie, M. J., 448 Mandler, J. M., 61, 604 627, 631, 637, 638, 639, 641,
MacKie, M., 988 Mangelsdorf, S., 751, 757 644, 671
MacLeod, J., 881 Mangold, O., 213 Martin, A., 409
Macmillan, R., 701 Manke, B., 32 Martin, D. I. K., 225
Macomber, J., 263 Manly, B. F., 446 Martin, G. M., 576
Madden, P. A. F., 702 Manners, J., 638 Martin, J. A., 496
Maddox, S. J., 921 Mannes, M., 896, 901, 906, 908, Martin, J. E., 953
Madge, N., 690 911, 913, 914, 915, 921, 924, Martin, L., 763
Madsen, M. C., 902 927 Martin, L. L., 541, 555
Madsen, R., 755, 756 Manor, O., 683 Martin, L. R., 623, 638, 652
Maehr, M., 503, 505, 506 Manstead, A. S. R., 540 Martin, N. G., 702
Maercker, A., 587, 607, 608, 609 Manturzewska, M., 441 Martin-Barbero, J., 774, 775
Maffei, M., 226 Mao, L., 761 Martini, M., 499, 767
Maggs, J. L., 408 Maraganore, A., 328, 381 Marton, F., 423
Magnus, K., 632 Marcelis, M., 702 Maruna, S., 687
Magnus, P., 819 Marcet, B., 227, 228 Marvin, R., 735
Magnuson, K. A., 5, 156 Marchant, G. J., 922 Marx, J. L., 260
Magnusson, D., 6, 7, 11, 14, 36, 37, Marcia, J. E., 496 Mascolo, M. F., 521
39, 49, 156, 202, 219, 249, 401, Marcoen, A., 604 Mascolo, M. J., 322, 370, 372, 376
403, 404, 405, 406, 407, 408, Marcovitch, S., 26, 27 Masiello, T., 749
411, 413, 415, 416, 417, 418, Marcus, D. E., 549 Maslow, A., 467, 476, 479, 753, 986
419, 420, 422, 423, 425, 427, Marcus, G. F., 320 Mason, W. A., 99, 152
430, 431, 432, 433, 434, 435, Mare, R. D., 683, 688 Massimini, F., 471
438, 439, 440, 442, 443, 444, Mareschal, D., 345 Masten, A. S., 621, 718, 905, 919,
445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, Margolis, J., 53 924
535, 571, 575, 582, 587, 589, Marini, M. M., 674 Masters, J. C., 152
611, 621, 626, 642, 644, 668 Markam, S. S., 374 Matas, L., 501
Magnusson, R., 387 Markey, F. V., 126 Mateer, F., 98, 102, 119, 130
Magovcevic, M., 190 Markman, E., 548 Mathew, A., 293
Maguire, M. C., 673 Marks, L., 241, 977, 978 Mathis, C., 223
Mahapatra, M., 718, 721, 732, 739, Markstrom-Adams, C., 835, 838, Matousek, M., 388
756, 760 841, 842, 844, 850, 871 Matseoane, K., 706

Matsuba, M. K., 945, 984
Matsumoto, H., 375, 757, 760, 763
Matsushita, S., 702, 706
Matsuzaki, M., 235
Matsuzawa, T., 177, 192
Matthews, S., 683
Mattick, H. W., 699
Maturana, H., 181, 520, 582
Matute-Bianchi, M. E., 843
Maughan, B., 691
Maurer, D., 283
Mauro, V. P., 216
May, A., 609, 995
May, M. A., 813, 983
May, M. S., 137, 147
Mayer, A. K., 634, 640
Mayer, K. U., 11, 551, 571, 573,
584, 586, 589, 615, 671, 674,
680, 681, 700
Maynard, A., 717, 718, 723
Mayr, E., 56, 402, 403, 420, 433,
434, 451
Mayr, U., 585, 601, 602, 629, 630
Mazur, E., 340
Mazza, J. J., 906
Mazziotta, J. C., 602
McAdams, D. P., 620
McAdoo, H. P., 762
McArdle, C. G., 881, 882
McArdle, J. J., 5, 156, 583, 589,
611, 612, 616, 624
McAuley, E., 612
McBride, T., 244, 245
McCabe, A., 745
McCall, R. B., 30, 345, 348, 387,
433, 448, 530
McCall, R. M., 600, 601, 612
McCarthy, D., 138, 139, 140
McCarthy, K., 922
McCarthy, T., 65, 66, 69
McCartney, K., 235, 519, 606, 615,
619, 866
McClearn, G., 340, 347, 614, 615,
702, 819
McClelland, J. L., 303, 596
McClelland, P., 807, 821, 822, 823,
824
McClenny, B. D., 629
McClintock, E., 425
Author Index 1021
McClintock, M. K., 415 Mead, G. H., 65, 113, 190, 494, 501,
McCord, J., 413, 427 669, 762, 798
McCormack, M. A., 217 Mead, M., 718, 733
McCrae, R. R., 378, 488, 619, 620, Meadow, M. J., 946, 985
621, 632, 633, 635, 637 Meakin, P., 261
McCrone, J., 413 Meaney, M. J., 236
McCubbin, J. A., 231 Medawar, P., 416, 576
McCubin, H. I., 425, 426 Medin, D., 537, 717, 729, 777
McDade, L., 244 Medina, N., 438
McDonough, P., 683 Medler, M., 620, 622, 634
McDougall, W., 119, 130 Mees, U., 534
McEwen, B. S., 419 Meguro, Y., 700
McFadden, S. H., 953, 985 Mehta, P., 860, 861, 862, 863
McFarland, C., 540 Meigs, A., 183
McGeer, T., 287 Meinz, E. J., 602
McGrath, S. K., 613 Meissner, W. W., 949
McGraw, A. P., 768 Mel, B. W., 320
McGraw, M., 128, 135 Mellenbergh, G. J., 431
McGraw, M. B., 140, 142 Meller, J., 438
McGraw, M. G., 281 Mellner, C., 448
McGue, M., 226, 233, 615, 624, 702 Mellon, R., 242, 243
McGuire, A. M., 701 Mellott, D., 315, 322, 327, 376, 379,
McGuire, C. U., 549 380
McGuire, C. V., 354 Meltzoff, A. N., 240, 241
McGuire, M. T., 415 Memmo, M., 898, 901, 906
McGuire, S., 32 Mendelson, M. J., 241
McGuire, W. J., 354, 549 Meng, K., 745
McHale, S. N., 673 Menon, U., 717, 718, 762
McIntosh, D. N., 990 Meredith, M. A., 240, 244, 283, 589
McIntosh, P., 832, 836, 839, 869 Merleau-Ponty, M., 48, 467
McIntosh, W. D., 555 Mernissi, F., 184
McKenna, J. J., 725 Merrick, S., 377
McKenry, P. C., 929 Merton, R. K., 667, 670, 671
McKinney, M. L., 222 Merzenich, M. M., 283
McKinnon, J., 816 Meschke, L. L., 442
McKnight, J., 913 Mesquita, B., 718, 759, 766
McLanahan, S. S., 687, 694 Messick, S., 80
McLaughlin, G. H., 323 Metcalfe, J., 602
McLaughlin, M., 912, 918 Metten, P., 225, 235
McLellan, J., 917, 919, 920, 945, Metz, E., 919
984 Mey, G., 184
McLeod, J. D., 704 Meyer, A., 335
McLin, D., 299, 300, 301, 306 Meyer, J. S., 542
McLoyd, V. C., 8, 835 Meyer, J. W., 586
McNamara, K. J., 222 Meyer-Probst, B., 417
McNamara, S., 428 Meyers, E. W., 7, 9
McNemar, Q., 127 Meyerson, I., 189
McRae, K., 284 Miao, C.-H., 368
Meacham, J. A., 493, 517 Miccery, T., 444
1022 Author Index
Michaels, S., 745, 769
Michel, G., 7
Michell, J., 172
Michelsen, E., 918
Mickler, C., 635
Middleton, D., 498
Midgley, C., 429, 503, 504, 505,
506, 690, 921
Miech, R. A., 693
Mikhailov, A., 437
Milevsnic, R., 216, 247
Miller, A., 547, 762
Miller, D. B., 213
Miller, D. T., 540
Miller, E. K., 601
Miller, G. A., 522, 536
Miller, J., 38, 66, 434, 717, 718,
721, 722, 739, 749, 752, 761
Miller, N. E., 144, 149
Miller, P., 413, 421, 441, 737, 738
Miller, P. H., 364, 548
Miller, P. J., 717, 718, 721, 722,
723, 725, 741, 742, 743, 744,
745, 746, 747, 749, 754, 759,
761, 765, 766, 769, 770, 776,
778
Miller, P. M., 356
Miller, W. R., 915, 923, 953
Mills, C. W., 665
Mills, P., 438
Mills, W., 95, 96, 123, 128
Milne, B. J., 684, 685, 703
Minch, E., 181
Minear, M., 616
Miner, M., 986
Minsky, M., 771
Minton, H. L., 125, 127
Mintz, J., 741, 746, 749, 754, 761
Minuchin, P., 426
Mischel, H. N., 544
Mischel, T., 523
Mischel, W., 151, 352, 401, 406,
432, 481, 544, 602, 621, 622,
623
Mishler, E. G., 5, 156
Miskimins, R. W., 554
Mistretta, C. A., 242
Mistry, J., 498, 499, 734, 761
Mitrushina, M., 613
Mitterauer, M., 670 Morgan, J. J. B., 130
Mizuno, T., 387 Morgan, S. P., 685
Mjchard-Vanhée, C., 228 Morikawa, H., 756, 759
Modell, J., 6, 7, 90, 668, 670, 768, Morris, B., 753
900 Morris, P., 50, 177, 421, 525, 794,
Moen, P., 673, 675, 679, 807, 821, 797, 799, 822, 823, 900, 910,
822, 823, 824 911, 912, 918, 926
Moeser, R., 757 Morrison, F. J., 154
Moessinger, P., 198 Morrobel, D., 905
Moffitt, T., 233, 408, 415, 431, 668, Mortimer, J., 665, 680, 681, 682,
685, 695, 916 696, 900
Moghaddam, F. M., 199 Moshman, D., 199
Mogil, J. S., 235 Mosier, C., 498, 499, 734, 761
Molander, B., 448, 609 Moskowitz, G. B., 544
Moldin, S. O., 224 Moss, H., 528, 574, 622, 666, 685
Molenaar, I. W., 30 Moulines, C. U., 531, 532
Molenaar, P. C., 5, 156, 176, 177, Mower, G. D., 217
183, 184, 206, 290, 347, 357, Mowrer, O. H., 144, 149
362, 442, 447, 605, 606, 612, Moya, C. J., 522, 523
613, 614, 647, 685 Mrazek, P. J., 901
Molina, J. C., 242 Mroczek, D. K., 632
Molina, M., 241, 245 Much, N. C., 717, 718, 721, 722,
Molinari, L., 743, 748 723, 732, 739, 756, 760
Mondloch, C. J., 283 Muchisky, M., 276
Monroe, W. S., 135 Mueller, E., 139
Monsour, A., 330, 332 Mueller, R. A., 932
Montada, L., 540 Mueller, R. H., 108, 109, 110, 111,
Montagu, A., 506, 507 112, 113, 114
Montemayor, R., 751, 928 Mueller, U., 51, 53, 63, 67, 68
Montessori, M., 504, 505 Muir, J., 228
Montgomery, S., 402, 683 Muir, R., 153
Moody, S. A., 221 Mulatu, M. S., 606
Moore, B., 432, 746 Mulder, E. J. H., 415
Moore, C., 7, 844 Mulder, N., 758
Moore, D. R., 244, 425 Mullally, P. R., 753, 754, 762, 763
Moore, D. S., 224, 228 Mullen, M. K., 759
Moore, J. W., 674 Müller, A. W., 520
Moore, K. A., 895, 901, 924, 925, Müller, F., 223
932 Müller, U., 238
Moore, M., 869, 870, 891 Müller, V., 604
Moorehouse, M., 820 Müller-Brettel, M., 571
Moreland, R. L., 423 Müller-Hill, B., 7
Morelli, G., 725, 726, 735, 791 Mulvey, D., 752
Moreno, A., 178 Mumme, D. L., 24, 25
Moreno, M., 183 Munakata, Y., 44, 45, 302, 303,
Morenoff, J., 701, 913 305
Morgan, C. L., 94, 96, 111, 112, 121, Munholland, K. A., 377
170, 176, 177, 180 Munn, N. L., 96, 130
Morgan, H. J., 373 Munóz, R. F., 901

Munoz-Miller, M., 831 Neter, E., 639
Munroe, R. H., 728 Neugarten, B. L., 524, 550, 569,
Munroe, R. L., 143, 144, 145 573, 667, 674, 675, 693
Mural, R. J., 7, 9 Neumann, E.-M., 590
Murchison, C., 90, 97, 125, 147 Neville, H. J., 279
Murdaya, U., 373, 374 Neville, P. R., 807
Murphy, L. B., 136 New, R. S., 737
Murphy, R. J. L., 959 Newcomb, T. M., 688, 696
Murphy-Berman, V., 750 Newell, A., 306, 338
Murray, C., 7, 155 Newman, D., 200
Murray, H., 7 Newman, J. L., 346
Murray, J. D., 179, 262 Newmann, J. B., 551
Murray, L., 916 Newport, E. L., 5, 33, 61, 605
Murry, V. M., 428, 696 Neyer, F. J., 633
Mussa-Ivaldi, F. A., 298 Nguyen, L., 844
Mussen, P., 90, 109, 574, 666 Ni, L., 238
Muxen, M., 425, 426 Nicholls, J. G., 547
Myers, J. K., 995 Nicolis, G., 195
Myers, S. L., Jr., 832 Nicolopoulou, A., 745, 747
Niedenthal, P., 545, 551
Na, K., 761 Nietzsche, F., 476
Nadeau, J. H., 224, 225 Nieuwenhuys, O., 169
Nag, M., 734 Niggli, A., 978
Nagel, E., 26, 70, 528 Nihira, K., 773
Nagel, S., 426 Nijhout, H. F., 42, 233
Nagin, D. S., 447, 685, 695 Nilges, P., 554
Nakahara, H., 235 Nilsson, L.-G., 448, 794
Nakamura, J., 468, 469, 470, 477, Ninio, A., 325, 344
484, 491, 918 Nipkow, K. E., 964
Nakkula, M., 927 Nisbet, R., 56, 59, 673
Nanda, S., 835 Nisbett, R., 538, 717, 723, 753
Neal, L. J., 549 Nisenbaum, L. K., 238
Neckerman, H. J., 427, 433, 447 Noack, P., 427, 682
Neely, A. S., 604, 612 Noam, G., 328, 376, 377, 381, 579
Neimeyer, R., 521 Nobiling, E., 947
Neisser, U., 745, 750, 751, 762 Noë, A., 287
Nelesen, R. A., 438 Noel, M., 213
Nelson, C. A., 409, 420, 594 Noguchi, J., 235
Nelson, D., 763 Noll, E., 845, 881, 887
Nelson, E. C., 234, 702 Noll, L., 871
Nelson, K., 320, 321, 740, 749 Norasakkunkit, V., 757, 760, 763
Nemeroff, C., 717 Nordhaus, W. D., 553
Nesselroade, C. S., 607, 612 Norem, J. K., 551
Nesselroade, J. R., 2, 5, 156, 176, Norem-Hebeisen, A. A., 549
177, 182, 183, 184, 441, 442, Norenzayan, A., 970, 971
446, 447, 448, 539, 570, 580, Norman, K., 740
586, 587, 588, 589, 600, 607, Norris, L., 622
610, 612, 614, 616, 619, 624, Norris, T., 906, 913, 914
630, 631, 632, 676, 685, 904 Northcott, H., 994
Author Index 1023
Nosek, B. A., 315, 322, 327, 376,
379, 380
Nosten-Bertrand, M., 220, 228
Novacek, J., 635
Novikoff, A. B., 2
Novikoff, B., 440
Nowak, A., 362, 447
Nowlis, V., 149
Nozick, R., 555
Nucci, L. P., 27, 69
Nunes, T., 770
Nurius, P., 545, 752
Nurmi, J.-E., 429, 448, 550, 551,
636
Nuttin, J. R., 542
Nyberg, L., 448, 597, 602, 604, 615
Nye, R., 968, 969
Nye, W. C., 973
Nyman, B., 418
Nysted, L., 794
Oakes, L. M., 278
Oates, G., 606
Oberauer, K., 601
Obeyesekere, G., 200
Obidah, J. E., 881
O’Brien, M. U., 926, 932
Ochs, E., 499, 739, 743, 744, 745,
747, 748, 752, 762, 770
O’Connor, C., 372, 373
O’Connor, E. E., 327, 377, 379, 381
O’Connor, T. G., 441
O’Doherty, J., 606
Odom, D. T., 237, 238
O’Donnell, L., 919
O’Donoghue, J. L., 918
Oerter, R., 533, 546, 550, 551, 758,
945
Oesterle, S., 682
Oettingen, G., 442, 639, 757
Ogbu, J., 429, 835, 836, 845, 878,
879, 880, 881, 882
Ogden, T. H., 54
Ogilvie, D. M., 631
Ogino, M., 759
Oh, H. J., 683
Ohlig, K. H., 946
Öhman, A., 410
Okada, N., 768
1024 Author Index

Okami, P., 725, 727 43, 45, 49, 51, 52, 53, 54, 57, Parmelee, A. H., 811
Okamoto, Y., 333, 342, 353, 357, 59, 60, 61, 63, 70, 71, 72, 74, Parsons, J., 751
369 75, 79, 80, 346, 405, 528, 532, Parsons, S., 682
Okun, M. A., 551, 641, 652 535, 549, 580, 586, 903 Parsons, T., 496, 522
Olah, A., 413 Ovesey, L., 833, 835, 842, 867, 879 Parten, M. B., 136
O’Leary, D. D. M., 434 Oyama, S., 36, 39, 40, 42, 43, 187, Parton, D. A., 150
Oliveira, Z. M. R., 195 211, 219, 228, 246, 249, 259, Parziale, J., 321, 349, 363, 364, 365,
Oliver, I., 605, 609 527 368, 369
Oliveri, M. E., 426 Oyemade, U. J., 856 Pascual-Leone, J., 199, 339, 384,
Oller, D. K., 245, 266 Oyserman, D., 749, 750 492, 581, 600, 601, 606, 944
Olmstead, R., 725, 727 Ozaki, H., 225 Pasquale, E., 413
Olson, D. H., 425, 426 Ozarak, E., 977 Passeron, J.-C., 518, 775
Olson, G. M., 545 Ozer, D. J., 446 Pastor, D. L., 816
Olson, L. S., 681 Pastoret, C., 228
Olson, M. H., 845 Pack, R., 930 Pasupathi, M., 609, 620, 627, 628,
Olson, S. L., 498 Packer, M., 438, 732, 741 629, 630, 634
Oman, D., 982 Pagano, P., 167 Pate, E., 261
Omi, M., 882, 883, 884 Paget, K., 376 Paternoster, R., 685, 688
O’Neil, R., 426 Pagliari, C., 616 Paterson, D. G., 100
Oosterwegel, A., 752 Paige, L. Z., 917 Patt, J., 741
Opitz, J. M., 46 Paikoff, R. L., 408, 412, 430 Patterson, G. R., 151, 425, 694, 695,
Oppenheim, R. W., 142 Pakstis, A. J., 227 917
Oppenheimer, D., 725, 726 Palincsar, A. S., 349 Paul, S. M., 223
Oppenheimer, J. M., 94 Pallas, A. M., 680 Paulhus, D. L., 624
Oppenheimer, L., 67, 545, 752 Palmiter, R. D., 238 Paulson, S. E., 922
O’Rahilly, R., 223 Palmore, E., 985 Pauly, P. J., 130
O’Rand, A. M., 672 Pampel, F. C., 676 Pavalko, E. K., 666
O’Regan, J. K., 287 Pancake, V. R., 816 Pavot, W., 633
O’Reilly, R. C., 305 Pancer, M., 918 Peak, L., 758, 760, 762
Oreland, L., 415 Pandey, R. B., 468 Pearlin, L. I., 473
Orellana, M. F., 771, 774 Pantev, C., 609 Peck, S. C., 428, 429
Ornstein, P. A., 89, 90, 108, 132, Pantoja, A. P., 195 Pedersen, N. L., 614, 615, 624, 632
154, 573, 669, 707 Papillo, A. R., 925 Pederson, A., 427
Ortiz, J., 415 Papousek, H., 507, 545 Peet, R. C., 734
Osborn, H. F., 111, 112 Papousek, M., 507, 545 Peirce, C. S., 177, 196
Osborn, P., 932 Parasuraman, R., 537 Pellegrini, A. D., 41
Oser, F., 946, 952, 953, 959, 961, Pargament, K., 953, 984, 990 Peller, G., 832, 867
963, 964, 965, 966, 978, 980, Paris, S. G., 102, 151 Pellerin, L. A., 682
981, 988, 990, 996 Parish, S., 718 Pennak, S., 575, 597, 603, 611, 612
Osgood, C. E., 327, 374 Parisi, D., 10, 357, 596, 597, 605 Pennebaker, J. W., 541
Osher, D., 917 Park, D., 597, 615 Pennisi, E., 236
Osiewacz, H. D., 576 Park, L., 718, 721, 732, 739, 756, Penuel, W., 201
Osmer, R. R., 981 760 Pepler, D. J., 683
Ostendorf, F., 442, 620, 633 Park, R., 615 Pepper, M. P., 995
O’Sullivan, M., 373, 374 Parke, R. D., 6, 7, 89, 90, 151, 573, Pepper, S. C., 30, 68, 69, 70, 74,
Ott, E., 277 668, 669, 670, 707, 811 339, 340
Oura, Y., 766, 767, 776 Parker, S. T., 247 Perdue, S., 385
Overton, W. F., 1, 5, 8, 18, 21, 25, Parkhill, J., 183 Peréz, B., 100
26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 34, 36, 39, Parkinson, B., 540 Perkins, D. F., 13, 898, 900
 Author Index 1025

Perkins, D. N., 353, 367 332, 333, 334, 340, 341, 342, Poole, C., 689
Perkins, P., 247 343, 345, 361, 362, 363, 364, Poortinga, Y. H., 374, 721
Perlmutter, M., 519, 540, 571, 574, 365, 366, 383, 412, 422, 470, Popper, K., 74
579, 584 473, 478, 488, 504, 508, 521, Popper, K. M., 542
Perner, J., 582, 605, 975 531, 532, 533, 534, 545, 546, Popper, K. R., 410
Perret-Clermont, A.-N., 201 547, 606, 845, 957, 958, 996 Porfeli, E., 671
Perriello, L., 955, 974 Pick, A., 241 Porges, S. W., 628
Persson, J., 387 Pickens, J., 241 Port, R. F., 320
Pervin, L., 410, 422, 543, 619, 622 Pickles, A., 425, 426, 691, 704 Portales, A. L., 629
Perz, C. A., 642 Pieper, C. F., 683 Porter, T., 172
Peters, H. E., 676 Pierce, C. S., 77 Posner, B. Z., 485
Petersen, A., 411, 415, 429, 842, Pietromonaco, P., 63 Posner, M. I., 613
843, 850, 876 Pike, K. L., 730 Post, S. G., 986
Petersén, I., 387, 388 Pimley, S., 635 Pott, M., 759
Peterson, A., 223, 745 Pinker, S., 48, 61 Pötter, U., 600
Peterson, C., 638, 777, 901 Pinquart, M., 24, 691 Potts, R., 761
Peterson, D. R., 425 Pipp, S., 333, 351, 378 Potvin, R. H., 979
Peterson, J., 118, 126, 127, 132, Pirttilä-Backman, A.-M., 333 Poulin, F., 427
582, 591 Pittman, K., 895, 896, 899, 900, Poulton, R., 684, 703
Peterson, R. C., 137 901, 906, 909, 911, 918, 920 Powell, L. H., 982
Peterson, W. A., 674, 675 Pitts, R., 982, 984 Power, C., 668, 683, 684, 692, 983
Petersson, K. M., 604, 609 Pitts, V. P., 973 Powers, W. T., 522, 541
Peto, J., 424 Plante, T. G., 982 Prasada, S., 302
Petras, H., 917 Plath, D. W., 725, 726 Prashad, V., 867
Petrill, S. A., 615 Plato, 339, 368 Pratkanis, A. R., 619
Petrillo, D., 959, 978 Platsidou, M., 343, 353 Pratt, J. B., 973
Pettengill, S., 760 Platt, S. A., 231 Pratt, M. W., 745
Pettigrew, T. F., 833, 842, 867 Plessner, H., 609 Predmore, S. C., 538
Pettit, G. S., 924 Plewis, I., 684 Preece, A., 748
Pfeiffer, J. E., 987 Plomin, R., 7, 32, 234, 340, 347, Prell, R.-E., 981
Pfeiffer, R., 287 413, 422, 498, 519, 529, 585, Prentice, D., 750
Pfister, O., 948, 949 614, 615, 623, 625, 633, 648, Prescott, C. A., 705
Phelan, J., 683, 704 659, 818, 819, 866 Pressey, S. L., 129, 573
Phelan, P., 772, 845, 867 Plunkett, K., 10, 345, 357, 596, 597, Preyer, W., 94, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100,
Phelps, E., 5, 12, 13, 156, 292, 449, 605 142, 438
668, 895 Pnevmatikos, D., 973 Pribram, K. H., 388, 522, 536
Phelps, M. E., 602 Poddiakov, A. N., 193 Price, L., 906
Philliber, S., 919 Poduska, J., 917 Price-Williams, D., 334
Phillippe, J., 101 Poincaré, H., 424 Prigogine, I., 177, 179, 269, 482,
Phillips, M., 697, 924 Polak, R., 945 582
Phillips, R. J., 223 Polk, T. A., 615 Prince, S. E., 601, 616
Phillips, S. D., 923 Polkinghorne, D. E., 745 Prinz, R. J., 921
Phillips, S. J., 196 Pollard, J. A., 901 Prinz, W., 418, 436, 583, 596, 598,
Phillips, T. J., 223, 224, 235 Pollner, M., 983 599, 602, 610, 616
Piaget, J., 2, 37, 40, 41, 47, 51, 60, Polsky, A., 320 Proctor, R. N., 7
63, 70, 93, 111, 113, 135, 136, Pondy, L. R., 485 Proenca, R., 226
138, 139, 143, 176, 197, 198, Ponirakis, A., 686 Prosch, H., 57
241, 265, 278, 282, 285, 303, Pontecorvo, C., 201 Pruyne, E., 386
305, 314, 315, 321, 323, 324, Pook, P., 287, 288 Pruyser, P., 950
1026 Author Index
Psaltis, C., 201
Pulkkinen, L., 411, 550, 621, 820
Pullen, S. M., 606
Purves, D., 221, 235
Putnam, F., 380
Putnam, H., 54, 55, 57, 63, 68, 69,
74, 75, 521, 532, 534
Qin, Y., 339, 340, 347
Quetelet, A., 572
Quine, W. V., 74, 114, 538
Quinn, J., 912
Quinn, N., 718
Quinton, D., 691, 704
Rabbitt, P. M. A., 590
Rabe-Hesketh, S., 5, 156
Rabiner, D. L., 25
Rabinowitz, L. S., 689
Rachman, S., 670
Radell, P. L., 241, 242, 243, 245,
247
Radke-Yarrow, M., 422, 424
Radziszewska, B., 749
Raff, R. A., 46
Raftopoulos, A., 26
Raglioni, S. S., 241
Raichle, M. E., 386
Raine, A., 415
Raizada, R., 357
Rakic, P., 382, 384, 385
Rakotovao, R., 230
Raleigh, M., 415
Ram, N., 2, 5, 156
Ramachers, G., 974
Ramirez, M., III, 334
Ramirez, M. L., 919, 924
Rampon, C., 235, 236, 255, 702
Randall, J. H., 72
Rank, M. R., 682
Rao, R., 287, 288
Rapaport, D., 117
Rappolt-Schlichtman, G., 316, 328
Rasch, G., 323, 350, 352
Ratcliff, D., 974
Rathod, S., 989
Rathunde, K., 466, 467, 471, 478,
479, 481, 491, 492, 497, 498,
501, 502, 503, 504, 505
Ratner, H. H., 751, 762, 778 Reuter-Lorenz, P., 575, 582, 594,
Rau, L., 149 608, 610, 644
Raudenbush, S. W., 13, 913, 926 Revenson, T. A., 641
Rawls, J., 550 Reye, B., 953
Raya, P., 200, 248, 316, 317, 320, Reynolds, C. A., 624, 630, 632
321, 328, 330, 332, 344, 354, Reynolds, G., 243
381 Reznick, J. S., 348
Rayner, R. A., 130 Rhodes, J. E., 911, 914, 917, 926
Raynor, J. O., 543 Rhymer, R. M., 446
Raz, N., 602, 612 Ricceri, L., 239
Rebok, G. W., 542 Ricco, R. B., 532
Recanzone, G., 283 Richards, D. D., 778
Reddy, M., 340 Richards, F. A., 323
Redfield, R., 719 Richards, J., 989
Reed, E. S., 65, 306 Richards, M. H., 485, 496
Reedy, M. N., 551, 622, 637 Richardson, D., 284, 287, 288
Rees, E., 582 Richardson, J., 978, 987, 988
Reese, H. W., 1, 26, 30, 31, 32, 34, Richardson, K., 240
441, 527, 528, 535, 570, 572, Richman, A., 735, 737, 738, 739
575, 580, 581, 582, 586, 588, Richters, J. E., 402
589, 603, 614 Rickman, M., 630
Reeve, R., 317, 332 Ricks, D., 427, 528
Regnerus, M., 971 Ricoeur, P., 68, 73, 74, 75, 76
Reich, H., 945, 953, 957, 965 Ridderinkhof, K. R., 601
Reich, K. H., 964, 982 Ridley-Johnson, R., 292
Reid, J. B., 917 Rieckmann, N., 595, 611
Reimer, K. S., 968, 984 Riediger, M., 579, 591, 636, 638
Reinert, G., 91, 96, 97, 98, 100, 521, Riegel, K., 196, 421, 436, 490, 520,
571, 572, 600, 616 573, 575, 580, 581, 586, 606
Reinhardt, J. M., 421 Rieser, J. J., 89, 573, 669, 707
Reinshagen, H., 526 Rigney, D. R., 273
Reis, A., 609 Riksen-Walraven, J. M., 809, 865
Reischies, F. M., 576 Riles, L., 238
Reisenzein, R., 534 Riley, K., 526
Reiss, D., 32, 426, 818 Riley, M. S., 346
Renkl, A., 587 Riley, M. W., 573, 584, 586, 587,
Renner, G., 527, 536, 539, 548, 552, 667, 668, 674, 675
555, 634, 636 Rimer, S., 873
Repacholi, B., 377 Rinaldi, N. J., 237, 238
Resch, N. L., 917 Rinehart, P. M., 928
Resch, N. R., 917, 926 Rittenhouse, P., 769
Resnick, H., 926, 932 Ritzen, M., 424
Resnick, L. B., 201, 587 Rizzuto, A.-M., 951, 979
Resnick, L. R., 533 Robbins, M. A., 616
Resnick, M. D., 920, 922 Robert, F., 237, 238
Rest, J., 548, 966 Roberts, B., 620, 632, 633, 634
Retzinger, S., 376 Robertson, H. A., 216, 247
Reuchlin, M., 590 Robertson, S. S., 273
Reuman, D., 429, 503 Robin, D. J., 241

Robins, L., 450, 694
Robins, R., 49, 412, 634
Robinson, D., 101, 357, 411
Robinson, M. G., 924
Rochat, P., 241
Rochberg-Halton, E., 526
Rockstroh, B., 609
Rodgers, W. L., 676
Rodin, J., 551, 692, 808, 809
Rodkin, P., 154, 441
Rodning, C., 811
Rodriguez, M. C., 905
Rodriguez, M. L., 621
Rodriguez-Zas, S. L., 235
Roeder, K., 230, 231
Roediger, D. R., 877, 891, 892
Roehlkepartain, E., 908, 913, 914,
921, 923, 925, 926, 927, 929,
931, 954, 971, 981
Roehlkepartain, J. L., 906, 914
Röesler, H.-D., 417
Roffman, J. G., 911, 914
Rogers, C., 473, 476, 479, 482
Rogers, S. C., 183
Rogers, W. H., 683
Rogoff, B., 65, 66, 67, 168, 185,
200, 316, 321, 322, 344, 347,
356, 364, 494, 498, 499, 501,
545, 546, 717, 723, 725, 726,
734, 743, 749, 761, 767, 769,
771, 773, 911
Rohner, R. P., 760
Rohwer, G., 589, 673
Roland, E., 410
Rollett, B., 964, 966, 987, 988
Romanes, G. J., 94, 95, 96, 120
Rommetveit, R., 525
Romney, A. K., 774
Ronca, A. E., 246
Rönkä, A., 411
Roodin, P. A., 597, 600
Roos, J., 949
Rorty, R., 58
Rosa, A., 188
Rosaldo, M. Z., 762
Rosas, S., 772
Rosch, E., 46, 47, 53, 69, 246, 303,
373, 466, 530, 531, 533, 534,
750
Author Index 1027
Rose, A. J., 745 Rowe, D. C., 7, 8, 702, 703, 929
Rose, D., 335 Rowe, J. W., 551, 580, 584
Rose, H., 41 Rowell, J. A., 198
Rose, K. M., 631 Rozeboom, W. W., 79
Rose, L. T., 335 Rozin, P., 717
Rose, R. J., 428, 614, 702 Rubel, E. W., 219
Rose, S., 41, 216, 227, 228, 236, Rubin, K. H., 508, 683, 816
241, 247 Ruble, D. N., 549, 640, 772
Rose, S. A., 240, 247 Rude, S. P., 954, 971
Rose, S. P., 323, 332, 335, 364, 382, Ruderman, A., 365
383, 387, 388, 389, 944 Rudinger, G., 449, 517, 587, 589,
Rose-Krasnor, L., 816, 918 611
Rosen, K. M., 217 Rudman, L., 315, 322, 327, 376,
Rosen, L., 752 379, 380
Rosenbaum, J. E., 689 Rudolph, L., 172
Rosenberg, F., 550 Ruff, H. A., 240
Rosenberg, M., 550, 553, 670, 751 Ruhland, R., 348, 351, 352, 358, 387
Rosenberg, R., 974 Ruiselova, Z., 430
Rosenberger, N. R., 718, 758 Rumbaut, R., 680, 700
Rosenblatt, J. S., 152 Runco, M. A., 487
Rosenblum, L. A., 499 Rushton, J. P., 7, 8
Rosier, K. A., 743, 748 Russell, E. S., 227
Rösler, F., 575, 582, 608, 610, 644 Russell, G., 550
Ross, A. O., 150 Russell, J., 51, 79, 370, 372, 718
Ross, D., 104, 171 Russell, R. W., 409, 432
Ross, G., 545 Rustak, B., 216, 247
Ross, J., 989 Rutter, M., 32, 196, 340, 347, 417,
Ross, L., 538, 860 425, 449, 527, 528, 578, 621,
Ross, M., 640 683, 690, 691, 702, 704, 805,
Ross, N., 717, 729, 777 820, 901, 989
Ross, W. D., 55, 56 Ryan, J. A., 896, 897, 900, 916
Rossetti-Ferreira, M. C., 195, 202 Ryan, R. M., 755
Rotenberg, E. J., 200, 248, 317, 320, Ryan, S. A., 926
321, 330, 332, 344, 354 Rybash, J. M., 597, 600
Roth, J., 900, 901, 905, 906, 912, Rychlak, J. F., 490
916 Rydelius, P.-A., 424
Rothbart, M. K., 613, 623, 627, 628, Ryder, N. B., 588, 667, 668, 674,
629, 630 675
Rothbaum, F., 552, 759 Ryder, R. G., 622
Rothermund, K., 538, 540, 548, 552, Ryff, C., 401, 429, 573, 579, 587,
554, 555, 620, 622, 634, 636, 620, 633, 637, 638, 640, 692,
637, 639 761, 918, 932
Rothlisberg, B. A., 922 Ryu, S., 696
Rott, C., 636
Rotter, J., 151, 422, 811 Saarni, C., 24, 25
Roubertoux, P., 213, 220, 227, 228 Saastamoinen, M., 820
Rousseau, J. J., 946 Sabini, J., 35, 522
Roux, W., 211 Sacker, A., 682
Rovee-Collier, C., 286 Sadd, M., 987
1028 Author Index

Sadeh, A., 725 Savola, K. L., 5, 156, 668 Schiller, K. S., 687
Sadovnik, A., 501 Sawa, A., 702 Schindler, I., 627, 628, 636, 638,
Saffran, J. R., 605 Sawyer, R., 741 639
Saha, A. K., 261 Saxe, G. B., 54 Schjelderup, H., 949
Saile, H., 554 Saxe, R., 345 Schjelderup, K., 949
Saint-Hilaire, E. G., 211 Sayer, A. G., 668, 685 Schlick, M., 73, 74
Saito, R. N., 902, 906, 911, 931 Scales, P., 12, 895, 900, 901, 905, Schlosberg, H., 374
Säljö, R., 765 906, 908, 911, 912, 913, 914, Schmidt, G., 600
Salmela-Aro, K., 448 915, 918, 919, 920, 921, 922, Schmidt, J., 468
Salomon, G., 353, 367 923, 924, 925, 926, 927, 928, Schmidt, K., 377
Salthe, S. N., 222 929, 930, 931 Schmidt, L. A., 415
Salthouse, T. A., 528, 553, 571, 577, Scardamalia, M., 349 Schmidt, L. R., 590
590, 598, 600, 601, 602, 606, Scarlett, W. G., 953, 955, 974, 990 Schmidt, R. A., 296
609, 610, 611, 627 Scarr, S., 36, 43, 65, 234, 235, 247, Schmidtchen, G., 987
Salvatore, S., 167 248, 519, 529, 606, 613, 614, Schmidt McCollam, K., 447, 607
Salzman, L., 988 615, 619, 819, 846, 866 Schmiedek, F., 591, 597, 603
Sameroff, A., 109, 269, 357, 408, Scarr-Salapatek, S., 247, 819, 865 Schmitt-Rodermund, E., 670
428, 429, 432, 441, 448, 535, Schaal, S., 288 Schmitz, B., 595
683, 917 Schacter, D. L., 605 Schmitz, E., 987
Sampson, E. E., 49, 752, 753 Schadewaldt, W., 610 Schmitz, U., 550, 554
Sampson, R., 5, 13, 156, 666, 672, Schaeffer, C. M., 917 Schnabel, K. U., 668
683, 693, 695, 698, 699, 701, Schaffer, H. R., 151, 153 Schnakenberg, J., 945
704, 705, 913, 914, 926 Schaffler, P., 377 Schneider, B., 506, 688
Samuelson, P. A., 553 Schaie, K. W., 448, 527, 528, 551, Schneider, E. L., 551
Samuelson, S., 277 572, 573, 575, 583, 584, 587, Schneider, K., 294, 296, 546
Sandblom, J., 604 588, 589, 597, 598, 603, 610, Schneider, S. K., 539
Sandefur, G., 694 611, 612, 613, 644, 669, 904 Schneider, W., 449, 478, 537, 605
Sandel, T., 744, 746 Schallenberger, M. E., 106, 123, Schneirla, T. C., 2, 26, 33, 46, 96,
Sanders, M. G., 922 135 121, 141, 217, 219, 225, 247,
San Doval, A., 919 Schank, R. C., 325, 372, 522, 524, 265, 408, 415, 422, 423, 469,
Sanford, E. C., 573, 596 541, 542, 543 471, 495, 574, 798, 903
Sanford, N., 451 Schechtman, V. L., 725 Schoelmerish, A., 761
Sangsue, J., 370 Schecter, S. R., 743, 744 Schoenhals, M., 688
Sanislow, C. A., 231 Scheff, T. J., 376 Schoenrade, P., 982, 984
Sansone, L., 543 Scheibel, A., 385 Scholnick, E. K., 28, 62, 542
Santostefano, S., 53, 63 Scheier, C., 53, 240, 246, 287, 299, Scholz, J. P., 276
Sapolsky, R. M., 415, 438 300 Schoneman, T. J., 789
Sarat, A., 874 Scheier, M. F., 410, 522, 536, 537, Schöner, G., 53, 240, 246, 273, 276,
Sarbin, T. R., 441 539, 540, 541, 543, 554, 620, 277, 298, 299, 300, 306
Sareen, J., 409 638, 639 Schönpflug, U., 534
Sarigiani, P. A., 429 Scherer, H., 590 Schooler, C., 606, 739, 759
Sarkar, S., 222, 231 Scherer, K. R., 370, 371 Schoon, I., 682
Sarris, E. G., 191 Scherer, M., 540 Schore, A. N., 377
Sass, L. A., 750 Scherer, U., 370 Schorr, L. B., 932
Sato, T., 185 Schibilsky, M., 988 Schoultz, J., 765
Satz, P., 614 Schieffelin, B., 499, 738, 739, 743, Schroeder, D. C., 183
Sauck, C., 176 744 Schroedter, T., 948, 964
Saudino, K. J., 32 Schiff, M., 232 Schrott, L. M., 417
Savage, A., 616 Schiller, J., 320 Schuierer, G., 609
 Author Index 1029

Schulenberg, J. E., 612 Seligman, M. E. P., 131, 423, 473, Sherrod, L., 586
Schultheiss, O. C., 541 540, 547, 638, 900, 901, 926, Sherrow, F., 978
Schultz, D., 831, 847 932 Sherry, D. F., 605
Schultz, L. H., 376, 377 Sells, S. B., 410, 422 Sherzer, J., 742
Schultz, P. G., 255 Selman, R., 376, 377, 526, 533, 548, Shiffrin, R. M., 478, 537
Schultz, W., 932 549, 550 Shillito, E., 242
Schulz, R., 548, 552, 554, 578, 590, Selye, H., 415, 416 Shils, E. A., 522
620, 634, 636, 641, 904 Semel, S., 501 Shimizu, H., 718, 759
Schulze, P., 761 Senders, S. J., 241 Shimuzu, M., 702
Schunk, D., 536 Senn, M. J. E., 125 Shinn, M., 164, 438
Schurr, T. G., 227 Sesma, A., Jr., 901, 906, 908, 915, Shinn, P., 238
Schütz, A., 199, 522 924, 925, 927, 928, 929 Shirk, S., 751
Schwartz, A., 983 Sethi, S., 860 Shirley, M. M., 128, 135
Schwartz, C., 409 Setiadi, B., 374 Shishler, R. J., 601
Schwartz, G. E. R., 630 Settersten, R. A., Jr., 571, 573, 584, Shoda, Y., 621, 623
Schwartz, J. C., 356, 372, 373, 374, 586, 633, 674, 680, 697, 700, Shore, B., 717, 718
376 924 Shostak, M., 184
Schwartz, J. E., 623, 638, 652 Sewertzoff, A., 187 Shrager, J., 602
Schwartz, J. H., 441 Sewney, V. D., 111 Shrout, P. E., 279
Schwartz, M. S., 341 Seymour, B., 606 Shucksmith, J., 429
Schwartz, N., 412 Seymour, S., 718 Shultz, T. R., 348, 356, 357, 382
Schwartz, T., 718 Shafranske, E. P., 948 Shuman, A., 748
Schwartzman, H., 741 Shahabi, L., 982 Shwalb, B. J., 743
Schwarz, B., 442 Shakow, D., 117 Shwalb, D., 743
Schwarz, N., 539, 639, 640 Shamakina, I. Y., 216, 247 Shweder, R., 66, 67, 200, 519, 527,
Schweder, R. A., 413, 421, 441 Shanahan, L., 702 576, 597, 717, 718, 719, 720,
Schweitzer, F., 946, 964, 981 Shanahan, M., 170, 248, 449, 665, 721, 722, 723, 725, 726, 729,
Scott, J. P., 151, 152, 153 666, 668, 671, 680, 682, 688, 732, 738, 739, 752, 753, 756,
Scott, S., 989 693, 698, 701, 702, 703, 821 760, 762, 768, 772
Scribner, S., 200, 531, 738, 766 Shand, N., 756, 759 Siddle, R., 989
Scriven, M., 419 Shannon, L. W., 443 Siegal, M., 777
Scriver, C. R., 224 Shanon, B., 51, 56 Siegel, A. W., 764
Searle, J., 32, 34, 56, 57, 524 Sharma, A., 12, 912, 920 Siegler, I., 632, 985
Sears, H. A., 408 Shatz, C., 215 Siegler, R. S., 28, 44, 45, 62, 72, 86,
Sears, M. R., 684, 703 Shaver, P., 320, 325, 356, 370, 371, 100, 101, 303, 321, 325, 336,
Sears, P., 146, 149, 574 372, 373, 374, 376, 377, 979, 352, 364, 365, 533, 582, 590,
Sears, R. R., 90, 91, 123, 125, 128, 987 603, 605, 775, 778
144, 149, 150, 155, 574, 666, Shaw, J. C., 306 Siepmann, M., 35
693 Shaw, L., 242 Sigman, M., 500, 811
Seaton, G., 831, 838, 871, 881 Shaw, R. E., 306 Sigvardsson, S., 441
Secada, W., 768 Shea, M. C., 537 Sijtsma, K., 30
Secord, P. F., 523 Sheets-Johnstone, M., 53 Sikström, S., 600
Segall, M. H., 721 Sheldon, K. M., 639 Silbereisen, R. K., 24, 412, 427,
Segalowitz, S. J., 415 Shepard, B., 62 428, 442, 517, 670, 691
Seibold-Simpson, S. M., 926 Sherkat, D. E., 978 Silberg, J., 702
Seidel, F., 213 Sherman, A., 982 Silke, A., 988
Seifer, R., 500 Sherman, M., 127 Silva, P., 408, 628, 695
Seifert, A. E., 540 Sherman, T., 545 Silver, L. J., 831, 838, 881
Sejnowski, T. J., 282 Sherrill, K. A., 986 Silver, R. C., 642, 687
1030 Author Index

Silverberg, S. B., 579 Small, B. J., 632, 633 Solaas, M. H., 819
Silvern, L., 323, 344 Small, S., 803, 805, 806, 898, 901, Solomon, B., 190
Silverstein, S. M., 987 905, 906 Solomon, G. E. A., 61
Simão, L. M., 200, 201 Smedslund, J., 173, 176, 532, 533 Solomon, J., 377
Simenova, D., 759 Smith, C., 408, 540, 981 Solomon, R. L., 131, 423
Simmel, G., 195 Smith, E. E., 537 Somsen, R. J. M., 388
Simmonds, R., 978 Smith, F., 612 Sorell, G. T., 436
Simmons, R. G., 683 Smith, J., 11, 408, 473, 491, 493, Sorensen, A. B., 586, 687
Simmons, W. L., 554 530, 542, 550, 569, 571, 574, Sorensen, S., 415
Simner, M. L., 242 575, 577, 581, 582, 585, 590, Soto-Faraco, S., 242
Simon, H., 191, 306, 338, 526, 610 591, 593, 594, 597, 604, 606, Sousa, P., 777
Simon, T., 103 607, 608, 611, 612, 614, 621, Sovran, T., 187
Simons, R. L., 428, 685, 696 625, 630, 634, 635, 636, 637, Sowarka, D., 580, 603, 612
Simonton, D. K., 471, 472, 484, 610 638, 642, 644 Spalding, D. A., 95
Simpson, A. R., 914 Smith, K., 925 Spangler, G., 739, 740, 757
Singer, B., 637, 692, 918, 932 Smith, L., 39, 53 Spanoudis, G., 343, 353
Singer, D., 5 Smith, L. B., 156, 195, 240, 243, Spaulding, W., 634
Singer, J. D., 328, 359, 685 246, 259, 271, 275, 277, 278, Spear, L. P., 420
Singer, J. L., 620 284, 287, 289, 291, 292, 299, Spear, N., 242
Singer, M. I., 441 300, 301, 302, 303, 306, 332, Spearman, C., 235
Singer, T., 577, 578, 584, 589, 598, 347, 348, 357, 605, 607, 622, Speed, W. C., 227
604, 606, 611, 615, 616, 617 903 Speer, J. R., 548
Singer, W., 597, 628 Smith, L. D., 44, 73 Spelke, E., 5, 33, 61, 241, 263, 278,
Singh, G., 227 Smith, M. A., 820 315, 325, 338, 339, 340, 342,
Singh, I., 328, 381 Smith, M. B., 698 344, 345, 346, 348, 353, 372,
Sinnott, J., 492 Smith, M. J., 524 604, 605, 777
Sjövall, B., 188 Smith, M. R., 616 Spelt, D. K., 131
Skeels, H. M., 127 Smith, R. S., 697, 905 Spemann, H., 140
Skinner, B. F., 44, 47, 67, 131, 143, Smith, S., 320, 761 Spence, C., 242
150, 329, 338, 363, 364, 521, Smith, T. J., 906, 913, 927 Spence, D. P., 745
605, 903 Smith, W. C., 954, 962, 986 Spence, J., 240, 485
Skinner, D., 745, 748, 749 Smoller, D., 242 Spence, M. J., 232
Skinner, E. A., 436, 547, 548, 554, Smyth, M., 174 Spencer, A. E., 980
635 Smythe, W. E., 174, 199 Spencer, H., 93, 196
Skorpen, C. G., 630 Sneed, J. D., 531, 532 Spencer, J., 293, 294, 295, 296, 297,
Skrondal, A., 5, 156 Snell, E., 689 299, 302, 306
Slaughter, D. T., 849 Snibbe, A. C., 761 Spencer, M. B., 8, 379, 830, 831,
Slaughter, V., 975 Snidman, N., 378, 438, 442, 623 832, 833, 834, 835, 838, 839,
Slee, N., 958, 959 Snow, C., 325, 344 841, 842, 843, 844, 845, 846,
Sliwinski, M. J., 668 Snyder, C. R., 538, 539 847, 848, 849, 850, 856, 857,
Sloane, D. M., 979 Snyder, M., 438, 537 858, 859, 860, 861, 862, 863,
Slobin, D., 344, 745 Snyder, S. H., 702 864, 865, 866, 867, 868, 869,
Slomczynski, K. M., 815 Snyder, S. S., 552 870, 871, 876, 878, 879, 880,
Slomkowski, C., 777 Soares da Silva, A. P., 202 881, 882, 883, 884, 885, 886,
Slotta, J. D., 263 Sofer, C., 680 887, 905, 913
Slovak, K., 441 Sokol, B. W., 27 Spencer, T., 831, 887
Slunecko, T., 185 Sokoloff, H., 896 Sperber, D., 776
Slutske, W. S., 702 Sokolowski, M. B., 223, 224, 226, Sperry, D. E., 746, 748
Sluyter, F., 227, 228 228, 229, 230 Sperry, L. L., 744, 746, 748
 Author Index 1031

Sperry, R. W., 217, 247 Steele, S., 946 Strauman, T., 538, 545
Spiegel, D., 628, 629, 630 Stefancic, J., 875, 876, 877, 878 Strauss, A. L., 672
Spilerman, S., 681 Stein, B. E., 240, 244, 283 Strauss, B., 242
Spilka, B., 944, 945, 948, 952, 953, Stein, J., 35, 920 Strauss, S., 361, 533
974, 975, 977, 978, 980, 984, Stein, K., 757 Strawbridge, W. J., 982
988, 990 Stein, M. B., 409 Streib, H., 960, 988
Spilka, G., 932 Stein, S. A., 323 Strelau, J., 623
Spiro, A., III, 632, 640 Steinberg, L., 1, 7, 10, 33, 36, 44, Streri, A., 241, 245
Spiro, M. E., 379 426, 817, 818, 893, 901, 915 Strickland, B. R., 761
Spivey, M., 284, 287, 288 Steinhagen-Thiessen, E., 11, 615 Strohman, R. C., 249
Spock, B., 145 Stenberg, C., 321 Stromberg, P. G., 749
Spoont, M. R., 629 Stengers, I., 269, 582 Strommen, M. P., 977
Spranger, E., 520, 521 Stent, G. S., 222 Stronks, K., 684
Spring, B., 424 Stepanova, A. N., 238 Strout, S., 179
Spruston, N., 320 Stern, D., 751 Strycker, L. A., 685
Spudich, J. L., 225 Stern, D. C., 420 Stryker, M. P., 437
Sroufe, L. A., 24, 27, 62, 370, 377, Stern, D. M., 494, 499, 500 Stryker, S., 551
432, 482, 501, 815, 816, 915 Stern, M. S., 995 Stuart, J. M., 237
Srull, T. K., 544 Stern, W., 2, 37, 40, 118, 119, 248, Stueve, A., 919
Stace, W. T., 35, 55 406, 421, 425, 438 Stumpf, C., 409
Staff, J., 682 Sternberg, P. W., 436 Su, Y., 945, 984
Standing, E. M., 504, 505 Sternberg, R. J., 28, 44, 62, 353, Suci, G. J., 327, 374
Stanger, C., 751 413, 475, 492, 506, 537, 579, Suess, G., 739, 740, 757
Stangor, C., 549 578, 600, 605, 606, 608, 613, Suess, P. E., 629
Stanley, J. C., 349 618, 622 Sugarman, S., 26
Stansfeld, S., 684 Sterns, H. L., 644 Sugden, K., 233, 705
Stanton, B., 930 Stetsenko, A., 442, 757 Suh, E., 630
Stanton, J. M., 620, 634, 638 Stevens, A. H., 682 Sullivan, H. S., 37, 145, 150,
Stanton, W., 695 Stevenson, H. C., 834, 845, 846, 751
Stark, R. A., 953 867, 870 Sullivan, M., 66, 200, 718, 721,
Stattin, H., 7, 11, 14, 36, 37, 39, 49, Stevenson, H. W., 151, 756, 790 751, 837
401, 406, 408, 410, 411, 415, Stewart, J., 187, 199, 315, 319, 320, Sullivan, T. K., 913, 914
425, 426, 427, 428, 430, 432, 324, 325, 330, 332, 334, 365, Sullivan, W. M., 755, 756
450 366, 367 Sulloway, F. J., 93, 94, 95, 115, 668,
Staudinger, U., 11, 167, 405, 416, Stewart, M., 978 682
419, 552, 569, 570, 572, 577, Stigler, J. W., 717, 718, 756, 761 Sully, J., 111, 114, 119
578, 579, 583, 585, 587, 596, Stigsdotter, A., 612 Suls, J., 641
597, 598, 605, 606, 607, 608, Stock, W. A., 551 Sundet, J., 819
609, 610, 614, 618, 619, 620, Stodolsky, S., 848 Suomi, S. J., 1, 53, 152
622, 625, 627, 628, 631, 633, Stoler, A. L., 883 Super, C., 449, 526, 717, 737, 738,
634, 635, 636, 637, 638, 639, Stoltzfus, J., 845, 881, 887 763, 766
641, 644, 669, 904, 944 Stolz, L. M., 698 Surwit, R. S., 231
Stavy, R., 778 Stone, A., 546 Susman, E. J., 408, 415, 622, 686
Stearns, E., 703 Stone, M., 989 Sutton, K. J., 635, 640
Stearns, P. N., 177 Storch, K.-F., 238 Sutton-Smith, B., 508, 833
Stecher, L. I., 126 Stouffer, S. A., 698 Svanborg, A., 629
Steedman, C. K., 749 Strack, F., 539, 640 Swann, W. B., 538, 553
Steele, C., 538, 749, 834, 839, 845, Strang, P., 589 Swann, W., Jr., 538
846, 848, 853, 870, 871, 881 Stratton, P., 179 Swanson, C. C., 179
1032 Author Index

Swanson, D., 831, 842, 843, 850, Teichmann, H., 417 Thomson, W. M., 684, 703
858, 859, 867, 869, 870, 871, Teitge, D. W., 749 Thoresen, C. E., 915, 923, 982
876, 887 Teitge, J. S., 749 Thorndike, E. L., 95, 137
Swanson, K. R., 179 Tellegen, A., 919, 924 Thorne, B., 771, 774
Sweeney, M. M., 703 Terman, L. M., 103, 127, 128, 821 Thorngate, W., 183
Swidler, A., 755, 756 Terr, L. C., 380 Thornton, A., 668, 676
Swijtink, Z., 172 Tesch-Römer, C., 415, 609 Thouless, R. H., 974
Sylva, K., 507 Tesla, C., 777 Thun, T., 973
Symons, L. A., 241, 242, 245 Tesman, J. R., 62 Thurman, R., 969
Szeminska, A., 342 Tesser, A., 362, 537, 541, 555 Thurstone, L. L., 137
Tetens, J. N., 421, 518, 570, 571, Tian, H. J., 233, 239
Tabor, L. E., 348 572, 574, 600, 618 Tice, D. M., 544
Taine, H., 97 Tetlock, P. E., 768, 770 Tiedemann, D., 164
Tajfel, H., 771 Thalberg, J., 517, 523 Tienda, M., 688
Takagi, S., 702, 706 Thaler, D. S., 597 Tierney, P., 917
Takagi, T., 387 Thatcher, R. W., 281, 348, 382, 383, Tinbergen, N., 96
Takahashi, K., 776 386, 387, 388, 389 Tinker, E., 24, 50
Takanishi, R., 895, 899 Thelen, E., 27, 39, 53, 54, 134, 156, Tipper, S. P., 555
Takata, T., 760 195, 240, 243, 246, 259, 271, Tipton, S. M., 755, 756
Tambs, K., 819 275, 276, 278, 284, 286, 289, Tiret, L., 230
Tamis-LeMonda, C. S., 759 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, Titzer, R., 275, 284, 291, 299, 300,
Tamminnen, K., 958, 964, 972, 973, 296, 297, 299, 300, 301, 302, 301, 306
974 303, 304, 306, 332, 347, 348, Tobach, E., 2, 7, 10, 36, 46, 156,
Tanabe, H., 768 356, 357, 408, 430, 605, 606, 415, 469, 495, 518, 763, 798
Tang, Y.-P., 255, 702 622, 903 Tobin, J., 748, 756
Tangney, J. P., 371, 372 Theokas, C., 6, 12, 13, 895 Todd, J., 293
Tannenbaum, P., 327, 374 Thielman, S. B., 986 Todd, P. M., 596, 605
Tanner, J. M., 417 Thieman, T. J., 102 Todd, R. D., 437
Tanner, L., 233 Thoits, P. A., 688, 772 Todorov, A. A., 702
Tapaswi, P. K., 261 Thom, R., 261 Tokoro, M., 776
Tarafodi, R. W., 758 Thomae, H., 417, 438, 526, 569, Tolan, P. H., 926
Tatarkiewicz, W., 555 573, 636 Tolman, E. C., 131, 143, 220, 409
Tatsuoka, M. M., 334 Thoman, E. B., 725 Tolman, J., 906, 920
Taub, E., 609 Thomas, A., 477, 491, 493, 526, Tomarken, A. J., 629
Taylor, A., 233, 684, 703 623, 905 Tomasello, M., 311, 412, 575, 576,
Taylor, B., 415 Thomas, D., 126, 135, 136, 739 597, 750, 751, 762, 777, 778
Taylor, C., 23, 24, 48, 63, 72, 75, 79, Thomas, K., 832, 867 Tomiyasu, U., 385
539, 540, 752, 951 Thomas, M. S. C., 279 Tomkiewicz, S., 232
Taylor, C. E., 747, 748 Thomas, S. A., 238 Tomkins, S., 441
Taylor, C. S., 930 Thomas, W. I., 135, 422, 471, 667, Tomlinson, W. T., 242, 245
Taylor, E., 466, 501 669, 673, 678, 692 Tomlinson-Keasey, C., 623, 638
Taylor, H. F., 233 Thompson, E., 46, 47, 53, 69, 246, Toms, F., 835, 857
Taylor, M., 741 303, 466, 750 Tononi, G., 38, 48, 410
Taylor, S. E., 365, 538, 542, 554, 639 Thompson, H., 132, 414 Tonooka, R., 192
Teasdale, E. J. D., 547 Thompson, L., 585, 614, 615 Tooby, J., 41, 623
Teasley, S. D., 587 Thompson, R. A., 412 Toomela, A., 192, 199, 200
Tecott, L. H., 223 Thompson, R. F., 101 Topoff, H. R., 7
Tees, R. C., 245 Thompson, S. C., 423, 553 Törestad, B., 219, 249, 404, 405, 413,
Tees, R. L., 241, 242, 244 Thompson, W. W., 616 423, 445, 449, 587, 589, 611
 Author Index 1033

Toth, S. L., 317 Udry, J. R., 930 van der Weele, C., 231
Toulmin, S., 56, 59, 74, 75, 524, 527 Uhlenberg, P., 670 Van Deusen-Phillips, S. B., 745, 765
Touwen, B. C. L., 348 Ullman, C., 987 VanDevender, T., 735
Toynbee, A., 472 Ulrich, B. D., 27, 259, 290 van Dijk, L., 673
Trabasso, T. R., 278 Ulrich, B. O., 240 van Dijk, M., 320, 323, 329, 348
Tracy, J. L., 49, 412 Ulvund, S. E., 613 Vandiver, B. J., 889
Tran, V., 370 Umerez, J., 178 van Dulmen, M., 925
Traupmann, K., 770 Unzner, L., 546, 739, 740, 757 van Geert, P., 170, 195, 291, 315,
Trause, M. A., 839, 844 Updegraff, R., 127 320, 323, 329, 347, 348, 351,
Treboux, D., 377 Urbano, R., 245 352, 356, 357, 358, 359, 360,
Tremblay, R. E., 447, 685 Uttal, D. H., 35 362, 382, 383, 384, 387, 447
Tretjakoff, I., 223 Uvnäs-Moberg, K., 416 van Gelder, T., 320
Trevarthen, C., 439, 500, 507 Uzgiris, I. C., 345, 350, 384, 387 Van Heck, G. L., 406, 422
Triandis, H. C., 730, 753, 755, 757, van Heerden, J., 431
860 Vaidya, J. G., 632 VanLaningham, J., 682
Triandis, L., 980 Vaihinger, H., 199 van Leeuwen, H. M. P., 388
Trickett, E., 13 Vaillant, G., 469, 637, 644, 666 van Lieshout, C. F. M., 419
Triplett, R. A., 682 Valdivieso, R., 932 Van Nguyen, T., 428, 813
Trivers, R. L., 624 Valentine, J. C., 926 van Os, J., 702
Tronick, E. Z., 735, 791 Valiant, G., 376 Van Parys, M., 329, 334, 349, 378,
Trost, M. A., 427 Vallacher, R. R., 362, 447, 541 379
Trudeau, E. J., 323 Valle, V. A., 546 van ‘t Klooster, B. J., 388
Trudewind, C., 546 Valsiner, J., 5, 20, 21, 27, 28, 38, 63, Van Tol, H. H. M., 227
Trueba, H. T., 881, 882 65, 90, 108, 109, 112, 113, 114, Vapnarsky, V., 777
Truly, T. L., 196 130, 156, 167, 168, 169, 170, Varela, F., 46, 47, 53, 69, 246, 303,
Tryon, W. W., 12 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 466, 520, 582, 750
Tsai, J., 631, 759 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, Vazsonyi, A. T., 929
Tsay, J. C., 905 184, 185, 187, 188, 189, 190, Velasquéz, O., 765
Tsien, J. M., 702 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196, Venter, J. C., 7, 9
Tsien, J. Z., 235, 236, 702 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 206, Ventis, W. L., 982, 984
Tu, W., 753 247, 248, 356, 405, 413, 449, Ventura-Cook, E., 761
Tucker, D., 248, 492 517, 522, 526, 535, 545, 546, Vereijken, B., 279
Tucker, J. S., 623, 638, 653 549, 576, 597, 644, 751, 772, Verhaeghen, P., 598, 601, 604, 611,
Tucker, S. R., 831, 838, 881 774 615, 616, 617
Tuholski, S. W., 602 van Aken, M. A. G., 352 Verma, A., 680
Tulkin, S. R., 811 van de Mheen, H., 684 Veronneau, S., 238
Tuma, S., 589 Vandenberg, B., 508 Verschure, P. F. M. J., 357
Turbin, M. S., 901, 921, 923 Vandenbergh, J., 218 Vicary, J. R., 429
Turiel, E., 343, 533 van der Lans, J., 988 Vico, G. B., 520
Turkewitz, G., 242, 243, 245, 247, van der Lippe, T., 673 Vidal, F., 998
283, 469 van der Maas, H., 290, 320, 347, Viitanen, M., 612
Turkheimer, E., 613 357, 362 Viken, R. J., 428
Turnball, R., 407 Van der Meulen, M., 751 Villa-Komaroff, L., 217
Turnbull, W., 540 van der Molen, M. W., 388, 601 Villareal, M., 753
Turner, P., 816, 905 Vanderryn, J., 921 Villarruel, F. A., 13, 898, 900
Turner, R. J., 703 van der Veer, R., 63, 65, 90, 108, Villenas, S., 183
Turvey, M., 273, 274, 306 109, 112, 113, 156, 170, 175, Vinden, P. G., 765
Tyler, S. A., 522 187, 188, 189, 190, 191, 199, Vinsel, A., 488
Tyson, R., 179 200, 247, 248, 522 Virshup, L. K., 772
1034 Author Index
Vishton, P., 604
Viswanathan, N., 238
Viteles, M. S., 118
Vogel, P., 973
Vogler, G. M., 702
Volet, S., 412
Volkart, E. H., 667
von Baer, K. E., 91, 92, 93, 187,
211, 212
von Bertalanffy, L., 2, 32, 93, 94,
141, 214, 215, 257, 268, 269,
347, 357, 434
von Cranach, M., 522
Vonèche, J. J., 111
von Ehrenfels, C., 185
von Eye, A., 5, 156, 426, 442, 446,
447, 464, 529, 930
von Hofsten, C., 292, 293, 604
von Knorring, A.-L., 441
von Oertzen, T., 589, 591, 603,
606
Von Uexküll, J. J., 179
von Wright, G. H., 51, 75, 76, 79
Voss, T., 947
Voyat, G., 198
Vraa, R., 911, 913, 914, 929
Vrba, E. S., 605
Vreeke, G. J., 32
Vroom, V. H., 522
Vuyk, R., 198
Vygotsky, L., 26, 60, 66, 113, 139,
140, 186, 191, 192, 199, 200,
288, 292, 303, 321, 330, 332,
349, 363, 364, 421, 496, 501,
508, 519, 522, 526, 546, 553,
598, 603, 669, 743, 761, 911
Wachs, T. D., 223, 233, 423, 814,
815, 820
Waddington, C., 99, 141, 194, 247,
260, 261, 268, 276, 417, 582,
592
Wadsworth, M., 683, 692
Wagner, D., 539
Wagner, R. K., 537, 606
Wahl, H.-W., 579, 590
Wahlsten, D., 39, 223, 224, 225,
226, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231,
234, 235, 323, 341, 347, 416,
702, 903
Wainwright, P., 228
Waismann, F., 532
Walberg, H. J., 923
Waldron, M., 614
Waldrop, M., 470, 482
Walker, L., 982, 984
Walker, S., 959, 970
Walker-Andrews, A. S., 241, 243
Walker-Andrews, A. W., 284
Walkerdine, V., 791
Wall, S., 153, 377, 384, 740, 815
Wallace, D. C., 227
Wallace, J. G., 339, 346, 364
Wallbott, H. G., 371
Wallon, H., 143, 189, 366
Walters, L. H., 915
Walters, R. H., 149, 150, 151, 572
Wamboldt, F. S., 441
Wandersman, A., 901, 915, 932
Wang, L., 332, 354, 356, 372, 375
Wang, M. C., 923
Wang, P. P., 213, 214
Wang, Q., 746, 757, 759
Wang, S.-H., 722, 742, 778
Wang, X., 741, 746
Wapner, S., 39, 69, 70, 432
Warburton, D. M., 407
Ward, M. C., 499
Ward, R. A., 553
Warr, P., 602
Warren, D. H., 242
Warren, H. C., 101
Warren, J. R., 688
Warren, N., 531
Wartofsky, M., 56, 59, 70, 534
Warwick, L., 988
Washburn, R. W., 134
Wasserman, S., 278
Watanabe, A., 387
Watanabe, J., 759
Watanabe, K., 169, 192
Waterman, A. S., 620, 622, 633
Waters, E., 153, 377, 384, 740
Waters, I., 815
Waters, P. J., 224
Watkins, J. W. N., 529
Watkins, L. R., 435
Watson, D., 492, 632
Watson, J., 777
Watson, J. B., 2, 91, 121, 129, 130,
131, 165, 171, 403, 405, 521
Watson, J. S., 545
Watson, M. W., 335, 378, 379
Watson-Gegeo, K. A., 743, 744, 766,
769
Watt, L. M., 551
Watts, C. L., 376
Wax, N., 778
Way, N., 924
Wayment, H. A., 639
Weakland, J. H., 145
Weaver, L., 620, 635
Webb, A. G., 612
Webb, K. S., 881
Webster, P. S., 552
Wechsler, A., 385
Wegner, D. M., 541
Weigert, A. J., 749
Weiler, I. J., 235
Weinberg, R. A., 898, 902, 905
Weinberger, D. R., 604
Weiner, B., 534
Weiner, H., 436, 437
Weinert, F. E., 582, 586, 605
Weinstein, H., 756, 758
Weir, M. W., 583
Weismann, A., 218
Weisner, T., 717, 725, 727, 736, 738,
762, 773
Weiss, C. H., 932
Weiss, M., 751
Weiss, P., 181, 215
Weissberg, R. P., 901, 926, 932
Weisz, J., 547, 552, 759
Welch, R. B., 242
Welford, A. T., 321, 601
Weller, S. C., 774
Welles-Nystrom, B., 737
Wellman, B. L., 127
Wellman, H. M., 301, 343, 548,
597, 600, 605, 609, 775, 776,
777
Wells, A., 481, 916
Wells, L. E., 551
 Author Index 1035

Wenger, E., 546, 770 Whiting, J. W. M., 149, 719, 725, Wilson, S. M., 929
Wenger, M., 735 732, 735, 738, 739 Wilson, W. H., 183
Wenger Jindra, I., 964 Whitlock, J. L., 927, 931 Wimmer, H., 975
Wentura, D., 541, 548, 551, 552, Wibowo, S., 758 Winant, H., 882, 883, 884
554, 555, 570, 593, 620, 637, Wickens, C. D., 131 Winch, P., 75, 524
638 Wickens, D. D., 131 Winegar, L. T., 176, 195
Wentzel, K., 504 Wicklund, R. A., 537, 538, 540, 553 Winer, B. J., 32
Werboff, J., 152 Wiedl, K. H., 603 Wingard, D. L., 623, 638
Werker, J., 728, 740 Wienbruch, C., 609 Wink, P., 633, 638, 998
Werner, E. E., 621, 697, 905 Wierzbicka, A., 718, 722, 732 Winn, S., 735
Werner, H., 27, 37, 40, 60, 93, 118, Wiese, B. S., 595 Winnicott, D. W., 37, 54, 60
189, 190, 364, 383, 580, 603, Wiesel, T. N., 382, 422, 424 Wisden, W., 216, 247
634, 635 Wiesner, M., 670, 725 Wispé, L., 199
Wertlieb, D., 156, 169, 918 Wigfield, A., 12, 410, 429, 503 Witasek, S., 199
Wertsch, J., 31, 38, 66, 200, 201, Wiggins, R. W., 682 Witherington, D., 384
322, 494, 522, 526, 546, 717, Wilensky, H. L., 684 Witter, R. A., 551
742, 743, 748, 765, 769, 774 Wiley, A., 745, 746, 759 Wittgenstein, L., 19, 35, 75, 80, 175,
West, C., 883 Wiley, E. O., 46 341, 373, 535
West, D. D., 898 Wilkening, F., 605 Wittkowski, J., 974
West, D. J., 695 Willett, J. B., 5, 156, 328, 357, 359, Wohlwill, J., 22, 94, 114, 334, 346,
West, M., 265, 290, 738 589, 685 351, 357, 417, 423, 833
West, M. J., 218, 266 Williams, D., 683 Wolf, M., 335, 980
West, M. M., 356 Williams, E. M., 54 Wolf, S. A., 745, 749
Westen, D., 327 Williams, H. M., 127 Wolf, T. H., 100, 101
Westerhof, G. J., 620 Williams, K., 741, 746, 749 Wolfer, D. P., 238
Weston, D. R., 816 Williams, R. M., Jr., 698 Wolff, P. H., 259, 432
Wethington, E., 807, 821, 822, 823, Williams, R. N., 436 Wolfram, S., 362
824 Williams, R. W., 224 Wollheim, R., 551
Whalen, S., 481, 497, 502 Williams, S., 630, 925 Wolpert, L., 260
Wheaton, B., 687, 701, 703 Williams, W. M., 606 Wong, A. H. C., 227
Wheeler, L. R., 127 Williamson, P. A., 492 Wong, P. T. P., 551
Wheeler, R. E., 629 Willis, P., 770 Wong, W. H., 238
Wheeler, S., 569, 571, 573 Willis, S. L., 575, 584, 585, 590, Wood, D., 498, 545
Whitbourne, S. K., 620, 633 597, 598, 604, 611, 612 Wood, I. C., 216
White, B., 734 Willis, S. W., 584 Wood, J. V., 640
White, G., 717, 718 Willitts, M., 684 Wood, P. K., 332, 351, 358, 386
White, K., 932 Willmott, P., 673 Woodcock, R. W., 583
White, L. K., 682 Wills, C., 432 Woodruff, D. S., 640
White, M. I., 754 Wills, T. A., 539 Woodson, C. G., 879
White, R., 146, 422, 546, 621, 837, Wilmington, D., 245 Woodward, K. M., 630
838, 841, 842, 845, 870 Wilson, E. O., 95, 141, 247, 337, Woolever, C., 981
White, S., 45, 90, 91, 104, 105, 107, 945 Woolley, J., 975
155, 573, 741, 764, 854, 855, Wilson, G., 247 Wortham, S., 745, 748
856, 859, 869, 870 Wilson, J., 323, 332, 351, 352, 429 Wortman, C. B., 553, 642, 687
Whitelaw, E., 225 Wilson, M., 323, 425, 426 Wozniak, R., 466, 501
Whiteman, R., 409 Wilson, R. S., 235 Wozniak, R. H., 535
Whiting, B. B., 149, 321, 356, 364, Wilson, S., 761 Wozniak, R. J., 90, 108, 109, 111,
735, 738, 739 Wilson, S. G., 235 121
1036 Author Index

Wranik, T., 370 Yasumatsu, N., 235 Zazzo, R., 143

Wright, H. F., 833 Yates, E., 576 Zecevic, N., 382, 384, 385
Wright, R. A., 544, 553 Yates, K., 261 Zeigarnik, B., 194
Wright, S., 216 Yates, M., 776, 919, 920, 945, 984 Zelazo, P. D., 53
Wrosch, C., 635 Yi, S., 759 Zeldin, S., 902, 906, 913, 918
Wu, D. Y. H., 756, 759 Yip, T., 772 Zélény, M., 520
Wu, S., 356, 373, 374, 376 Yoerger, K., 695 Zeligs, D. F., 949
Wu, W., 821 Yohalem, N., 906 Zelinski, E. M., 575, 584, 594
Wugalter, S. E., 446 York, P., 441 Zenderland, L., 105
Wulff, D. M., 944, 945, 947, 948, Yorke, J. A., 277 Zenklusen, B., 964
966, 967 Young, C. H., 5, 156, 668 Zernicke, R. F., 294, 296
Wunderle, G., 947 Young, K., 127 Zetterblom, G., 425
Wundt, W., 91, 121, 166, 374, 414 Young, M. D., 673 Zhang, J. H., 409
Wurf, E., 619, 620, 750 Young, N. F., 881, 882 Zhang, Y., 226
Wyer, R. S., Jr., 544 Youngblade, L., 777 Ziegler, G., 438
Wyndhamn, J., 765 Youngblood, J., 831, 887 Zigler, E., 2, 14
Wynn, J., 911 Young-DeMarco, L., 668 Zimbardo, P. G., 438
Wynne, L. C., 131 Younger, B. A., 470 Zinnbauer, B. J., 953
Wynshaw-Boris, A., 223 Youniss, J., 63, 67, 682, 776, 917, Zins, J. E., 926, 932
919, 920, 945, 984 Zirkel, S., 541
Xie, H., 154, 155 Yu, C., 287, 305 Zittoun, T., 183, 201
Xie, Y., 323, 332, 351, 352 Yu, E., 835 Zivin, G., 519, 546
Xuei, X. L., 233, 239 Yu, H. C., 772 Zlatev, J., 288
Yurko, K. H., 638 Znaniecki, F., 471, 667, 669, 673,
Yakovlev, P. I., 385 Yushak, M., 438 678, 692
Yamakoshi, G., 192 Yust, K.-M., 981 Zoghbi, H. Y., 225
Yamamoto, Y., 831 Yuwiler, A., 415 Zohar, A., 45, 72
Yamauchi, B., 305 Yuwiler, J., 415 Zondag, H. J., 964
Yamauchi, N., 387 Zondermann, A. B., 637
Yan, Z., 187, 199, 291, 315, 319, Zacks, R. T., 601 Zuckerman, M., 623
320, 324, 325, 330, 332, 334, Zaff, J., 918, 925 Zukow-Goldring, P., 240
365, 366, 367 Zahn-Waxler, C., 89, 573, 669, 707 Zulehner, P., 945
Yang, K.-S., 717 Zajonc, R. B., 63, 423 zur Oeveste, H., 446
Yarrow, M. R., 150, 157 Zank, S., 590 Zweig, J. M., 923
Subject Index

Abduction, 64 development of control-related beliefs/motivations,

Abduction-transcendental argument, 77–80 546–548
Abused children, developmental pathways, 380 intentional action, developmental aspects of,
Academic/school success, 881–883, 917 545–546
Accentuation dynamic, 691 intentional self-development and the developing
Accommodative processes, 198, 478, 553–555 self, 548–551
Action, 51–53, 516–556. See also Dynamic preserving personal continuity and identity:
development of action and thought assimilative and accommodative processes,
concepts, 521–527 551–555
conceptual constituents, 522–524 personal regulation of developmental processes,
constitutive rules, 524 519–520
constraints of, 524 polyvalence of, 524–526
context of, 526–527 regulative rules, 524
control-system theories of, 522 rise of perspective on human development, 516–521
cultural regulation of development, 518–519 social-constructivist concepts; activity theory, 522
developmental diversity and regularity, action- structural theories of, 521–522
theoretical reconstructions, 527–535 Act psychologists, 409
construction and deconstruction of developmental Adaptation:
coherence, 528–529 and appraisal, 371
developmental plasticity, 529–530 emotion and, 371
invariance and universality in development, selective; development as, 580–582
530–535 Adaptation level theory, 423
weak and strong constraints, 529–530 Adaptive capacity, development as change in, 580–584
experience and, 52–53 Adolescence:
explicating, 522–524 academic/employment outcomes, 851
historical notes, 520–521 African American males, 857–859
intentional self-development and personal control antisocial behavior limited to, 685
over development, 535–544 parenting, 496–498
intention / behavior and, 51–53 transitions to parenthood during adolescence,
motivational theories, 522 685–686
overview/introduction, 555–556 Adultomorphic perspective, 26
personal control over development, 544–555 Affective state, and developmental sequences, 334
action resources and perceived control, 548 African Americans:
developing sense of control and personal agency, academic achievement research, 881–883
547–548 achievement gap, 878–883

1037
1038 Subject Index

African Americans (Continued) Attachment, 151–153, 376–378, 500–501, 740, 979–980

achievement motivation, historical overview,
879–880
AHAANA (Asian, Hispanic, African American, and
Native American), 833, 834
cultural context, 856–857
social movement for education, 880–883
unique experience, male adolescents, 857–859
Age:
advanced (See Older adults)
cohorts, 675–677
life course and, 673–679
as marker of maturation rate, 417–418
positive youth development, 928–929
temporality and, 669
Agency:
action theory, and development of sense of personal,
547–548
child as active agent, 21
interaction and, 318–319
living systems as agentive, 318
person-agent, 50–51, 53–54, 409
principle of human agency, 692–694
Agency/communion (polar dimensions of complexity),
485
AHAANA (Asian, Hispanic, African American, and
Native American), 833, 834
Alcohol, tobacco, or drug (ATOD) use, 925
Allocation of resources in personality functioning, 625
Analogy as mechanism of development, 45
Animal models and molecular genetics, 223–224
A-not-B task, 287, 299–303
Anticipatory preadaptation, 197–198
Antisocial behavior:
adolescence-limited, 685
biology and, 415
early onset, 695
life-course persistent, 685
Anxiety, experiential perspective, 472
Appraisal, in emotion, 371
Approach/avoidance goals, personality development, 631
Approach/withdrawal theory, 469
Argument from precocity, 344–345
Arousal reversals, 479
“As-if ” structures unfolding in time, 198–199
Assimilation /assimilative activity, 198, 478, 552–553
Associative competition as mechanism of development,
45
Atomism, 30, 31, 57
Attractors, 196, 272–274, 289
Attributions, religious, 990
Attunement, 729
Authoritarian regimes, 472
Autopoietic systems, 181–182
Bean bag concept of genome, 42
Becoming/ being, 56
Behavior:
expressive-constitutive and instrumental-
communicative functions, 22–25, 28
fossilization of, 195
holistic-interactionistic model, 414
Behavioral ecology, 44
Behavioral /emotional development, historical
perspective, 126, 129–132
Behavioral genetics and life course, future directions,
705–706. See also Genetics
Behavioral indicators of life mechanics of personality,
629–631
Behavioral inheritance, cultural psychology, 719, 720
Bimanual coordination, 297–298
Bioecological model of human development, 793–825,
864–868
defining properties, 796–799
developmental assessment of, 824–825
environmental dynamics:
in infancy, 809–810
in old age, 808–809
expanding ecological universe, 818–819
experience, 796–797
experiments, 808–810
microsystem, 814–820
mother-infant dyad as a context of development,
815–817
nature-nurture and, 819–820
overview/introduction, 793–796
person characteristics and later development, 810–813
demand characteristics, 812–813
developmentally generative dispositions inlife-
course perspective, 810–812
force characteristics, 810–811
resource characteristics, 812
physical environment, and psychological
development, 814–815
process, 795
proposition I, 797–798
proposition II, 798–799, 800–801

proximal processes, 795
focus of attention in proximal processes, 813–814
in solo activities with objects and symbols, 814
PVEST (phenomenological variant of ecological
systems theory) and, 864–868
diagram, 864
ecological systems theory, 865–868
research design and, 799–810
developmental science in discovery mode, 801–803
dysfunction versus competence, 803–808
from research to reality, 822–824
time:
micro-, meso-, and macrochronological systems,
820–822
proximal processes, 795
Biological constraints, dynamic systems, 305
Biological constructivism, 65
Biological determinism, 43
Biological embodiment, 48–49
Biological models:
holistic interactionistic model, 435
life course and, 701–706
Biological roots, developmental psychology, 92
Biological standpoint, nature-nurture example, 36
Biology. See also Developmental psychobiological
systems view:
antisocial behavior and, 415
cerebral asymmetry, 629–630
co-evolution, culture, 575–578
intellectual development, life span and, 595–619 (see
also Cognitive development)
life span development and, 575–578, 595–619
neuroscience/ brain, 305–306, 382–389, 602, 628–630
personality development and, 623–625
person-environment interaction processes, 414–416
well-being and, 415–416
Bio/social interactionism, 43
Board of Education v. Dowell, 872
Boredom, 472, 483
Boundaries/expectations, positive youth development
and, 907
Brain /neuroscience, 305–306, 382–389, 602, 628–630.
See also Biology
Bridging, 368–370, 498
Brown v. Board of Education, 868–872, 874
Career:
lines, 681
trajectories of marriage and parenthood, 684–685
Subject Index 1039
Cartesian dualist framework, 337–338
Causality:
action patterns and, 76–77
developmental, coaction, 218–219
holistic-interactionist model, 435–436
split mechanical explanation, 72
systemic, in biological and psychological worlds,
180–182
Causal models, metatheoretical level, 435
biological model, 435
environmentalistic model, 435
mentalistic model, 435
Cautiousness, balance of mature faith and, 493
Central conceptual structure, 353
Cerebral asymmetry, 629–630
Change:
developmental, 22–25
mechanisms of, dynamic systems, 304–305
transformational, 23, 25–28, 42
variational, 23, 25–28, 42
Chaos:
edge of, 482
theory, 197
Child-centered pattern, 499
Child movement, spiritual, 968–970
Child psychology, 166–169
blinders of adult psychological concerns, 167–169
versus developmental psychology, 166–167
Child study, historical perspective, 119
Choice points, 685–686
Chunking, 478
Clocks/rulers, 350–352
Coaction, 218–219
Co-constructivism, developmental biocultural, 585
Cognition:
emotion and, 320–336, 370–372
postformal, 492
Cognitive-cultural theories, religious/spiritual
development, 970–971, 975–976
Cognitive development. See also Intellectual
functioning across life span:
constructivist theory (Piaget), 303
dynamics systems perspectives, 283–284, 303,
341–342
multimodal processes in, 283–284
social framework and dynamic systems (Vygotsky),
303
stage debate and discovery of variability in,
341–342
1040 Subject Index
Cognitive development and cultural psychology,
764–778
hearts and minds, 768–772
feelings, 768–769
identities, 770–772
values, 769–770
methods, 778
persons and contexts, 772–778
cognitive development as expertise, 776
conceptual development in core or privileged
domains, 777–778
contexts as linked practices, 773
contexts as multiple and contested, 775
contexts as shared meanings or practices,774–775
contexts as warehouses for narratives or
interpretations, 773–774
nonprivileged domains, 776
thought and action, 764–768
Cognitive neuroscience approaches, 602
Cognitive reemergence, modern era, 153–154
Cognitive-stage theories (Goldman), 958–959
Coherence, developmental, 528–529
Cohort effects, 611–612, 675–677
Collectivist culture and self-concept, 354
Columbine High School, 869, 870
Communication:
communicative action, 24
expressive-constitutive and instrumental-
communicative functions of behavior, 22–25, 28
language and communicative customs in cultural
psychology, 740–749 (see also Language)
Communion /agency (polar dimensions of complexity),
485
Community:
change, theory of context and, 913–914
influence, theory of context and, 910–913
Community Change for Youth Development Initiative
(CCYD), 927
Community hypothesis, positive youth development,
926–928
Compensation. See Selective optimization with
compensation (SOC) model
Competence:
versus dysfunction, 803–808
versus performance, 278, 346
Complexity:
dialectical thinking and optimal experience,
489–493
foundations of, in child development, 493–506
in later life, 482–493
neoteny and, 506–509
organized, 32
parent-child interaction and growth of, 496–501
polar dimensions of, 484–489
agency and communion, 485
divergent and convergent thinking, 486–487
energy and quietude, 488–489
extroversion and introversion, 488
iconoclastic and traditional, 489
passive investment and detached objectivity, 486
playfulness and discipline, 487–488
psychological; development and, 480–482
social context, importance of, 494–496
teacher-child interaction and growth of, 501–506
wisdom and, 491–493
Connectionism (dynamic systems), 303
Connections among growers, 359–361
Constructive web, development as, 319–320, 325–329
Constructivist /constructivism:
alternative, 346–347
social and biological, 65
theory of cognitive development, 303
Context, life course development and, 703–705
Contextual change hypothesis, positive youth
development, 916–917
Contextual /ecological theorists, dynamic systems,
266–271
Control:
action theory, 544–555
action resources and perceived control, 548
developing sense of control and personal agency,
547–548
development of control-related beliefs/motivations,
546–548
future selves, life plans, and cultural scripts,
550–551
intentional action, developmental aspects of,
545–546
intentional self-development, 548–551
ontogeny of conceptual self and internalized
control, 549–550
dynamic systems, and levels of, 298
personality development and beliefs about,
635–636
Control cycles, 691
Control-system theories of action, 522
Conventional interactionism, 43
Conventionalism, 71

Coping:
personality development and, 635–636, 641–642
PVEST (phenomenological variant of ecological
systems theory), 848
religious/spiritual development as, 948–951, 984
Core conflictual relationship script, 377
Cortical connections, cycle of growth of, for each level
of skill development, 389
Covariation hypothesis, positive youth development,
920–921
Creationist theory, 986
Creativity in later life, study of, 473, 484
Critical race theory (CRT), 830, 875–878
Cross-cultural psychology versus cultural psychology,
721–723
Cult /occultist practices, 987–988
Cultural practice theory, 200
Cultural psychology of development, 716–779
attachment, 740
attunement, 729
behavioral inheritance, 719, 720
classification of practices, 728–730
cognitive development and, 764–778
hearts and minds, 768–772
persons and contexts, 772–778
thought and action, 764–768
versus cross-cultural psychology, 721–723
custom complex, 725–728, 730
definitions, 719–721
disciplinary practices, 729
distributional practices, 729
early interpersonal experience, effects, 739–740
example, who sleeps by whom in the family, 725–727
facilitation, 728
gender practices, 729
induction, 729
local world of the child, 733–734
maintenance/ loss, 729
maturation, 728
meaning of meaning and context, 724
mentalities, 730, 738–739
mental state concepts, special use of, 732–734
multiple, diverse psychologies, 723–724
versus other approaches to culture and psychology,
719–721
overview/introduction, 716–718, 778–779
processes, 728
self-development, 749–754
self practices, 729
Subject Index 1041
selfways (ways of being), cultural diversity in,
754–764
social organization of childhood experience, 734–738
symbolic inheritance, 719
symbolic mediation of experience, 740–749
language as practice, 741–742
narrative, 744–749
socialization through language, 742–749
theory of mind, 731–732
two sides of, 730–731
unit of analysis problem, 724–730
Cultural standpoint, 38
Culture in human development:
academic achievement and, 504
action perspectives, 517, 518–519
age-related decrease in efficiency of, 577–578
age-related increase in need for, 576–577
developmental epistemology, 200–202
dialogical models of the self, 201
experiential perspectives, 468–469
generalization, 442–443
life span development:
co-evolution with biology, 575–578
intellectual development, 595–618
metatheories, split /relational, 66–68
personality development, 618–625
perspectives on person-environment system,
430–431
PVEST (phenomenological variant of ecological
systems theory), and meaning/experience of,
854–859
variation in small-scale developmental sequences,
334
Cumulative continuity, 683
Cumulative disadvantages, 683
Custom complex, 725–728, 730
Data:
collected/derived, 172–173
methods for collection, person-environment
perspective, 440–441
Death, conceptions of, 973–975
Decalage, Piagetian, 278, 343
Decomposition, principles of, 31
Defense mechanisms, 538
Deficits:
as catalysts for progress/growth, 579–580
perspectives, PVEST (phenomenological variant of
ecological systems theory), 832, 835–836
1042 Subject Index
Deictic pointers, 288
Demand characteristics of the person as developmental
influences, 812–813
Depression, core conflictual relationship script for, 377
Detached objectivity/passive investment (polar
dimensions of complexity), 486
Determinism, biological and social, 43
Deterministic thinking, PVEST (phenomenological
variant of ecological systems theory) and, 831
Development:
concept of, 22–33
expressive-constitutive and instrumental-
communicative functions of behavior,
22–25, 28
nature of change, 23, 25–28
unified, 28–30
what changes, 22–25
framing research agenda, 12–13
mechanisms of, 45
positive perspective, 11–12
study of, 1–14
taxonomy of theories, 304
“ when does it end”:
contemporary advances, 155
historical theme, 122–123
Developmental epistemology, 166–202. See also
Epistemological-ontological issues; Epistemology
child psychology, blinders of, 167–169
monocultural assumptions, 168
reducing complexity to socially accepted norms,
168–169
culture in human development, 200–202
developmental systems analysis; rethinking Morgan’s
Canon, 179–185
dynamic hierarchies in developmental processes,
182–183
systemic causality in biological /psychological
worlds, 180–182
variability as phenomenon versus error, 183–185
dynamic approaches in developmental psychology,
195–200
development through “as-if ” structures unfolding
in time, 198–199
development through disequilibriae (Peirce,
Bergson, and Piaget), 196–197
dynamic systems theory, 195–196 (see also
Dynamic systems theory)
post-Piagetian and post-Vygotskian models, 199–200
progressing equilibration, 196
foundations of developmental thinking, 177–179
functional structuring, centrality of, 185–186
general models for developmental science, 186–195
coordination of the self and the other (Mead),
190–193
developmental logic (genetic logic), Baldwin and,
187–188
dialectical synthesis (Vygotsky), 191
differentiation and equilibration: dynamics of
structures, 187
differentiation model (Werner), 189–190
hierarchy of psychological functions (Janet), 188–189
processes in the field of life space, 194–195
theory of dynamic structural forms (Basov), 194
topological psychology (Lewin), 194
methodology and, 201–202
multilevel nature of developmental processes,
178–179
new discipline of developmental science in the
making, 169–170
overview/introduction, 166–167, 201–202
science, basics of, 170–177
special axiomatic features of development, 177–178
Developmental manifold concept, 217–218
Developmental principle, 92–94
Developmental psychobiological systems view,
210–249. See also Biology
broader implications, 247–248
developmental behavior genetics, 221–239 (see also
Genetics)
features, 221
historical perspective, 140–142, 211–221
birth of experimental embryology, 211–214
coaction, 218–219
developmental causality, 218–219
developmental manifold concept, 217–218
experience defined as functional activity, 220
influences of sensory stimulation on genetic
activity, 217
systems versus mechanico-reductive and vitalistic-
constructive viewpoints, 214–217
triumph of epigenesis over preformation, 211
triumph of probabilistic epigenesis over
predetermined epigenesis, 219–220
intersensory development, 239–247
assumptions underlying traditional approaches,
241–243
developmental psychobiological systems approach,
243–245

system characteristics of (structured organisms
and structure environments), 245–247
traditional approaches to, 240–241
overview/introduction, 210, 221, 248–249
probabilistic epigenesis, 248
Developmental psychology, making of, 89–157
biological roots, 92
child study, 119
developmental principle, 92–94
developmental psychopathology, 114–117
developmental theory, 118–119
development and history, 90–92
education, 119–120
embryology and evolution, 92
emergence (1882–1912), 96–104
embryos and infants, 96–100
memory and intelligence, 100–104
evolution and development, 94–96
foundational period, themes of, 120–124
knowledge and consciousness, 120–121
morality and the perfectibility of humans, 123
nature and nurture, 122
ontogeny and phylogeny, 122
relations between thoughts and actions, 121–122
social applications, 123–124
when does development end, 122–123
interdisciplinary science, toward, 156–157
making developmental theory (Baldwin), 107–114
critical evaluation, 111–114
mental development and social ontogeny,
109–111
metaphysics and development, 108–109
sociogenesis, 110–111
middle period (1913–1946), 124–147
behaviorism and learning, 126, 129–132
comments, 146–147
developmental psychobiology and ethology,
140–142
emotional development, 126
ecological psychology, 145–146
field theory, 145–146
growth and physical maturation, 126, 132–135
institutions and development, 125–126
language and cognition development, 138–140
longitudinal study, 126, 128–129
mental testing, 125, 126–127
moral development, 136–138
psychoanalysis, 144–145
research methods, 126
Subject Index 1043
social and personality development, 135–136
social neobehaviorism, 143–144
theoretical trends, 143–146
modern era, 147–157
attachment, discovery and loss, 151–153
cognitive reemergence, 153–154
social learning: rise, decline, and reinvention,
148–151
modern era: contemporary advances in historical
themes, 154–156
knowledge and consciousness, 154
morality and perfectibility of humans, 155
nature and nurture, 155
ontogeny and phylogeny, 154–155
social applications, 155–156
thoughts and actions, 154
when does development end, 155
psychoanalysis/ Freud, 114–117
trends, 117–120
United States, new psychology in, 104–107
Developmental systems:
analysis, rethinking Morgan’s Canon, 179–185
defining features of theories, 3, 10–11
example of metatheory nested within relational
metatheory, 39
Developmental theory, making, 107–114, 118–119
Developmental thinking, foundations of, 177–179
Developmental trajectory, 589, 685. See also
Trajectory(ies)
Diachronic perspective, 405
Dialectical synthesis (Vygotsky), 191
Dialectical thinking and optimal experience, 489–493
Dialogical models of the self, 201
Differentiation and equilibration, dynamics of
structures, 187
Differentiation model (Werner), 189–190
Disciplinary practices, 729
Discipline/playfulness (polar dimensions of
complexity), 487–488
Discontinuity in development, 26
Disequilibriae, development through (Peirce, Bergson,
and Piaget), 196–197
Dissociation, 379–382
Distal environments, 428
Distributional practices, 729
Diversity:
action-theoretical reconstructions, 527–535
from deficit to diversity in developmental science,
6–7
1044 Subject Index
Diversity (Continued)
development of diverse groups (see Phenomenological
variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST))
fundamental asset of human development, 11
intraindividual change, interindividual differences in
intraindividual change, and fundamental
substantive significance of, 3
universality/diversity hypothesis, positive youth
development, 928
Domain specificity theory, 343–344
Down syndrome, 214, 500
Drawing Hands (Escher), 33–34, 36, 37
DSM III-R glossary of terms for defining mental
disorders, and religious content, 986
Dualism, 57, 58
Duration, concept of, 682
Dynamic development of action and thought,
313–390
building structures; transition mechanisms,
microdevelopment, and new knowledge,
363–370
bridging, process of building new knowledge,
368–370
construction processes, from micro to macro,
364–370
growth curves, chaotic/scalloping/stable, 367
growth curves, novice/intermediate/expert, 367
multiple dimensions of learning and development,
367–368
relations between micro- and macrodevelopment,
363–364
shapes of growth curves in construction and
generalization of new skills, 365–367
shift of focus in transitional states, 365
cognitive and emotional development, dynamic
structure in, 320–336 (see also Cognitive
development)
crisis of variability and the Cartesian synthesis in
developmental science, 336–347
Cartesian dualist framework, 337–338
competence/performance models, 346
constructivist alternative, 346–347
domain specificity theory, 343–344
explaining variability versus “explaining away,”
342–346
modern synthesis in psychology; nativism and
empiricism together, 338–340
neo-nativist movement, 344–346
reasserting stage theory, 343
stage debate and the discovery of variability in
cognitive development, 341–342
structure-as-form paradigm, 340–341
dynamic structuralism, 314–320
dynamic nature of psychological structure,
317–318
dynamic structure in living systems, 318–319
form, defined, 315
structure, defined, 315
structure/form problem, 315
variability in “ the middle of things”; exampleof
representing social interactions, 315–317
variation and order in development; the
constructive web, 319–320
emotions and dynamic organization of activity and
development, 370–382
attachment, working models, and temperament,
376–378
culture and emotion, 374–375
developmental shifts in emotions about self in
family roles, 378–379
development of emotional splitting and
dissociation, 379–382
dynamic shifts of positive/negative biases in webs,
378
emotionally organized development, 376–382
emotion and cognition together, 370–372
families of emotions, dimensions, and cultural
variations, 373–376
hierarchy of emotion categories (diagram), 374
one-way effects on developmental webs for shame
and honor, 376
organizing effects of emotions, 372–376
scripts, 372–373
methodology, dynamic structural analysis,
347–363
building and testing models of growth and
development, 356–363
clocks, rulers, and repeated measures, 350–352
equilibration, disturbance, and the shapes of
development, 361–363
guidelines for developmental research, 349–356
logistic growth, 357–359
nonlinear dynamic models of growth and
development, 357
single context assumption—not, 349
single-level, single-competence assumption—not,
349
single-person assumption—not, 349

single-shape assumption—not, 349
starting in the middle of things; implications for
design, 348–349
nature/nurture; growth cycles of psychological and
brain activity, 382–388
overview/introduction, 313–314
stability and variability in development, 388–390
Dynamic force fields (Lewin), 268
Dynamic hierarchies in developmental processes,
182–183
Dynamic order in hierarchical complexity, 179
Dynamic skill theory, 332–336
Dynamic structural forms, theory of (Basov), 194
Dynamic systems theory, 195–196, 258–307
adaptation of Waddington’s epigenetic landscape,
276
attractors and dynamic stability, 272–274
bimanual coordination, 297–298
cognitive development, multimodal processes in,
283–284
contextual and ecological theorists, 266–271
development as selection, 284–286
development from perspective of, 276–297
dynamic epigenetic landscape, 276–277
dynamic force fields (Lewin), 268
embodiment, 287–289
embryology, lessons from (form from a formless
egg), 260–263
epigenesis in developmental psychobiology, 263–266
epigenetic landscape, 261, 281
experience-dependent plasticity, 282–283
exploration, 286–287
fluctuations/transitions, 275–276
general systems theories, 267–271
intellectual heritage; developmental process, 259
layered levels of analysis, 279–281
model of levels of control, 298
mountain stream metaphor, 263
multicausality, 281–282
nested timescales, 277–289
order from complexity, 271–272
and other theories of development, 303–304
biological constraints, 305
brain development as source of constraints,
305–306
connectionism, 303
constructivist theory of cognitive development
(Piaget), 303
dynamics as source of structure and change, 306
Subject Index 1045
mathematical formalisms and simulations,
306–307
mechanisms of change, 304–305
mental representations, 306
nativist theory of language development
(Chomsky), 303
sensorimotor bases of higher cognition, 306
social interaction, 305
structuring role of external information, 305
taxonomy of developmental theories, 304
theory of cognitive development in social
framework (Vygotsky), 303
theory of perception and perceptual development
(Gibson), 303
overview/introduction, 258–259, 307
pendulum as dynamic system, 272, 273
phase-space diagram of development (Waddington),
261
rationale, 307
reach, learning to, 292–297, 298
research, approach to, 289–292
characterizing the behavioral attractor states, 289
describing dynamic trajectory of collective
variable, 289–290
identifying collective variable of interest, 289
identifying points of transition, 290
identifying potential control parameters, 290–292
manipulating putative control parameters to
experimentally generate transitions, 291–292
skill, defining, 298–307
soft assemblies, 274–275
synergetics, 271
systems theory as metaphor, 268–271
Dysfunction versus competence, 803–808
Ecological perspectives:
behavioral ecology, 44
biology and (see Bioecological model of human
development)
history of ecological psychology, 145–146
phenomenological variant (see Phenomenological
variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST))
Edge of chaos, 482
Education:
academic/school success, 881–883, 917
educational pathways, 681
historical perspective, development and, 119–120
Montessori and traditional school environments,
compared, 503–506
1046 Subject Index

Education (Continued) Empiricism /materialism /objectivism, 57–58

religious schools, 980–981 Empowerment, positive youth development and, 907
teacher-child interaction and growth of complexity, Enabling, affective/cognitive (supportive/challenging),
501–506 497
EEG graphs, 387, 388 Encoding as mechanism of development, 45
Elderly. See Older adults Endpoints, developmental, 26
Embodiment, 47–54, 287–289 Energy/quietude (polar dimensions of complexity),
biological, 48–49 488–489
defined, 47–49 Engagement, youth, 918
developmental oriented embodied action metatheory, Environment(s), 420–431
47–54 actual /perceived, 422
dynamic systems, 287–289 as changing stage for individual functioning and
person, biology, culture, 48 development, 428–429
person-centered, 49–54 concept of context, 421
sociocultural, 49 conceptual and empirical analyses of, 422
Embryogenesis, 19 cross-cultural perspective, 430–431
Embryology, 96–100, 211–214, 260–263 in developmental research, 421–422
Emergence zones, 363 distal, 428
Emotion: formal and informal societal regulations, 428
attachment, working models, and temperament, social and economic conditions, 428
376–378 family as, 425–426
culture and, 374–375 formative and eliciting events, 424
developmental shifts in, about self in family roles, optimal, 423–424
378–379 peers, 426–428
development of emotional splitting and dissociation, physical, 422
379–382 proximal dynamic person-environment systems, 425
dynamic organization of activity and development, significant events, 424–425
370–382 social-cultural, 422
dynamic shifts of positive/negative biases in webs, as source of information and stimulation, 422–423
378 synchronization, 429–430
emotionally organized development, 376–382 Environmental dynamics, bioecological model:
emotion and cognition together, 370–372 infancy, 809–810
families of; dimensions, and cultural variations, old age, 808–809
373–376 Environmentalistic model, 435
hierarchy of emotion categories (diagram), 374 Epigenesis, 211, 219–220, 248, 263–266
mediating mental system, 412 Epigenetic landscape, 261, 276–277, 281
one-way effects on developmental webs for shame Epigenetic robotics, 288
and honor, 376 Epiphenomenalism, 750
organizing effects of, 372–376 Epistemological-ontological issues, 54–70
person-environment and, 412 culture and development in split and relational
process (diagram), 371 metatheories, 66–68
scripts, 372–373 empiricism /materialism /objectivism, 57–58
in self-evaluation, 540 Marxist split tradition, 65–66
Emotional development: methodology, 70–80
Lewis’s three scales of, 280 modernity and elaboration of relational metatheory,
positive youth development, 909 58–65
Emotional discomfort, 839 Hegel, 59–60, 61–63
Emotional splitting, 379–382 hermeneutics, 63–65
Emotional tone and reactivity, personality development Kant, 60–61
and, 630–631 Leibniz, 58–59

phenomena-noumena split, 61
phenomenological constructivism and realism, 63
relational developmental reconciliation of mind
and nature, 61–63
modernity and rise of the split tradition, 56–58
Plato and Aristotle and relational developmental
tradition, 55–56
pragmatism, 68–70
split mechanical explanation, 70–75
Epistemology:
defined, 54
developmental (see Developmental epistemology)
principles (terminology), 21
Equifinality principle, 182, 185, 213
Equilibration, 196, 361–363, 474
Equilibrium, 21, 198, 475–477
Ethology, 140–142
Events:
formative and eliciting, 424
significant, 424–425
Evolution, development and:
history, 94–96
relational history and relational models, 39–41
split approaches, 41–47
Evolutionary perspective:
analogy with, 168–169
intellectual functioning, mechanics/pragmatics, 604
selection benefits decreasing with age, 575–576
versus synchronic/diachronic, 405
Executive function of personality, 621
Exosystem, 818
Experience(s):
bioecological model, 796–797
dynamic systems and, 282–283
as functional activity, 220
heterogeneity of, 188
plasticity and, 282–283
Experience Sampling Method (ESM), 468, 503
Experiential perspective on development, 465–510
child development, foundation of complexity in,
493–506
complexity in later life, examples, 482–493
dialectical thinking and optimal experience,
489–493
dimensions, 484–489
wisdom, 491–493
developing person in context, 468–469
historical context, 466–468
ideal outcomes of adult development, 472–474
neoteny, 506–509
Subject Index 1047
optimal arousal, human nature and, 469–471
optimal experience theory, 474–482
flow and development, 479–480
Montessori educational model and, 504–505
optimal experience of flow, 477–479
other perspectives on self-environment
equilibrium, 476–477
phenomenological extension of Piaget, 474–475
psychological complexity and development,
480–482
overview/introduction, 465–466, 509–510
parenting, 495–501
in adolescence, 496–498
in childhood, 498–499
in infancy, 499–501
play, syntelic character of play, 507–509
self-regulation of experience, potential, 471–472
social context, importance of, 494–496
teacher-child interaction and growth of complexity,
501–506
Experiments, role in bioecological model, 808–810
Exploration, 286–287
Expressive-constitutive and instrumental-
communicative functions of behavior, 22–25, 28
Extroversion /introversion (polar dimensions of
complexity), 488
Facilitation (cultural psychology), 728
Faith developmental theory (Fowler), 959–961
Family(ies):
in context, 426
as environment in the socialization process, 425–426
reciprocity in relations and levels of analysis,
425–426
religious/spiritual development, 977–980
time dimension and, 426
“Feeling into” others (EinFühlung) intersubjectivity,
199
Feelings, 768–769
Field theory, 145–146
Flow, 467–471, 477–480, 505
absence of, 470
development and, 479–480
experiences, 467–468
Montessori and, 505
optimal arousal of, 469–471
optimal experience of, 477–479
organizing construct, 471
Force characteristics as shapers of development,
810–811
1048 Subject Index

Form, 185, 315, 340–341 heredity/environment, separating effects of, 228–236

Fossilization of behavior, 195
Foundationalism, 31, 55, 56
Frames of reference:
individual-ecological, 174
individual-socioecological, 174–175
inter-individual, 173–174
intra-individual, 173
organizing knowledge construction, 173–175
Freeman v. Pitts, 872
Fully functioning person (Rogers), 476
Functional interaction, 434–436
causality in, 435–436
nonlinearity, 435
reciprocity and interdependence, 434–435
Functional pleasure, 475
Functional structuring, centrality of, 185–186
Gain-loss dynamic, development as, 582–584
Gender:
cultural psychology, 729
life course and principle of timing, 694
positive youth development, 928
Generalization, 325, 365–367, 441–443, 446–447
General systems theories, 267–271
Generations, life course development / life cycle and,
669, 673
Genetics, 221–239
bean bag concept of genome, 42
development and, 221–239
animal models, 223–224
approaches to genetic analysis of development,
221–225
individual development, 221
population approach, 221–222
single gene and multiple factor research on
individual differences, 224–225
sources of individual differences, 225
ecological systems theory, genotype in, 867
gene-environment interactions in the life course,
702–705
gene expression arrays, 237–238
gene tally, 236–237
heredity, 225–228
at conception, 225–226
dissecting heredity, 228
non-Mendelian, 227–228
operational definition of, 227
studying difference in, 226–227
documenting norm of reaction, 231–232
hardware-software distinction, 235–236
heritability and additivity, 229–231
in humans, 232–233
scope of gene-environment interactions, 233–235
heritability, changes in across life span, 614–615
implications of new molecular biology, 236–239
molecular markers, 238–239
targeted mutations, 238
Germany, West / East, 691
Goals:
action theory, 540–544, 553–555
adjusting, 553–555
chronic, 543–544
developmental, 540–544
personal life investment (PLI ) and, 636
selection of, and life priorities, 638–639
semantic and procedural specification, 542–543
God. See Religious and spiritual development
Goodness of fit, 481
Great Depression, 678, 690, 692, 693, 696, 698
Growth curves, 356–363
Growth/physical maturation, historical themes, 126,
132–135
Guided participation as universal process, 498–499
Hardware-software distinction, 235–236
Harmonious-equipotential systems, 213
Health and well-being, religious/spiritual development
and, 982–983
Heredity. See Genetics
Hermeneutics, 63–65
Heterarchy, 195
Hierarchy of psychological functions (Janet), 188–189
Historical cohorts, 586–587
Historical time and place, principle of, 697–700
Holism, 32–33
Holistic-interactionistic model, 431–439. See also
Person-environment relations, holistic-
interactionistic approach
Hypotheses testing, theory-driven versus pseudo-
empirical, 173
ICE. See Identity-focused cultural ecological (ICE)
perspective
Iconoclastic/traditional (polar dimensions of
complexity), 489
Ideal outcomes of adult development, 472–474

Identity(ies):
cultural psychology, and cognitive development,
770–772
positive, and positive youth development, 908
preserving; assimilative and accommodative
processes, 551–555
research emphasizing (phenomenological variant of
ecological systems theory), 842, 843
Identity-focused cultural ecological (ICE) perspective,
829, 846–847, 852
Identity moment of analysis, 33–34
Identity of opposites, 33–36
Idiosyncratic influences, nonnormative, 586–587
Immediate feedback cycle, 191
Immigrants, special experiences of, 859–864
Induction, 72–73, 729
Infancy:
complexity and parenting in, 499–501
effective of mother’s responsiveness, 800, 801
environmental dynamics in, 809–810
mother-infant dyad as context of development,
815–817
object permanence, 345
personality development, and links to old age,
621–622
predicting childhood intelligence on basis of behavior
in, 612
Inference-making perceptions, 844–847
Inhibition and interference, 601
In medias res, 198, 315–317, 318, 348–349, 371
Institutions and development, 125–126
Instrumentalism, 71
Instrumentalism-conventionalism, 74–75
Intellectual development, and positive youth
development, 909
Intellectual functioning across life span, 595–619. See
also Cognition; Cognitive development:
biology and culture of, 596–600
cognitive intervention work: activation of learning
potential among older adults, 612
cohort effects, period effects, and environmental
change, 611–612
crystallized pragmatics of cognition, 599, 604–609
evolutionary perspective, mechanics and pragmatics
in, 604
fluid mechanics of cognition, 600–604
age-based differences; testing the limits, 603–604
cognitive neuroscience approaches, 602–603
inhibition and interference, 601–602
Subject Index 1049
processing speed, 601
search for determinants of mechanic development,
600–601
working memory, 601
heritability across life span, changes in, 614–615
intellectual growth during adulthood, stage
conceptions versus functionalist approaches,
606–607
malleability/plasticity, 611–612
normative versus person-specific pragmatic
knowledge, 605–606
old age, mechanics/pragmatics in, 615–617
overview/introduction, conclusions, 617–619
prototypical examples:
adult age differences in upper limits of short-term
memory (serial word recall), 603–604
speed and knowledge in aging typists, 610–611
stability in, 612–613
predicting childhood intelligence on basis of infant
behavior, 613
relative interindividual stability after infancy,
613–614
two-component model (mechanics versus
pragmatics), 596–600
cognitive mechanics, 596–597
cognitive pragmatics, 597
divergence in life span trajectories between
mechanics and pragmatics, 597–598, 600
relations to other theories, 600
varieties of mechanic/pragmatic interdependence,
609–611
age of peak performance in complex skills,
609–610
mechanic-pragmatic interdependence, evidence at
cortical level, 609
wisdom as expertise, 676–609
Intellectual heritage, developmental process (dynamic
systems), 259
Intelligence and memory, 100–104
Intentional action, developmental aspects of, 545–546
Intentionality, 903–904
Intentional self-development, 535–544, 548–551
activities of, 535–536
attentional focus, 537–538
complexity and differentiation, 537
and the developing self, 548–551
goals, 540–544
protective and defensive mechanisms, 538
self-evaluation processes, 538–540
1050 Subject Index
Intentional self-development (Continued)
self-observation and self-monitoring, 536–538
structure and process, 535–536
Interactionism, 57
bio/social, 43
conventional, 43
Interest convergence, 876
Interindividual differences, in developmental
trajectories, 589
Internal feed-forward cycle, 191
International nature of contemporary psychology, 171
Interpersonal experience, effects of early, 739–740
Intersensory development, 239–247
developmental psychobiological systems approach,
243–245
system characteristics (structured organisms and
structure environments), 245–247
traditional approaches, 240–243
Intransitive hierarchies in real life, 183
Introversion /extroversion (polar dimensions of
complexity), 488
Jung (religious/spiritual development), 949
Kant, 60–61
Kellogg Youth Initiative Partnerships (KYIP), 927
“Knowing” (dynamic systems), 303
Knowledge and consciousness:
contemporary advances, 154
historical theme, 120–121
Language:
acquisition of, person-environment perspective,
412
and cognition development ( history), 138–140
culture and, 740–749
narrative, 744–749
as practice, 741–742
socialization through, 742–749
Learning:
commitment to, and positive youth development, 907
growth from novice to expert, 367
multiple dimensions of, 367–368
Leibniz, 58–59
Levels of discourse in understanding a domain of
inquiry, 20
Levels of organization, developmental
systemstheories, 3
Life-course persistent antisocial behavior, 685
Life-course theory, 665–707
age, 672–679
cohorts, 675–677
temporality and, 669
basic concepts and perspectives, 679–689
selection, endogeniety, and contextual effects,
687–689
social pathways, cumulative processes, and the
individual life course, 680–684
trajectories, transitions, and turning points,
684–687
biological models, integrating, 701–706
future directions, 705–706
gene-environment interactions, 702–705
concepts of human development across the life span,
670–672
contributions to study of human development,
700–701
cycles, 672–673
generations, 669, 673
historical account, 668–679
life cycle, 669, 677–679
life transitions and historical change, 689–701
linking mechanisms, 689–691
overview/introduction, 665–668, 706–707
paradigmatic principles, 691–700
historical time and place, 697–700
human agency, 692–694
life-span development, 669, 692 (see also Life span
development)
linked lives, 695–697
timing, 694–695
relationship view of life patterns, 673
research traditions and concepts, 669
roles, 672–673
social organization of lives, 672–673
sociocultural patterns in human experience, 674–675
Life space, 194–195
Life span development, 569–644
concluding comments, 643–644
historical background, 571–574
level 1 (overall architecture; first view from
perspectives of biological and cultural co-
evolution), 574, 575–578
age-related decrease in efficiency of culture,
577–578
age-related increase in need for culture, 576–577
evolutionary selection benefits decreasing with
age, 575–576

level 2 ( life span changes in relative allocation of
resources to distinct functions of development),
574, 578–580
deficits as catalysts for progress, 579–580
growth versus resilience (maintenance) versus
regulation of loss, 578–579
level 3 (metatheoretical propositions about life span
developmental theory), 574, 580–591
cross-sectional to longitudinal to sequential,
587–589
development as gain-loss dynamic, 582–584
development as selection and selective adaptation
(optimalization), 580–582
experimental simulation of development, 589–590
family of theoretical propositions characteristic of
life span developmental psychology, 581
focus on plasticity and age-associated changes in
plasticity, 584–586
macro-model of developmental influences,
586–587
methodological developments, 587–591
ontogenetic and historical contextualism as
paradigm, 586
reformulating concept of development from
functionalist perspective, 580–584
selective age-related change in adaptive capacity,
580–582
testing-the-limits paradigm, 590–595
level 4 (systemic and overall theory; selective
optimization with compensation), 574, 591–595
age gradients, 594–595
compensation, 593–593
definitional frames, 592
definition of selection, optimization, and
compensation, 591–593
dual-task research and behavioral indicators,
594–595
empirical evidence, 594
examples from proverbs and questionnaire items,
592
management and mastery of life tasks, 595
optimization, 593
selection, elective and loss-based, 593
level 5 examples, 575–617
overview/introduction, 569–571, 574
toward psychological theories of; five levels of
analysis, 574–575
Lines of sight, 36
Linked lives, principle of, 695–697, 822
Subject Index 1051
Living systems, dynamic structure in, 318–319
Logic, developmental /genetic (Baldwin), 187–188
Logistic growth, 357–359
Logos/mythos, 492
Longitudinal hypothesis, positive youth development,
923–925
Longitudinal study, historical perspective, 126,
128–129
Loss, regulation of, 578–579
Love:
and discipline, parenting behaviors, 495
prototypical script for adult, 373
Love of fate, 476–477
Macro-model of developmental influences, 586–587
Maintenance/ loss, 578–579, 729
Malleability, in intellectual functioning, 611–612
Mammalian coat coloration, 262
Manifold concept, developmental, 217–218
Marginalized youth, frequently, 833
Marxist split tradition, 65–66
Mastery, life-events and, 688
Materialism:
dialectical, 31
empiricism /objectivism and, 57–58
Materialist ontology, 55
Mathematical formalisms and simulations, dynamic
systems, 306–307
Maturation:
concept of, 27
cultural psychology and, 728
religious/spiritual development as, 947–948
Meaning of meaning and context, 724
Measurement models, 443–447
individuality and generalization, 446–447
measurement model 1 (MM1), 443–445
measurement model 2 (MM1), 445–446
pattern analysis of environments, 447
pattern analysis of individuals, 446
Mechanico-reductive and vitalistic-constructive
viewpoints; systems versus, 214–217
Mechanics. See Intellectual functioning across life
span; Personality development across the life span
Mediating mental system, 409–414
comments, 414
development of, 413
emotions, 412
language and language acquisition, 412
motivation, 412–413
1052 Subject Index

Mediating mental system (Continued) relational scientific, 74–80

self-consciousness, self-perceptions, and self-
evaluations, 411–412
subconscious processes, 410
values, valuations, and norms, 410–411
Memes, 472
Memory and intelligence, 100–104
Mental development and social ontogeny, 109–111
Mental disorders, religious/spiritual development and,
989
Mentalistic model, 435
Mentalities, cultural, 730, 738–739
Mental representations, dynamic systems, 306
Mental state concepts, special use of, cultural
psychology, 732–734
Mental testing, 125, 126–127
Mesosystem, 820
Metamethod, 21
Metaphysics, 54, 108–109
Metatheories, 20–21
levels of discourse in understanding a domain of
inquiry, 20
relational, 3, 5–6, 19, 32–39
holism, 32–33
identity of opposites, 33–36
implications for developmental science, 5–6
opposites of identity, 36–37
synthesis of wholes, 37–39
split, 19, 30–32
Method of double stimulation (MeDoSt), 191–192
Methodology:
building/testing models of growth and development,
356–363
connections among growers, 359–361
equilibration, disturbance, and the shapes of
development, 361–363
logistic growth, 357–359
nonlinear dynamic models of growth and
development, 357
consistencies, two kinds, 176
cross-sectional to longitudinal to sequential,
588–589
cycle, 175–177, 201
as epistemic cycle, 175–177
experimental simulation of development, 589–590
guidelines for developmental research, 349–356
metamethods, 20
objectivity through subjectivity, 176–177
abduction-transcendental argument, 77–80
causality and action patterns, 76–77
interpretation and observation, 75–76
split mechanical explanation, 70–75
causal explanation (step 2), 72
induction of interpretation free hypotheses,
theories, laws (step 3), 72–73
instrumentalism-conventionalism, 74–75
positivism and neopositivism, 73–74
reduction description (step 1), 71–72
terminology, 20
testing the limits, 590
Microdevelopment:
construction processes: from micro to macro,
364–370
relations between micro- and macrodevelopment,
363–364
Microgenesis, 19
Microgenetic investigations, 190
Microsystem:
beyond, 817–820
defined, 866
magnified, 814–817
Middle of things (in medias res), 198, 315–317, 318,
348–349, 371
Military service, transition to, 698–700
Mind:
and nature (Hegel’s relational developmental
reconciliation of ), 61–63
as specialized living system, 318
theory of, 731–732
worldviews and self-perceptions, 452
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI ),
986
Missouri v. Jenkins, 872
Model /paradigm (terminology), 21
Models of growth/development, building/testing,
356–363
connections among growers, 359–361
equilibration, disturbance, and the shapes of
development, 361–363
logistic growth, 357–359
nonlinear dynamic models of growth and
development, 357
Modern era, 147–157
attachment, discovery and loss, 151–153
cognitive reemergence, 153–154
 Subject Index 1053

contemporary advances in historical themes, 154–156 Natural selection, 42

knowledge and consciousness, 154 Nature and nurture:
morality and perfectibility of humans, 155 bioecological interpretation, 819–820
nature and nurture, 155 biological determinism, 43
ontogeny and phylogeny, 154–155 bio/social interactionism, 43
social applications, 155–156 contemporary advances, 155
thoughts and actions, 154 contrast, 167
when does development end, 155 conventional interactionism, 43
social learning: rise, decline, and reinvention, 148–151 hereditary and environmental factors in individual
Modernity: development, 416–418
and elaboration of relational metatheory, 58–65 historical theme, 122
and rise of the split tradition, 56–58 joining; growth cycles of psychological and brain
Molecular markers, 238–239 activity, 382–388
Moments of analysis, 33–34 clusters of discontinuities, 383
Monad, 58 concurrence of independent growers, 384
Monism, 58 cycles of discontinuities forming levels and tiers, 385
Montessori and traditional school environments, cycles of reorganization in development, 385–388
compared, 503–506 domain specificity of activities and localization of
Moral development: brain functions, 384
historical perspective, 136–138 emergence of neural networks and action control
religious/spiritual development, 983–984 systems, 385
Morality and perfectibility of humans: epigenesis of action, feeling, thought, and brain,
contemporary advances, 155 382–383
historical theme, 123 growth cycles in brain, 387–388
Morgan’s Canon, 179–185 hierarchical growth of action and thought, 386–387
Motivation, person-environment and, 412–413 principles for understanding growth patterns of
Motivational theories of action, 522 brain and behavior, 383–385
Mountain stream metaphor, 263 social determinism, 43
Moving to Opportunity (MTO), 688–689 strategies, 43
Multicausality, dynamic systems, 281–282 Neighborhoods:
Multidisciplinarity and need for change-sensitive assessments, phenomenological variant of ecological
methodologies, 3 systems theory, 870
Multiple context model, 817 social integration, 818
Mutual interweaving, 200 well-being and, 689
Mythos/ logos, 492 Neo-Darwinian:
metatheory and mechanisms of development
Narrative: (variational change) diagram, 44
children’s, variability in, 316–317 synthesis, 41
cultural psychology: Neo-nativist movement, 344–346
dynamics of practice, 748–749 Neoteny, 506–509
getting stories straight, 744–749 Neuroscience/ brain, 305–306, 382–389, 602, 628–630.
storytelling beginning early, 745–747 See also Biology
variability and heterogeneity, 747–748 New York City Beacons project, 927
varieties of oral, 745 Nice-mean social interactions:
Nativism: developmental web, 326
modern synthesis, empiricism and, 338–340 developmental web biased toward nice interactions,
neo-nativist movement, 344–346 328
theory of language development (Chomsky), 303 stories, 330
1054 Subject Index

Nondeterministic theorizing, 841 Optimal /functional levels, 386

Nonlinearity: Optimism, 3
dynamic models of growth and development, 357 Optimization. See Selective optimization with
holistic-interactionist model, 435 compensation (SOC) model
Normative versus person-specific pragmatic Optimization processes, 904
knowledge, 605–606 Order from complexity, 271–272
Novelty, 181–182, 433–434 Order parameters, 271
Novice/intermediate/expert skill use, growth curves, Organization, holistic-interactionist model, 437–439
367 Orthogenetic principle, 60, 189–190
Overaccommodation, 478
Objectivism, 57–58 Overassimilative mode, 478
Objectivity through subjectivity, 176–177
Object permanence in infants, 345 Paratelic, 479
Object relations theorists, religious/spiritual Parenthood, transitions to during adolescence, 685–686
development and, 950–951 Parenting:
Older adults: bioecological model, mother-infant dyad, 800, 801,
cognitive intervention work; activation of learning 815–817
potential among, 612 complexity and (experiential perspective), 496–501
complexity in later life, examples, 482–493, 615–617 adolescents, 496–498
covariance dedifferentiation, 615–616 children, 498–499
directionality dedifferentiation, 615 infants, 499–501
environmental dynamics, 808–809 cultural psychology; models/strategies, 738–739
maintenance of divergence in explanatory customary scripts for interaction, 739
corrrelational patterns, 616–617 moral direction, 738–739
mechanics and pragmatics in very old age, 615–617 pragmatic design, 739
religious/spiritual development and, 985 “Parent persons,” 499
speed and knowledge in aging typists, 610–611 Parsimony, principle of, 179–185
Ontogenesis, 19, 24 Pars pro toto error, 168
Ontogenetic and historical contextualism as paradigm, Partially ordering scaling, 334
586 Passive investment and detached objectivity (polar
Ontogeny and phylogeny: dimensions of complexity), 486
contemporary advances, 154–155 Pathology:
historical theme, 122 developmental psychopathology, historical
Ontology: perspective, 114–117
defined, 54 religious/spiritual development and, 985–990
ontological principles, 21 cult and occultist practices, 987–988
and the Real, 54–55 mental disorders, 989
Open systems, 271–272 terrorist groups (religious/spiritual development),
Opposites of identity, 36–37 988–989
Optimal arousal, human nature and, 469–471 toxic beliefs/practices/attitudes, 989–990
Optimal environments, 423–424 Pattern analysis:
Optimal experience theory, 474–482 of environments and person-environment systems,
flow and development, 479–480 447
Montessori educational model and, 504–505 of individuals, 446
optimal experience of flow, 477–479 Pattern formation, 285
other perspectives on self-environment equilibrium, Peers/peer groups, 426–428
476–477 Pendulum as dynamic system, 272, 273
phenomenological extension of Piaget, 474–475 Perception and perceptual development, theory of
psychological complexity and development, 480–482 (Gibson), 303

Perfecting, religious/spiritual development as, 951–952
Person-agent, 50–51, 53–54, 409
Personal attributes model, 866–867
Personal control. See Control
Personality consistency, person-environment
interaction, 418–419
Personality development across the life span, 619–643
allocation of resources, 625
approach/avoidance goals, 630–631
approaches to study of, 619–620
behavioral indicators, development of, 630–632
biology and culture, illustrations of role of, 623–625
cerebral asymmetry, 629–630
continuity and change, life-long transactional
adaptation, 626–637
development of neurophysiological indicators of
life mechanics of personality, 628–630
dynamic interaction of mechanics/pragmatics,
627–628
evidence on development of life pragmatics of
personality, 632–637
mechanics and pragmatics of life as relevant to
personality functioning, 626–627
mechanics of life as relevant to personality
functioning, 626–627
pragmatics of life as relevant to personality
functioning, 627
summary, 637
control and self efficacy beliefs, 635
coping, 635–636, 641
emotional tone and reactivity, 630–631
foci/facets, summarizing, 642–643
goal system and personal life investment, 636
key features of life span approach, 620–623
executive function of personality, 622
providing links from infancy to old age, 622–623
search for general-purpose mechanisms,
621–622
links from infancy to old age, 622–623
neurophysiological indicators of life mechanics of
personality, 628–630
protecting/optimizing characteristics, 643
reserve capacities of self and personality
development, 637–641
self-concept development, 634
self-regulatory processes, 620, 635–637
self-system approach, 619–620
trait approach, 618, 632–633
Personal life investment (PLI ), 636
Subject Index 1055
Personal regulation of developmental processes (action
theory), 519–520
Personal /social assets facilitating positive youth
development, 909
Person-centered embodiment, action, and development,
49–54
Person characteristics, and later development
( bioecological model), 810–813
demand characteristics, 812–813
developmentally generative dispositions in life-
course perspective, 810–812
force characteristics, 810–811
resource characteristics, 812
Person-context model, 866
Person-environment relations, holistic-interactionistic
approach, 400–452
classical interactionism, 406
cultural and cross-cultural research, 449
environment, 402–403, 420–431
distal, 403
proximal, 403
general approaches to, 405–409
goal of scientific psychology, 403–404
holistic-interactionistic model, 404–405, 431–439
biological model, 435
causal models, metatheoretical level, 435
environmentalistic model, 435
functional interaction, 434–436
mentalistic model, 435
nonlinearity, 435
organization, 437–439
reciprocity and interdependence, 434–435
synthesis; integration of processes, 439
temporality, 436–437
transformation, emergence, and novelty in
structures and processes, 433–434
variables/individuals, 431–433
longitudinal design, 448–449
measurement models, 443–447
methodological implications, 439–447
generalization, 441–443
mechanisms, 440
nature of phenomena, levels of analysis, 440
statistics, 447–448
tools in acquisition of information, 440–441
toward a developmental science, 439–440
multidisciplinary collaboration, 449
multivariate approach, 448
overview/introduction, 400–402, 450–452
1056 Subject Index
Person-environment relations, holistic-interactionistic
approach (Continued)
perspectives, synchronic/diachronic/evolutionary,
405
prevention, treatment, intervention, 449–450
propositions, 401, 407
research strategy, 448–450
unidirectional models, 405–406
worldviews and self-perceptions, mind and, 452
Person as organizing principle for scientific inquiry,
409–420
active agency, 409
behavior in holistic-interactionistic model, 414
biological age, a marker of maturation rate, 417–418
biological factors in interaction processes, 414–416
antisocial behavior, 415
well-being, 415–416
individuality, the developing person, 419–420
mediating mental system, 409–414
development of, 413
emotions, 412
language and language acquisition, 412
motivation, 412–413
self-consciousness, self-perceptions, and self-
evaluations, 411–412
subconscious processes, 410
values, valuations, and norms, 410–411
nature-nurture issue, 416–418
personality consistency, 418–419
Person standpoint, 37, 38, 49–50
Phase-space diagram of development (Waddington),
261
Phenomena-noumena split, 61
Phenomenological constructivism and realism, 63
Phenomenological extension of Piaget, 474–475
Phenomenological variant of ecological systems theory
(PVEST), 829–888, 905
conceptual advantages of, 872–874, 886–888
critical race theory, 875–878
cross-cutting human development themes, 853–864
cultural context of African American males,
856–857
demonstration, application (diagram),
parent /adolescent academic/employment
outcomes, 851
as dual axis coping outcome interpretational
framework, 886–888
ecological perspectives; exploring the bioecological
model, 864–868
example of African Americans and achievement gap
(interface of stigmatizing context, reactive
coping, responses, and the “acting white” myth),
878–883
Black response to freedom; social movement for
education, 880–883
developmental considerations for research on
Black academic achievement, 881–883
historical overview of African American
achievement motivation, 879–880
immigrants, special experiences of, 859–864
importance of broad cultural inclusiveness and
context, 854–864
interpretations of youths’ stage-specific coping
outcomes as function of net vulnerability,
885–886
intervention design, 853–864
meaning/experience of culture, 854–856
overview/introduction, 829–833, 848, 885–886
positive youth development and, 905
predicting positive outcomes in face of challenge,
887–888
racism and human development, 883–885
rationale; need for new theory, 830–832
social science assumptions/practices, judicial
decisions, (twentieth century), 868–878
cross-disciplinary contributions from legal studies,
874–878
inferences, assumptions, and what Brown v.
Board of Education should have considered,
868–872
shortcomings of social science contributions to the
Brown decision, 871–872
traditional assumptions, beliefs, and values,
872–874
study of diverse youth; children of color and
privilege, 833–844
deficit perspectives and stigma, 835–836
domains of human development and competence,
838–839
flaw of context ignored, 833–836
flaw of general lack of a developmental
perspective when considering youth of color,
838–843
flaw of racism ignored, 836–838
mediating processes between vulnerability and
coping outcomes, 841–843
need for inclusive approaches to human
development, 839–841

synthesized recursive framework, 844–853
bidirectional influences of significant others on
youths’ development, 844
foundational role of social cognition and linkages
to phenomenology, 844–847
inference-making perceptions, 844–847
phenomenology and context character, 846–847
self processes of diverse youth, 845–846
social cognition and development, 845
youth’s everyday experiences, 844–847
systems framework in ecological system, 847–853
emergent identities, 848, 850
life-stage-specific coping outcomes, 848, 850
net stress, 848
net vulnerability, 847, 848
reactive coping methods, 848, 850
unique experience of African American male
adolescents, 857–859
Phenomenology (Hegel), 62
Phylogenesis, 19
Physical development, positive youth development and,
909
Physical environment, 814–815
“Pile-up” hypothesis, positive youth development,
921–923
Plasticity:
age-associated changes in, 584–586
developmental; weak and strong constraints, 529–530
malleability in intellectual functioning across
historical and ontogenetic time, 611–612
relative, 3, 904
and temporality in human development, 3
Play:
cultural differences, 760
syntelic character of, 507–509
Playfulness/discipline (polar dimensions of
complexity), 487–488
Pluralistic universe, 58
versus dualism, 58
versus monism, 58
Points of view, 36
Polarities, complexity and, 482, 484–489
agency and communion, 485
divergent and convergent thinking, 486–487
energy and quietude, 488–489
extroversion and introversion, 488
iconoclastic and traditional, 489
passive investment and detached objectivity, 486
playfulness and discipline, 487–488
Subject Index 1057
Positive human development perspective,
features/implications of, 11–12
Positive youth development, 894–933
age, 928–929
boundaries/expectations, 907
commitment to learning, 907
core constructs, 897
defining, 895–898
developmental assets, framework of, 907–908
empowerment, 907
gender, 928
historical and social context, 898–901
intellectual development, 909
overview/introduction, 894–895, 932–933
personal /social assets, 909
physical development, 909
positive developmental settings, features of, 912
positive identity, 908
positive values, 907
protective factors, 906
psychological /emotional development, 909
race/ethnicity and SES, 929–930
research, 928–930
research support for key hypotheses, 914–928
community hypothesis, 926–928
contextual change hypothesis, 916–917
covariation hypothesis, 920–921
how much explanatory power is reasonable to
expect, 915
longitudinal hypothesis, 923–925
overview, 915
“pile-up” hypothesis, 921–923
universality/diversity hypothesis, 928
youth action hypothesis, 917–920
social competencies, 907–908
social development, 909
support, 907
theory, 901–914
conceptual models of positive development,
905–910
context and community change, 913–914
context and community influence, 910–913
human development, 902–905
Positivism /neopositivism, 71, 73–74
Post-modern path, and religious/spiritual development,
944–946
Poverty:
duration of exposure to, 682–683
gender, 690
1058 Subject Index
Pragmatic feedback cycle, 191
Pragmatics. See Intellectual functioning across life
span; Personality development across the
life span
Pragmatism, 68–70
Prayer, 955, 973–975. See also Religious and spiritual
development
Precocity, argument from, 344–345
Primacy of social forces, 31
Primary/secondary process thinking, 478
Principle of parsimony, 179–185
Probabilistic epigenesis, 219–220, 248
Probabilistic states, Ford and Lerner’s model of
developmental change as a series of, 270
Problem-finding mode, 479
Process(es):
bioecological model, 795
cultural psychology, 728
Processing speed, 600
Process-person-context model, 866
Process-Person-Context Time (PPCT) model, 798
Progressing equilibration, 196
Protective factors, positive youth development, 906
Proximal dynamic person-environment systems,
425
Proximal processes, 363, 795, 866
focus of attention in, 813–814
in solo activities with objects and symbols, 814
Psychoanalysis/ Freud, 114–117, 144–145, 948–949
Psychological space landscapes, 268
Psychological structure:
dynamic nature of, 317–318
as dynamic skill, 321–325
common ruler for skill development, 322–325
context specificity and culture, 322
generalization through construction, 325
integration and interparticipation, 321–322
self-organization, mutual regulation and growth,
322
Psychological synthesis, 181
Psychological tension, 188–189
Psychopathology. See Pathology
Public/ Private Ventures (P/ PV), 927
PVEST. See Phenomenological variant of ecological
systems theory (PVEST)
Qualitative change, 26
Quantification in context, 172
Quantitative trait locus (QTL), 224–225
Quietude/energy (polar dimensions of complexity),
488–489
Race development, 108
Race/ethnicity, positive youth development and,
929–930
Race theory, critical (CRT), 830, 875–878
Racism, 836–838, 883–885
Random selection, 42
Reach, learning to; dynamic systems approach to,
292–297, 298
average speed of reaching, 295
changes in straightness/smoothness of reach
trajectories of four infants, 294
collective variable dynamics, 293
first transition, 293–297
model of levels of control, 298
shifts in control during first year, 296–297
Reading:
developmental pathways of good and poor readers,
335
task profiles for normative developmental sequence
for reading words, 351
Real, the (capital R), 54–55
Reciprocal continuity, 683
Reciprocity and interdependence, holistic-interactionist
model, 434–435
Reduction description, 71–72
Reductionism, 7–10, 56–57
Reflective judgment, development of, 386
Reflective level of analysis, 21
Regulation, adaptive developmental, 905. See also Self-
regulation
Relational approach to inquiry (diagram), 49
Relational /contextual model of development (Reich), 965
Relational developmental tradition, Plato and Aristotle
and, 55–56
Relational metatheory, 3, 5–6, 19, 32–39
holism, 32–33
identity of opposites, 33–36
implications for developmental science, 5–6
opposites of identity, 36–37
synthesis of wholes, 37–39
Relational scientific methodology, 74–80
abduction-transcendental argument, 77–80
causality and action patterns, 76–77
interpretation and observation, 75–76

Relational standpoints in psychological inquiry
(person / biology/culture), 37
Relationship view of life patterns, 673
Religious and spiritual development, 942–991
attachment, 979–980
conceptual development in, 972–976
congregations, 981–982
in context, 976–982
as coping (psychoanalytic theory), 948–951
Erikson, 949–950
Freud, 948–949
Jung, 949
object relations theorists, 950–951
definitions, 952–957
content, form, and function, 954–956
religion, religiousness, and spirituality, 953–954
stage and structure, 956–957
developmental approach, 943–944
family context, 977–980
historical perspective on, 946–952
as maturing, 947–948
negative correlates and pathology, 985–990
cult and occultist practices, 987–988
mental disorders, 989
pathogenic/toxic beliefs/practices/attitudes,
989–990
terrorist groups, 988–989
overview/introduction, 942–943
as perfecting, 951–952
positive correlates of, 982–985
advanced age and, 985
coping, 984
health and well-being, 982–983
moral development, 983–984
moral judgment, 983–984
service, 984
post-modern path and, 944–946
prayer, personal, 955
religious schools/education, 980–981
socialization and practice, 977–979
stage-structural theories, 957–967
cognitive-stage theories (Goldman), 958–959
concerns/attacks on, 965–967
faith developmental theory (Fowler), 959–961
Fowler and Oser and Gmünder’s theories
compared, 964–965
relational and contextual model of development
(Reich), 965
Subject Index 1059
stages of Piaget and Goldman compared, 958
stages of religious judgment and reasoning (Oser
and Gmünder), 961–965
stage-structural theories, alternatives to, 967–972
cognitive-cultural theories, 970–971
developmental systems theories, 971–972
spiritual child movement, 968–970
substantive-functional approach (Kwilecki),
967–968
studies:
cognitive-cultural approach, 975–976
conceptions of religious institutions, prayer, and
death, 973–975
stage-structural approach, 972–975
supernatural agencies, 972–973
synthesis, 976
Reserve capacities of self and personality development,
637–641
baseline/developmental, 585
evidence in indicators of personality structure, 638
evidence in self-regulatory processes, 641
Resilience, growth versus, 578–579
Resource allocation, life span changes in, 578–580
Resource characteristics of the person as shapers of
development, 812
Retroduction, 64
Robot, Lego (microdevelopment of understanding), 366
Robotics, epigenetic, 288
Rulers/clocks, 350–352
Sampling, historically structured, 184–185
Scaffolding, 330
Scalloping, 366, 367
Schools. See Education
Science, basics of, 170–177
conventionalism, 71
data collection, 172–173
hypotheses testing, theory-driven versus pseudo-
empirical, 173
instrumentalism, 71
intellectual interdependency of social sciences:
episodic growth spurts, 170–171
international nature of contemporary psychology,
171
methodologies, 71
organizing knowledge construction; frames of
reference, 173–175
pathways to objectivity, 171–173
1060 Subject Index

Science, basics of (Continued) goals, 540–544

positivism, 71
quantification in context, 172
social interdependency of psychology, 170–171
split tradition versus relational tradition, 71
statistics as a form of inductive logic, 172–173
Scientific nature of developmental inquiry, 64
Scripts:
cultural, 550–551
customary scripts for interaction, 739
emotions and dynamic organization of activity and
development, 377
shame, adult, 372
Search Institute, 927
Selection:
development as, 284–286
and endogeniety, and contextual effects, 687–689
Selective optimization with compensation (SOC)
model, 591–595
age gradients, 594
compensation, 593–594
definitions, 591–593
dual-task research and behavioral indicators, 595
empirical evidence on SOC theory, 594–595
examples from proverbs and questionnaire items, 592
management and mastery of life tasks, 595
optimization, 593
selection, elective and loss-based, 593
Selective responsiveness, 810–811
Self:
conceptual, 549–550, 751–752
coordination of the self and the other (Mead),
190–193
cultural, 752
dialogical models of, 201
future selves, life plans, and cultural scripts, 550–551
as historical product, 763–764
interaction with others, and, 762–763
ontogeny of conceptual self and of internalized
control, 549–550
as unreal, 750
Self-actualization (Maslow), 467, 476
Self-concept development, 634
Self-consciousness, 411–412
Self-correcting teaching style, 490
Self-development:
action theory, and intentional, 535–544
attentional focus, 537–538
complexity and differentiation, 537
processes of self-evaluation, 538–540
protective and defensive mechanisms, 538
self-observation and self-monitoring, 536–538
structure and process, 535–536
cultural psychology of, 749–754
sociocultural participation and, 763
Self-efficacy concept, 481
Self-evaluations, 411–412
action theory and, 538–540
adaptive value of, 639
goal of, 638–641
lifetime comparisons, 640–641
social comparisons, 640
Self-functioning, 749
Self-in-Relationships (SiR) Interview, 331, 354
diagram constructed by 15-year-old Korean girl, 355
Self-organization, 19
Self-perceptions, 411–412, 452
Self practices, 729
Self processes of diverse youth (PVEST), 845–846
Self-regulation:
capacity for; complex person, 481
of context engagement, 904
of experience, 471–472
processes for, 619, 634–636
Self-system approach, personality development,
619–620
Selfways (ways of being), cultural diversity in,754–764
self as historical product, 763–764
self develops through sociocultural participation,
763
self is constituted in interaction with others,
762–763
in some East Asian cultural contexts, 758–761
in some European American contexts, 755–758
in some other cultural contexts, 761–764
Sensitive periods, learning experiences and, 430
Sensorimotor bases of higher cognition, 306
Sensory stimulation, influences on on genetic activity,
217
Service, religious/spiritual development and, 984
Shame:
hierarchy of categories, in Chinese, 375
prototypical script for adult, 372
Significant others, bidirectional influences of, on
youths’ development (phenomenological variant of
ecological systems theory), 844
Situational imperatives, 690, 691
 Subject Index 1061

Skill(s): Social science assumptions/practices, judicial

A-not-B task, 287, 299–303 decisions, 868–878
challenge and, 483 Social stigma, 832
defining, 298–307 Societal /economic conditions, 428
dynamic, 321, 329–336 Societal regulations, formal /informal, 428
growth curves, 365–367 Sociocultural embodiment, 49
optimal experience of flow and, 477–478 Sociocultural patterns in human experience, 674–675
scale, 323, 324–325 Sociocultural variation and frames of meaning, 356
Skin color, 867 Socioeconomic status (SES):
Sleeping arrangements, family, 725–727 positive youth development and, 929–930
Social address model, 866 reading ability and, 681
Social applications: Sociogenesis, 110–111
contemporary advances, 155–156 Soft assemblies (dynamic systems), 274–275
historical theme, 123–124 Spirituality. See Religious and spiritual development
Social cognition, phenomenological variant of Split mechanical explanation, 70–75
ecological systems theory, 844–847 Split metatheory, 19, 30–32
Social competencies (positive youth development), Split neo-Darwinian metatheory:
907–908 developmental applications, 43–46
Social constructivism, 65, 522 diagram, 42
Social determinism, 43 flawed story of change, 46–47
Social development: Split versus relational tradition, 71
divergent interpersonal worlds of childhood, Splitting:
733–734 emotional, 379–382
historical perspectives, 135–136 foundationalism and, 31, 56, 57
positive youth development and, 909 Stage theory:
Social dissonance, 839 cognitive development, 341–342, 343
Social forces, primacy of, 31 religious/spiritual development, 956–957 (see also
Social integration, neighborhoods, 818 Religious and spiritual development, stage-
Social interaction (dynamic systems), 305 structural theories)
Social interdependency of psychology, 170–171 Standpoints, 36, 38
Social learning, 148–151 Statistical models, methodological note, 802
Social neobehaviorism, 143–144 Statistics as form of inductive logic, 172–173
Social organization: Strategies of coordination, 685
of childhood experience, 734–738 Strategy choice as mechanism of development, 45
age-graded activities, 738 Stress. See Phenomenological variant of ecological
care-giving relationships, 736–737 systems theory (PVEST)
organizational settings, 734–736 Structural theories of action, 521–522
parental practices, 737–738 Structural transposition, 186
domestic groups: Structure:
boundedness of, 736 defined, 315, 956–957
composition of, 735 form and, 315, 340–341
function of domestic groups, 734–735 religious/spiritual (See Religious and spiritual
size of, 735 development, stage-structural theories)
social density of, 735 Structure breaking and problem finding, 482–483
roles, cycles, and age ( life course development), Structuring role of external information, dynamic
672–673 systems, 305
Social pathways, and individual life course, 680–684 Subconscious processes, 410
Social relations, cultural mentalities concerning Substantive-functional approach (Kwilecki), 967–968
childhood, 738–739 Supernatural agencies, 972–973
1062 Subject Index
Synaptogenesis as mechanism of development, 45
Synchronic perspective, 405
Synchronization, 429–430, 685
Synchrony, developmental, 331–333
Synergetics, 271
Synthesis:
holistic-interactionist model, 439
nativism /empiricism, 338–340
neo-Darwinian /modern, 41–42
of wholes, 19, 37–39
System(s):
defined, 19
dynamic (See Dynamic systems theory)
versus mechanico-reductive and vitalistic-
constructive viewpoints, 214–217
theory as metaphor, 268–271
Teacher-child interaction and growth of complexity,
501–506. See also Education
Teleology, subjective/objective, 26
Temperament, 376–378
Temporality. See Time
Tension, 188–189
Terrorist groups, 988–989
Theoretical level of discourse, 21
Theory of mind, 731–732
Theory of neuronal group selection (TNGS), 285
Thinking, divergent /convergent (polar dimensions of
complexity), 486–487
Thoughts and actions. See also Dynamic development
of action and thought:
cognitive development and cultural psychology,
764–768
contemporary advances, 154
historical theme, 121–122
Time:
clocks/rulers, 350–352
in bioecological model: micro-, meso-, and
macrochronological systems, 820–822
nested timescales, dynamic systems, 277–289
periods, proximal processes, 795
temporality:
age and, 669
holistic-interactionist model, 436–437
and plasticity in human development, 3
Timing, principle of; life course development,694–695
Topological psychology (Lewin), 194
Traditional /iconoclastic (polar dimensions of
complexity), 489
Trait personality, 618, 631–633
Trajectory(ies), 195–196, 289–290, 589, 684–687
Transformational versus variational change, 23,
25–28, 42
Transition(s):
dynamic systems, 275–276, 290
identifying points of, 290
life course development, 684–687, 689–701
mechanisms, microdevelopment, and new knowledge,
363–370
shift of focus, 365
Transitive/intransitive relations, 182–183
Turning points, 684–687
Typists, speed and knowledge in aging, 610–611
Unemployment, 682, 684
Unified concept of development, 28–30
Unit(s) of analysis:
centrality of transfer and, 186
holistic look at, 186
problem (cultural psychology), 724–730
synthetic, 186
United States, new psychology in, 104–107
Universality/diversity hypothesis, positive youth
development, 928
Universality/invariance in development; action-
theoretical account of, 530–535
conceptual implications, 533–535
constructive and conventional implications, 533
developmental universals as empirical regularities,
530–531
developmental universals as structural implications,
531–532
formal implications, 532–533
Unwed motherhood, life course of, 686
Values:
cultural psychology, 769–770
positive youth development, 907
valuations, and norms (person-environment),
410–411
Variability:
dynamic skills and, 329–336
explaining versus “explaining away,” 342–346
inter-systemic, 184
intra-systemic, 184
as phenomenon not “error,” 183–185
Variable approach to inquiry (diagram), 50
Variable/person-centered standpoints, 49–50
 Subject Index 1063

Variational versus transformational change, 23, Williams syndrome, 214

25–28, 42 Wisdom:
Vietnam War resisters, 693 complexity and, 491–493
Vitalistic-constructive viewpoints; systems versus as expertise in fundamental pragmatics of life,
mechanico-reductive and, 214–217 606–608
Vulnerability, mediating processes between coping Working memory, 601
outcomes and, 841–843. See also Phenomenological Working model, 500
variant of ecological systems theory (PVEST) Worldviews, 19, 21, 452

Webs, constructive, 319–320, 325–329 Youth action hypothesis, 917–920

Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised Youth development. See Positive youth development
(WISC-R), 213, 214
Well-being, biology and, 415–416 Zone of proximal development (ZPD), 192–193, 498
“Whole” issue of development, 186