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Human Development, Successful: Psychological Conceptions
Human Development, Successful: Psychological Conceptions Werner Greve, University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany Ó 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. This article is a revision of the previous edition article by W. Greve, volume 10, pp. 6970–6974, Ó 2001, Elsevier Ltd.
Abstract Evaluating personal development as ‘successful’ presupposes the existence of normative criteria. Although psychological theories and empirical facts by themselves do not form a sufficient basis for legitimate evaluations and norms, they are nevertheless a necessary component. Accordingly, this article discusses psychological concepts that empirically describe and theoretically explain the courses and outcomes of human development. In particular, the concepts of plasticity, resilience, individual capacity to act, and social integration are examined. These concepts and the resulting psychological model of successful development will be explained by focusing on recent models of developmental regulation.
From its outset, human development is dependent on the presence of essential and beneficial conditions in the physical and social environment. Some of these conditions are fundamental and the same for all human beings (oxygen, water, food), while others are more complex and necessary to varying degrees (e.g., support of caregivers, languageeducation, culturally specific competencies). Human beings also differ from one another in their psychological and physical needs: congenital and acquired vulnerability and deficiencies need special support and encouragement, some of them may even require specialist intervention or preventive treatment (e.g., specialized diets in the case of inherited metabolic disturbances such as phenylketonuria) (see Human Development, Theories of). At any event, there needs to be a minimum degree of fit between the individual and his or her environment before development can actually take place. Within these bounds, however, a very wide range of human development can unfold: An individual’s predispositions and qualities encounter an immeasurably vast range of diverse environmental influences (socialization, critical and nonnormative life events, historical influences, etc.). These influential factors operate throughout an individual’s ontogenesis (Baltes et al., 2006). Human development never reaches completion, is multidirectional and seldom irreversible, while at the same time featuring a high degree of interindividual variability and intraindividual plasticity (Baltes, 1987, 1997; see Neural Plasticity). Moreover, there is now a broad consensus that human development does not take place uniformly in an irreversible sequence of different stages and phases, but is a process that individuals themselves actively influence in substantial ways (Brandtstädter, 2006; see Brain Maturation and Plasticity during Infancy and Adulthood). In view of this broad range of possibilities, the question of how and under what circumstances human development can succeed proves to be complex in several respects. The purpose of this article is to deal with two questions. The more important, of course, is the question of what makes development successful (from a psychological point of view); Which are the prerequisites of an ‘art of life’ (Staudinger, 1999)? To answer this question, however, the term ‘successful’ needs to be clarified.
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 11
What Is ‘Successful’ Development? The Problem of Criteria Since the work of David Hume (1739–40/1978) many have argued that while empirical sciences like psychology may, for reasons of principle, apply criteria that are value judgments, they cannot justify or legitimize the use of such criteria. According to this view, no matter how good science may be, it can only describe and explain the world, but it cannot judge it. Is the question of what makes human development ‘successful’ hence unanswerable from the start, at least from the viewpoint of an empirical science?
Is and Ought – Bridging a Presumed Gap Actually, the relationship between empirical description and explanation on the one hand and value judgments and normative standards on the other is in fact more complex than that. Even if empirical facts, to begin with, do not constitute sufficient conditions for making evaluations, as a rule they are in many cases necessary ones (Brandtstädter and Schneewind, 1977). Any decision or action is predicated not only upon preferences and value judgments but also upon expectations which take account of empirical facts. For instance, the demand for a juvenile who commits crimes to be ‘educated’ by punishment assumes that punishment actually serves to influence his or her future actions. This is an assumption that can, and indeed must, be empirically tested. In this respect, science plays a key role in answering the question of successful development, even if the criterion for measuring ‘success’ has had to be determined on a prescientific basis. Yet it is open to question whether assessments of human action and biographies really are as completely arbitrary as is suggested by a Humean perspective. Without wishing to get involved in the finer points of the philosophical debates surrounding the ‘deducibility’ of normative statements from descriptive ones, it can nevertheless be said that all positions purporting to offer proof of the inherent distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ in fact tend to presuppose this ‘gap’ of principle rather than to prove its existence (Mavrodes, 1968). In search for firm foundations for value judgments as well as for empirical descriptions, the last line of defense is the practice
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of simply not calling certain statements into question because the grounds for doubting them appear more dubious than the statements themselves. So, although we can forget any prospect of finding ‘the’ best biography per se in the foreseeable future, indisputably negative examples can easily be identified within the variations realized. For instance, there is no doubt that a person who persistently and repeatedly violates others for no reason, leads a less ‘productive’ life than one who shows reasonable consideration for others’ interests and needs when taking his or her actions and decisions. Likewise, one can hardly describe an old age marred by illness and loneliness, causing distress particularly to the aged person but also to his or her relatives and friends, as ‘successful’ without arousing the suspicion that this is an artificial, academic discussion or simply cynicism. The details of examples such as these will be controversial, and here too particular constellations will lead to changes in our assessments. Nevertheless, such examples show that in many cases value judgments (‘better’ – ‘worse’) are scarcely more doubtful than the ‘brute’ facts. This does not entail, however, that value judgments and normative statements can be derived from scientifically proved descriptive statements. Empirical sciences such as psychology do need additional (normative) premises if they are to progress from describing and explaining the world toward altering it. Yet, some of these premises are hardly controversial but rather undisputable.
Nature and Culture: Flexible Intersections Human development is more than just a biological process. Since we are “unfinished animals . who complete themselves through culture” (Geertz, 1973: p. 44), human ontogenesis is in need of compensatory support by cultural and individual scaffolding and self-regulatory efforts. The ‘incomplete architecture’ of human development (Baltes, 1997) requires and, at the same time, allows the individual shaping of the life course (see Life Course: Sociological Aspects). This, of course, is the very reason why we are in need for (evaluative) criteria of what ‘successful’ development actually means. As a consequence of the individual’s possibility to influence his or her life course, the search for universal criteria of successful development which can be applied to all people irrespective of their individual, cultural and historical circumstances, is likely to be fruitless. The actional perspective of human development entails that people’s ‘success’ depends to no small degree on what they themselves consider to be successful. Within the development-regulating normative rules and developmental tasks of a culture, which incidentally are themselves subject to cultural development processes, the individual him- or herself organizes the ways of shaping his or her own life, looking for and construing orientations that give meaning to his or her personal development (Brandtstädter, 2006). And yet, the individual perspective has to be complemented with a general one. Even if we are the coproducers of our development (Lerner and Busch-Rossnagel, 1981), it is constrained by the laws of nature, in particular by biological laws. Moreover, human development obviously follows a universal pathway. Since the course of human development
is, like any other aspect of human beings, a result of evolutionary processes (Bjorklund and Pellegrini, 2002), its functional necessities delineate the individual’s margins for self-regulation, let alone self-formation (see Lifespan Development: Evolutionary Perspectives). Beyond securing (or at least supporting) the individual’s survival at every stage, development serves the ultimate criterion of evolution, i.e., reproduction. Beyond the preparing function of childhood and youth (‘deferred adaptations’; Bjorklund and Pellegrini, 2002), the criterion of reproductive functionality (i.e., ‘fitness’) includes the entire life span, even up to its final stages in old age (Greve and Bjorklund, 2009; see Fertility Theory: Theory of Life History Evolution). The sufficient fulfillment of the respective functional necessities of every developmental stage, both with respect to survival of this particular stage and to the respective contribution to reproduction (i.e., the survival of the next generation(s)), represents another necessary condition for ‘successful’ development (at every stage and hence in general). Individual development is the result of the complex interactions of both biological and cultural (social) influences. These influences, in turn, are subject to permanent changes: Beyond the biological evolution, cultural factors evolve as well (Jablonka and Lamb, 2005), and so does the mutual influence of biological and cultural influences (and their interactive interplay) (see Culture and the Self: Implications for Psychological Theory). Within the boundaries set by biological and cultural preconditions, the individual’s actions play a pivotal role in this multilayered complexity. Hence, particularly those developmental processes which enable in the individual to act and react in his or her environment provide a basis for a further group of necessary conditions for developmental ‘success.’ Taken together, these considerations point toward a solution to the question of criteria. Beyond the fulfillment of the fundamental conditions essential for life, the prerequisites for successful development are clearly those meta-competencies and meta-resources which ensure that individuals can make use of opportunities and encouragement, can compensate for deficiencies and vulnerabilities, can choose and realize their own developmental goals, and thus can actively shape their development within the framework defined by immediate and potential possibilities (Brandtstädter and Schneewind, 1977). This meta-perspective implies a multicriteria approach on the one hand, and the integration of subjective and objective criteria of ‘success’ on the other. In particular, the adaptivity of the developing individual, allowing and facilitating it to adapt to the biocultural niche it is confronted with, should be of particular importance.
What Makes Development Successful? Hence, in order to answer the question of what makes development a successful one, we have to look out for those conditions that enable (or support) the individual to act and react in a way that his or her survival can be secured, capacity to reproduce (or to contribute to the reproduction of sufficiently close relatives) is maintained (or enhanced), capacity
Human Development, Successful: Psychological Conceptions
to pursue individual goals is maintained, and capacity to compensate for losses and obstacles is preserved.
Efficacy: The Capacity to Act If human development, though canalized by biological constraints and regulated by cultural requirements, is essentially shaped by individual action, a necessary prerequisite for successful development is the individual’s capacity to act, i.e., to choose developmental goals, to make decisions, to form intentions and to put them into practice, and also to overcome resistance and to revise strategies where necessary (Brandtstädter, 2006). Acting successfully entails first the precise competencies needed to carry out a particular action in practice. Additionally, an adequate representation of these competencies and potentials in the person’s self-concept is a prerequisite for an appropriate and autonomous choice to be made from among the possible developmental options. Although difficulties of coping with developmental tasks occur throughout the life course, juvenile development serves as a good example with which to illustrate (see Childhood and Adolescence: Developmental Assets). Challenges such as physical changes and sexual maturation, the need of developing interpersonal skills (e.g., for relationships with the opposite sex), acquiring education, and, in particular, forming a personal and social identity are not just the storms to be weathered during adolescence; these challenges are vitally bound up with laying the groundwork for successfully solving the tasks and meeting the demands of adult life (Crockett and Crouter, 1995). In particular, social developmental tasks play a particularly prominent role during the years of youth (Petersen and Leffert, 1995). Especially at a juvenile age, the dualism involved in social integration is patently evident: at one and the same time, social integration is an aim in itself and a prerequisite for successfully fulfilling the developmental task of preparing adulthood. However, both the necessity and the opportunity to change and challenge social contexts are characteristic features of adolescence too. Since the dividing line between creatively transgressing the social rules and a deviant or pathological disregard for social limits can be a fuzzy one, these dilemmata of individuation versus integration and of autonomy versus adaptation may serve as a background for the explanation of juvenile delinquency (Coie and Dodge, 1998). Delinquent juveniles, in particular those whose deviance is ‘adolescence-limited’ (Moffitt, 1993), have evidently not managed to cope successfully with these tasks. Thus, personal resources of coping with discrepancies between the social demands on the one hand and the personal goals, desires, and competencies on the other gain a key function in explaining successful juvenile development. In particular, the goodness of fit between the individual and his or her social environment thus becomes an important precondition and, at the same time, a central criterion for developmental success of adolescence.
Coping: Compensate for Losses, Regulating Disappointments Throughout our life span, but in later stages of life more than in youth and early adolescence, individuals need to
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compensate for losses and blocked goals: In order to regain one’s capacity to solve life-problems actively (Heckhausen et al., 2010), we have to overcome disappointments to readjust our aspirations and find new goals. Actually, human development in general can be regarded as a hierarchical, interactive sequence of micro- and macroscopic coping processes (see Human Development, Theories of). While current coping processes and resources are shaped by developmental conditions, coping reactions can also act as forces in creating future development. That leads on to the investigation of developmental constellations of individual and social resources that make an individual either resilient against or vulnerable to new strains as they arise. The discussion of the conditions under which people cope successfully with aging illuminates this aspect very well. Numerous studies have shown that people’s ability to function and their sense of well-being are not greatly impaired as they grow old, if at all. Indicators of overall psychological status such as self-esteem, general sense of well-being, or being convinced of having control over one’s own life are variables which, taken together, do not show any substantial covariance with age (e.g., Brandtstädter et al., 1993; Staudinger et al., 1995). As a consequence, the stereotype of aging being a process strongly characterized by deficiencies and loss has gradually gone out of favor as being too onesided and incomplete, to be superseded by a more multifaceted view of ‘productive’ and ‘successful’ aging (Baltes and Baltes, 1990; see Retirement and Encore Adulthood: The New Later Life Course). These findings are most surprising when set against the well-documented fact that, whether in terms of cognitive development, changing sensory functions or morbidity, aging does entail a real increase in the losses and impairment people suffer (Bond et al., 1995; see Human Development, Theories of).
Resilience: The Integration of Regulational Layers To this end, a plethora of processes of self-regulation performs an integrating, ‘orchestrating’ system (Staudinger et al., 1995); this ties in with the ‘developmental system’s’ view on human development (proposed both from psychological and biological perspectives; e.g., Ford and Lerner, 1992; Oyama et al., 2001). Self-regulating processes can essentially be classified into two modes (Brandtstädter, 2006; Brandtstädter and Greve, 1994). In the ‘assimilative’ mode, goals are maintained even against resistance, and strategies are pursued tenaciously until they are achieved. Obviously development can only succeed if people are sufficiently willing and capable to pursue his or her developmental goals and to solve developmental tasks. Anyone who always gives up immediately will achieve neither essential tasks nor those of his or her choosing. Yet, sometimes a goal will be – or become – unreachable (e.g., once a woman has passed the menopause, it is just impossible to bear a child). Accordingly, in the ‘accommodative’ mode, when the individual is confronted with goals that are truly or are perceived to be unachievable, or with irreversible losses and deterioration, preferences and orientations are adapted in a way that avoids meaninglessness and depressive tendencies, and preserves subjective well-being, but at the same time brings new,
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achievable goals into view, which revive the capacity and motivation to act. Thus, the apparent contradiction between the growing strains and losses on the one hand and the stability of the self and well-being on the other is resolved once the personal constellations of ‘resilience’ are made the focus of the theoretical perspective (Baltes and Baltes, 1990; Brandtstädter, 2006; Greve and Staudinger, 2006; Leipold and Greve, 2009; Staudinger et al., 1995). In addition to the model of developmental self-regulation already mentioned (Brandtstädter, 2006), the several models of developmental regulation provide important insights that help to explain resilience in old age. For instance, the model of ‘selective optimization with compensation’ (Baltes and Baltes, 1990) claims that losses can be partly cushioned or alleviated by way of selective improvement (training, expertise), and compensated for as people reorient their lives or change their strategies. The life span theory of motivation (Heckhausen et al., 2010) adds that processes of ‘secondary control’ support the individual’s strive to regain goals if formerly pursued aspirations are blocked (e.g., the goal of having a child after passing the menopause). Unfortunately, we do not know much about the developmental conditions of the individual’s ability to regulate one’s development both in the assimilative and the accommodative mode (Thomsen and Greve, 2013). If the developing individual’s plasticity and adaptivity are the key condition to fulfill biological, cultural, and individual goals, the conditions for the development of adaptivity are of particular importance for developmental ‘success’ (under all conceivable circumstances and conditions).
Conclusion: Courses and Conditions of Successful Development In terms of cognitive functions, social integration, and selfregulation, human development features a considerable amount of plasticity (Baltes et al., 2006), which not only makes up the core prerequisite for the dynamics of resilience and the coping processes discussed here, but indeed is also a general precondition for the very possibility of life span development. Self-regulation processes are a central criterion for adaptation processes on the one hand and they substantially control them on the other. Personal well-being and psychological health, and social integration can only be maintained and improved if the individual can be protected against unfavorable conditions by resilient resource constellations, if personal and social coping resources can help to cushion and compensate for the crises and losses that will inevitably occur, and if the individual capacity to act is largely maintained, whether by stabilizing the required conditions or by finding a new orientation toward achievable objectives. Actually, all of these aspects can be seen both as the products and the producers of successful development. Development essentially consists in upholding and implementing the individual’s capacity to adapt to the discrepancies in new situations and developmental tasks as he or she seeks (via assimilation or accommodation) to attain
a solution to, or dissolution of, the discrepancies that are generating a crisis or creating a burden, if these are unavoidable in the long run. Thus, successful development implies a progressive adaptation which simultaneously maintains or indeed expands this plasticity and adaptivity. As far as we know today, this is possible – and usual – at least up to the latest years of very old age (Baltes, 1997). That leads to the somewhat tautological-sounding statement that successful development essentially means ensuring that development, i.e., progressive adaptation, will always be possible and really will occur. The emerging perspective of adaptivity and activity as the roots of successful human development suggests essential new research perspectives focusing on sources of resiliency and vulnerability at any stage of human development. Moreover, even if the preconditions and processes are known, which provide successful development, the ways to improve the individual’s capacity, to acquire, or to use them are still to be investigated. Thus, studies in applied developmental science are needed in order to discover techniques and strategies of individual and social improvement of both of these core conditions, with respect to special interventions, e.g., in the case of juvenile delinquency, as well as with respect to primary prevention of developmental crises, e.g., in the case of successful aging in very old age.
See also: Aging Mind: Facets and Levels of Analysis; Aging, Theories of; Childhood and Adolescence: Developmental Assets; Culture and the Self: Implications for Psychological Theory; Fertility Theory: Theory of Life History Evolution; Human Development, Theories of; Lifespan Development: Evolutionary Perspectives; Motivation: Life Course and Sociological Perspectives; Neural Plasticity; Retirement and Encore Adulthood: The New Later Life Course.
Bibliography Baltes, P.B., 1987. Theoretical propositions of life-span developmental psychology: on the dynamics between growth and decline. Developmental Psychology 23, 611–626. Baltes, P.B., 1997. On the incomplete architecture of human ontogeny. American Psychologist 52, 366–380. Baltes, P.B., Baltes, M.M., 1990. Psychological perspectives on successful aging: the model of selective optimization with compensation. In: Baltes, P.B., Baltes, M.M. (Eds.), Successful Aging. Perspectives from the Behavioral Sciences. Cambridge University Press, New York. Baltes, P.B., Lindenberger, U., Staudinger, U.M., 2006. Lifespan theory in developmental psychology. In: Lerner, R.M. (Ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology, pp. 569–664. Bjorklund, D.F., Pellegrini, A.D., 2002. The Origins of Human Nature. Evolutionary Developmental Psychology. APA, Washington. Bond, L.A., Cutler, S.J., Grams, A. (Eds.), 1995. Promoting Successful and Productive Aging. Sage, Thousand Oaks, CA. Brandtstädter, J., 2006. Action perspectives on human development. In: Lerner, R.M. (Ed.), Theoretical Models of Human Development, Handbook of child psychology, sixth ed., vol. 1. Wiley, New York, pp. 516–568. Brandtstädter, J., Greve, W., 1994. The aging self: stabilizing and protective processes. Developmental Review 14, 52–80. Brandtstädter, J., Schneewind, K.A., 1977. Optimal human development: some implications for psychology. Human Development 20, 1–30. Brandtstädter, J., Wentura, D., Greve, W., 1993. Adaptive ressources of the aging self: outlines of an emergent perspective. International Journal of Behavioral Development 16, 323–349.
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Coie, J.D., Dodge, K.A., 1998. Aggression and antisocial behavior. In: Eisenberg N. (Ed.) Social, Emotional, and Personality Development. In: Damon, W. (Ed.-in-Chief), Handbook of child psychology, vol. 3. Wiley, New York, pp. 779–862. Crockett, L.J., Crouter, A.C., 1995. Pathways through adolescence: an overview. In: Crockett, L.J., Crouter, A.C. (Eds.), Pathways through Adolescence. Lawrence Erlbaum, Mahwah, NJ. Ford, D.H., Lerner, R.M., 1992. Developmental Systems Theory: An Integrative Approach. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks, CA. Geertz, C., 1973. The Interpretation of Cultures. Selected Essays. Basic Books, New York. Greve, W., Bjorklund, D., 2009. The Nestor-effect. Extending evolutionary developmental psychology to a lifespan perspective. Developmental Review 29, 163–179. Greve, W., Staudinger, U.M., 2006. Resilience in later adulthood and old age: resources and potentials for successful aging. In: Cichetti, D., Cohen, D. (Eds.), Developmental psychopathology, second ed., vol. 3. Wiley, New York, pp. 796–840. Heckhausen, J., Wrosch, C., Schulz, R., 2010. A motivational theory of lifespan development. Psychological Review 117, 32–60. Hume, D., 1739–40/1978. A treatise of human nature. In: Selby-Bigge, L.A. (Ed.). Clarendon, Oxford, UK. Jablonka, E., Lamb, M.J., 2005. Evolution in Four Dimensions. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Leipold, B., Greve, W., 2009. Resilience – a conceptual bridge between coping and development. European Psychologist 14, 40–50.
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Lerner, R.M., Busch-Rossnagel, N.A. (Eds.), 1981. Individuals as Producers of Their Development. Academic Press, New York. Mavrodes, G.I., 1968. On deriving the normative from the nonnormative. Papers of the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters 53, 353–365. Moffitt, T.E., 1993. Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy. Psychological Review 100, 674–701. Oyama, S., Griffiths, P.E., Gray, R.D. (Eds.), 2001. Cycles of Contingency: Developmental Systems and Evolution. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA. Petersen, A.C., Leffert, N., 1995. What is special about adolescence? In: Rutter, M. (Ed.), Psychosocial Disturbances in Young People. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (UK), pp. 3–36. Staudinger, U.M., 1999. Social cognition and a psychological approach to an art of life. In: Blanchard-Fields, F., Hess, T. (Eds.), Social Cognition and Aging. Academic Press, New York, pp. 343–375. 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: Cicchetti, D., Cohen, D. (Eds.), Developmental Psychopathology, vol. 2. Wiley, New York, pp. 801–847. Thomsen, T., Greve, W., 2013. Accommodative coping in early adolescence: an investigation of possible developmental components. Journal of Adolescence 36, 971–981.
Abstract Evaluating personal development as ‘successful’ presupposes the existence of normative criteria. Although psychological theories and empirical facts by themselves do not form a sufficient basis for legitimate evaluations and norms, they are nevertheless a necessary component. Accordingly, this article discusses psychological concepts that empirically describe and theoretically explain the courses and outcomes of human development. In particular, the concepts of plasticity, resilience, individual capacity to act, and social integration are examined. These concepts and the resulting psychological model of successful development will be explained by focusing on recent models of developmental regulation.
From its outset, human development is dependent on the presence of essential and beneficial conditions in the physical and social environment. Some of these conditions are fundamental and the same for all human beings (oxygen, water, food), while others are more complex and necessary to varying degrees (e.g., support of caregivers, languageeducation, culturally specific competencies). Human beings also differ from one another in their psychological and physical needs: congenital and acquired vulnerability and deficiencies need special support and encouragement, some of them may even require specialist intervention or preventive treatment (e.g., specialized diets in the case of inherited metabolic disturbances such as phenylketonuria) (see Human Development, Theories of). At any event, there needs to be a minimum degree of fit between the individual and his or her environment before development can actually take place. Within these bounds, however, a very wide range of human development can unfold: An individual’s predispositions and qualities encounter an immeasurably vast range of diverse environmental influences (socialization, critical and nonnormative life events, historical influences, etc.). These influential factors operate throughout an individual’s ontogenesis (Baltes et al., 2006). Human development never reaches completion, is multidirectional and seldom irreversible, while at the same time featuring a high degree of interindividual variability and intraindividual plasticity (Baltes, 1987, 1997; see Neural Plasticity). Moreover, there is now a broad consensus that human development does not take place uniformly in an irreversible sequence of different stages and phases, but is a process that individuals themselves actively influence in substantial ways (Brandtstädter, 2006; see Brain Maturation and Plasticity during Infancy and Adulthood). In view of this broad range of possibilities, the question of how and under what circumstances human development can succeed proves to be complex in several respects. The purpose of this article is to deal with two questions. The more important, of course, is the question of what makes development successful (from a psychological point of view); Which are the prerequisites of an ‘art of life’ (Staudinger, 1999)? To answer this question, however, the term ‘successful’ needs to be clarified.
International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, Volume 11
What Is ‘Successful’ Development? The Problem of Criteria Since the work of David Hume (1739–40/1978) many have argued that while empirical sciences like psychology may, for reasons of principle, apply criteria that are value judgments, they cannot justify or legitimize the use of such criteria. According to this view, no matter how good science may be, it can only describe and explain the world, but it cannot judge it. Is the question of what makes human development ‘successful’ hence unanswerable from the start, at least from the viewpoint of an empirical science?
Is and Ought – Bridging a Presumed Gap Actually, the relationship between empirical description and explanation on the one hand and value judgments and normative standards on the other is in fact more complex than that. Even if empirical facts, to begin with, do not constitute sufficient conditions for making evaluations, as a rule they are in many cases necessary ones (Brandtstädter and Schneewind, 1977). Any decision or action is predicated not only upon preferences and value judgments but also upon expectations which take account of empirical facts. For instance, the demand for a juvenile who commits crimes to be ‘educated’ by punishment assumes that punishment actually serves to influence his or her future actions. This is an assumption that can, and indeed must, be empirically tested. In this respect, science plays a key role in answering the question of successful development, even if the criterion for measuring ‘success’ has had to be determined on a prescientific basis. Yet it is open to question whether assessments of human action and biographies really are as completely arbitrary as is suggested by a Humean perspective. Without wishing to get involved in the finer points of the philosophical debates surrounding the ‘deducibility’ of normative statements from descriptive ones, it can nevertheless be said that all positions purporting to offer proof of the inherent distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ in fact tend to presuppose this ‘gap’ of principle rather than to prove its existence (Mavrodes, 1968). In search for firm foundations for value judgments as well as for empirical descriptions, the last line of defense is the practice
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-08-097086-8.34014-4
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of simply not calling certain statements into question because the grounds for doubting them appear more dubious than the statements themselves. So, although we can forget any prospect of finding ‘the’ best biography per se in the foreseeable future, indisputably negative examples can easily be identified within the variations realized. For instance, there is no doubt that a person who persistently and repeatedly violates others for no reason, leads a less ‘productive’ life than one who shows reasonable consideration for others’ interests and needs when taking his or her actions and decisions. Likewise, one can hardly describe an old age marred by illness and loneliness, causing distress particularly to the aged person but also to his or her relatives and friends, as ‘successful’ without arousing the suspicion that this is an artificial, academic discussion or simply cynicism. The details of examples such as these will be controversial, and here too particular constellations will lead to changes in our assessments. Nevertheless, such examples show that in many cases value judgments (‘better’ – ‘worse’) are scarcely more doubtful than the ‘brute’ facts. This does not entail, however, that value judgments and normative statements can be derived from scientifically proved descriptive statements. Empirical sciences such as psychology do need additional (normative) premises if they are to progress from describing and explaining the world toward altering it. Yet, some of these premises are hardly controversial but rather undisputable.
Nature and Culture: Flexible Intersections Human development is more than just a biological process. Since we are “unfinished animals . who complete themselves through culture” (Geertz, 1973: p. 44), human ontogenesis is in need of compensatory support by cultural and individual scaffolding and self-regulatory efforts. The ‘incomplete architecture’ of human development (Baltes, 1997) requires and, at the same time, allows the individual shaping of the life course (see Life Course: Sociological Aspects). This, of course, is the very reason why we are in need for (evaluative) criteria of what ‘successful’ development actually means. As a consequence of the individual’s possibility to influence his or her life course, the search for universal criteria of successful development which can be applied to all people irrespective of their individual, cultural and historical circumstances, is likely to be fruitless. The actional perspective of human development entails that people’s ‘success’ depends to no small degree on what they themselves consider to be successful. Within the development-regulating normative rules and developmental tasks of a culture, which incidentally are themselves subject to cultural development processes, the individual him- or herself organizes the ways of shaping his or her own life, looking for and construing orientations that give meaning to his or her personal development (Brandtstädter, 2006). And yet, the individual perspective has to be complemented with a general one. Even if we are the coproducers of our development (Lerner and Busch-Rossnagel, 1981), it is constrained by the laws of nature, in particular by biological laws. Moreover, human development obviously follows a universal pathway. Since the course of human development
is, like any other aspect of human beings, a result of evolutionary processes (Bjorklund and Pellegrini, 2002), its functional necessities delineate the individual’s margins for self-regulation, let alone self-formation (see Lifespan Development: Evolutionary Perspectives). Beyond securing (or at least supporting) the individual’s survival at every stage, development serves the ultimate criterion of evolution, i.e., reproduction. Beyond the preparing function of childhood and youth (‘deferred adaptations’; Bjorklund and Pellegrini, 2002), the criterion of reproductive functionality (i.e., ‘fitness’) includes the entire life span, even up to its final stages in old age (Greve and Bjorklund, 2009; see Fertility Theory: Theory of Life History Evolution). The sufficient fulfillment of the respective functional necessities of every developmental stage, both with respect to survival of this particular stage and to the respective contribution to reproduction (i.e., the survival of the next generation(s)), represents another necessary condition for ‘successful’ development (at every stage and hence in general). Individual development is the result of the complex interactions of both biological and cultural (social) influences. These influences, in turn, are subject to permanent changes: Beyond the biological evolution, cultural factors evolve as well (Jablonka and Lamb, 2005), and so does the mutual influence of biological and cultural influences (and their interactive interplay) (see Culture and the Self: Implications for Psychological Theory). Within the boundaries set by biological and cultural preconditions, the individual’s actions play a pivotal role in this multilayered complexity. Hence, particularly those developmental processes which enable in the individual to act and react in his or her environment provide a basis for a further group of necessary conditions for developmental ‘success.’ Taken together, these considerations point toward a solution to the question of criteria. Beyond the fulfillment of the fundamental conditions essential for life, the prerequisites for successful development are clearly those meta-competencies and meta-resources which ensure that individuals can make use of opportunities and encouragement, can compensate for deficiencies and vulnerabilities, can choose and realize their own developmental goals, and thus can actively shape their development within the framework defined by immediate and potential possibilities (Brandtstädter and Schneewind, 1977). This meta-perspective implies a multicriteria approach on the one hand, and the integration of subjective and objective criteria of ‘success’ on the other. In particular, the adaptivity of the developing individual, allowing and facilitating it to adapt to the biocultural niche it is confronted with, should be of particular importance.
What Makes Development Successful? Hence, in order to answer the question of what makes development a successful one, we have to look out for those conditions that enable (or support) the individual to act and react in a way that his or her survival can be secured, capacity to reproduce (or to contribute to the reproduction of sufficiently close relatives) is maintained (or enhanced), capacity
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to pursue individual goals is maintained, and capacity to compensate for losses and obstacles is preserved.
Efficacy: The Capacity to Act If human development, though canalized by biological constraints and regulated by cultural requirements, is essentially shaped by individual action, a necessary prerequisite for successful development is the individual’s capacity to act, i.e., to choose developmental goals, to make decisions, to form intentions and to put them into practice, and also to overcome resistance and to revise strategies where necessary (Brandtstädter, 2006). Acting successfully entails first the precise competencies needed to carry out a particular action in practice. Additionally, an adequate representation of these competencies and potentials in the person’s self-concept is a prerequisite for an appropriate and autonomous choice to be made from among the possible developmental options. Although difficulties of coping with developmental tasks occur throughout the life course, juvenile development serves as a good example with which to illustrate (see Childhood and Adolescence: Developmental Assets). Challenges such as physical changes and sexual maturation, the need of developing interpersonal skills (e.g., for relationships with the opposite sex), acquiring education, and, in particular, forming a personal and social identity are not just the storms to be weathered during adolescence; these challenges are vitally bound up with laying the groundwork for successfully solving the tasks and meeting the demands of adult life (Crockett and Crouter, 1995). In particular, social developmental tasks play a particularly prominent role during the years of youth (Petersen and Leffert, 1995). Especially at a juvenile age, the dualism involved in social integration is patently evident: at one and the same time, social integration is an aim in itself and a prerequisite for successfully fulfilling the developmental task of preparing adulthood. However, both the necessity and the opportunity to change and challenge social contexts are characteristic features of adolescence too. Since the dividing line between creatively transgressing the social rules and a deviant or pathological disregard for social limits can be a fuzzy one, these dilemmata of individuation versus integration and of autonomy versus adaptation may serve as a background for the explanation of juvenile delinquency (Coie and Dodge, 1998). Delinquent juveniles, in particular those whose deviance is ‘adolescence-limited’ (Moffitt, 1993), have evidently not managed to cope successfully with these tasks. Thus, personal resources of coping with discrepancies between the social demands on the one hand and the personal goals, desires, and competencies on the other gain a key function in explaining successful juvenile development. In particular, the goodness of fit between the individual and his or her social environment thus becomes an important precondition and, at the same time, a central criterion for developmental success of adolescence.
Coping: Compensate for Losses, Regulating Disappointments Throughout our life span, but in later stages of life more than in youth and early adolescence, individuals need to
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compensate for losses and blocked goals: In order to regain one’s capacity to solve life-problems actively (Heckhausen et al., 2010), we have to overcome disappointments to readjust our aspirations and find new goals. Actually, human development in general can be regarded as a hierarchical, interactive sequence of micro- and macroscopic coping processes (see Human Development, Theories of). While current coping processes and resources are shaped by developmental conditions, coping reactions can also act as forces in creating future development. That leads on to the investigation of developmental constellations of individual and social resources that make an individual either resilient against or vulnerable to new strains as they arise. The discussion of the conditions under which people cope successfully with aging illuminates this aspect very well. Numerous studies have shown that people’s ability to function and their sense of well-being are not greatly impaired as they grow old, if at all. Indicators of overall psychological status such as self-esteem, general sense of well-being, or being convinced of having control over one’s own life are variables which, taken together, do not show any substantial covariance with age (e.g., Brandtstädter et al., 1993; Staudinger et al., 1995). As a consequence, the stereotype of aging being a process strongly characterized by deficiencies and loss has gradually gone out of favor as being too onesided and incomplete, to be superseded by a more multifaceted view of ‘productive’ and ‘successful’ aging (Baltes and Baltes, 1990; see Retirement and Encore Adulthood: The New Later Life Course). These findings are most surprising when set against the well-documented fact that, whether in terms of cognitive development, changing sensory functions or morbidity, aging does entail a real increase in the losses and impairment people suffer (Bond et al., 1995; see Human Development, Theories of).
Resilience: The Integration of Regulational Layers To this end, a plethora of processes of self-regulation performs an integrating, ‘orchestrating’ system (Staudinger et al., 1995); this ties in with the ‘developmental system’s’ view on human development (proposed both from psychological and biological perspectives; e.g., Ford and Lerner, 1992; Oyama et al., 2001). Self-regulating processes can essentially be classified into two modes (Brandtstädter, 2006; Brandtstädter and Greve, 1994). In the ‘assimilative’ mode, goals are maintained even against resistance, and strategies are pursued tenaciously until they are achieved. Obviously development can only succeed if people are sufficiently willing and capable to pursue his or her developmental goals and to solve developmental tasks. Anyone who always gives up immediately will achieve neither essential tasks nor those of his or her choosing. Yet, sometimes a goal will be – or become – unreachable (e.g., once a woman has passed the menopause, it is just impossible to bear a child). Accordingly, in the ‘accommodative’ mode, when the individual is confronted with goals that are truly or are perceived to be unachievable, or with irreversible losses and deterioration, preferences and orientations are adapted in a way that avoids meaninglessness and depressive tendencies, and preserves subjective well-being, but at the same time brings new,
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achievable goals into view, which revive the capacity and motivation to act. Thus, the apparent contradiction between the growing strains and losses on the one hand and the stability of the self and well-being on the other is resolved once the personal constellations of ‘resilience’ are made the focus of the theoretical perspective (Baltes and Baltes, 1990; Brandtstädter, 2006; Greve and Staudinger, 2006; Leipold and Greve, 2009; Staudinger et al., 1995). In addition to the model of developmental self-regulation already mentioned (Brandtstädter, 2006), the several models of developmental regulation provide important insights that help to explain resilience in old age. For instance, the model of ‘selective optimization with compensation’ (Baltes and Baltes, 1990) claims that losses can be partly cushioned or alleviated by way of selective improvement (training, expertise), and compensated for as people reorient their lives or change their strategies. The life span theory of motivation (Heckhausen et al., 2010) adds that processes of ‘secondary control’ support the individual’s strive to regain goals if formerly pursued aspirations are blocked (e.g., the goal of having a child after passing the menopause). Unfortunately, we do not know much about the developmental conditions of the individual’s ability to regulate one’s development both in the assimilative and the accommodative mode (Thomsen and Greve, 2013). If the developing individual’s plasticity and adaptivity are the key condition to fulfill biological, cultural, and individual goals, the conditions for the development of adaptivity are of particular importance for developmental ‘success’ (under all conceivable circumstances and conditions).
Conclusion: Courses and Conditions of Successful Development In terms of cognitive functions, social integration, and selfregulation, human development features a considerable amount of plasticity (Baltes et al., 2006), which not only makes up the core prerequisite for the dynamics of resilience and the coping processes discussed here, but indeed is also a general precondition for the very possibility of life span development. Self-regulation processes are a central criterion for adaptation processes on the one hand and they substantially control them on the other. Personal well-being and psychological health, and social integration can only be maintained and improved if the individual can be protected against unfavorable conditions by resilient resource constellations, if personal and social coping resources can help to cushion and compensate for the crises and losses that will inevitably occur, and if the individual capacity to act is largely maintained, whether by stabilizing the required conditions or by finding a new orientation toward achievable objectives. Actually, all of these aspects can be seen both as the products and the producers of successful development. Development essentially consists in upholding and implementing the individual’s capacity to adapt to the discrepancies in new situations and developmental tasks as he or she seeks (via assimilation or accommodation) to attain
a solution to, or dissolution of, the discrepancies that are generating a crisis or creating a burden, if these are unavoidable in the long run. Thus, successful development implies a progressive adaptation which simultaneously maintains or indeed expands this plasticity and adaptivity. As far as we know today, this is possible – and usual – at least up to the latest years of very old age (Baltes, 1997). That leads to the somewhat tautological-sounding statement that successful development essentially means ensuring that development, i.e., progressive adaptation, will always be possible and really will occur. The emerging perspective of adaptivity and activity as the roots of successful human development suggests essential new research perspectives focusing on sources of resiliency and vulnerability at any stage of human development. Moreover, even if the preconditions and processes are known, which provide successful development, the ways to improve the individual’s capacity, to acquire, or to use them are still to be investigated. Thus, studies in applied developmental science are needed in order to discover techniques and strategies of individual and social improvement of both of these core conditions, with respect to special interventions, e.g., in the case of juvenile delinquency, as well as with respect to primary prevention of developmental crises, e.g., in the case of successful aging in very old age.
See also: Aging Mind: Facets and Levels of Analysis; Aging, Theories of; Childhood and Adolescence: Developmental Assets; Culture and the Self: Implications for Psychological Theory; Fertility Theory: Theory of Life History Evolution; Human Development, Theories of; Lifespan Development: Evolutionary Perspectives; Motivation: Life Course and Sociological Perspectives; Neural Plasticity; Retirement and Encore Adulthood: The New Later Life Course.
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