Developmental science: Integrating knowledge about dynamic processes in human development

Abstract

There is an increasing need to develop an interdisciplinary model that describes the dynamic processes in human development. During the last decades several different theories depicting dynamic developmental processes have been formulated. In this chapter we briefly introduce these approaches and argue that developmental systems perspective (DSP) is one of the more promising approaches to depict how developmental patterns arise. Furthermore, we argue, that Developmental Science-an integrative, interdisciplinary framework-is a useful approach to account for the interplay of changes in individuals across the life span and thereby considering psychological, biological, social, societal, historical and cultural levels and their interdependent systems. We end by formulating strategies we foresee to be useful for all researchers who want to implement the principles of developmental science and developmental system perspective into their work. © 2009 Springer-Verlag New York.