VL1 Grundkonzepte und Methoden

The classical (narrower) concept of development:

Development as a sequence of different phases or stages

• Identification of defined age ranges

• Characterized by one characteristic/task/typical developmental step 


• Focus on qualitative differences 


Development phases (also: "development stages"):

• Phases with special features that were not present earlier and later

Various theories about the number/function/meaning of different phases 


E.g. Karl Bühler (1879-1963): Age typology of childhood: grasping, running, age of the why questions, the fairy tale age, school maturity

-> Sometimes used in everyday psychology, but obsolete in science.


Stages of development: In addition to phase concept, also assumptions about hierarchy, necessity of stage sequence, final/mature state.

1 series of changes with several steps

2 Purposefulness: Direction towards a final or mature state

3 Superiority of the target state

4 Irreversibility: sequence of steps irreversible

5 Qualitative transformations: more than just quantitative increase

6 Stages correlate with age

7 Universality: shared by all people 


1. Assumption of a higher final level too restrictive (e.g. development of value orientations, interests; also decline in abilities with age)

2. Many changes cannot be described as a sequence of stages, but development nonetheless (e.g. influence of early experiences on later social behavior)

3. Assumption of universality problematic: only know a small part of the human population (especially historically), neglects non-universal changes (e.g. culture-specific practices, individual trajectories)

4. Difference between "only" quantitative change and "real" qualitative development is not as clear as expected (e.g. depending on the degree of resolution)

4. Often too descriptive, merely linked to age 


- Lifelong development (from birth to death)


• Multidirectionality: extent and direction of changes are not fixed; include gain and loss (e.g. infancy: specialization/higher competence in mother tongue, poorer differentiation performance of foreign sounds)

• Multidimensionality: developmental processes differ for various psychological characteristics (differential developments instead of one development)

• Plasticity of development: is malleable, not determined, also change/reversal/compensation of losses

• Focus on inter-individual differences ("differential developmental psychology") and (historical, cultural) contextuality

Developmental psychology deals with intraindividual changes in behavior and experience over the human lifespan (from birth to death) as well as interindividual differences of intraindividual changes

Wilkening et al. (2009)

Development refers to relatively enduring intraindividual changes in experience and behavior over time.

Basic model concepts of development:

Understand / conceptualize phenomena differently-> think about them differently

Influence our questions-> different research

Practical significance: predictions are based on different information, interventions use different strategies 


1. Transactional: environment active, subject active

2. Actional: environment not active, subject active

3. Exogenetic: environment active, subject not active

4. Endogenetic: environment not active, subject not active

Previously dominant models: 


1. Endogenistic model: development of an internal (possibly genetic) plan, timing and type of effect of external influences determined by internal plan (—> nativism)

2. Exogenistic model: development completely under the control of external influences (e.g. behaviorism)

Actional models

- Human being as (co-)designer of their development: does not react mechanically to the environment, perceives environment selectively, interprets and interprets

- Influence of biological (maturation) processes (e.g. puberty) does not have a determining effect, but is mediated by the self-image and the meaning attributed to the process

Transactional (dialectical, relational) models 


- Person and development context (other people) have a formative influence on development, reciprocal influence

- Assumption of systemic relationships that go beyond linear effects:

* Symbolic interactionism (Mead, 1934): reciprocal influences in the negotiation of social roles, e.g. in family

* Reciprocal effects ("vicious circles")

-> Challenging in direct empirical implementation: in empirical studies we generally only test limited aspects of a

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- Endogenistic: Genetic predisposition? Neurotransmitter imbalance?

- Exogenistic: Lack of learning experience / control by external environment?

Systemic/transactional view: developmental problems as adaptation problems

adaptation problem: expected developmental standards not achieved, typical 'developmental tasks' of an age period not performed.

—> Discrepancy/lack of fit between:

- Goals of the individual

- Potentials of the individual (competencies, dispositions)

- Requirements from the environment (standards)

- Offers (offers of help, resources) in the person's environment

-> discrepancies between goals-potentials, requirements-potentials, potentials-offers etc.

-> manifests itself (among other things): self-esteem problems, marital problems, parent-child problems

Anlage und Umwelt: Was leisten die Gene?

Klassische Kontroverse über den relativen Einfluss von Erbanlagen und Umwelt

—> Was hat mehr Gewicht bei der Entwicklung von Fähigkeiten, Dispositionen etc.?

Die Frage ist unsinnig!

• Das eine kann nicht ohne das andere existieren, stetige Wechselwirkung.

• Gene beeinflussen Verhalten und Erleben nicht direkt; vermittelt über eine lange Kette von dazwischenliegenden probabilistischen Prozessen

Population genetics (behavioral genetics): Estimation of the relative proportion of genetic influences on differences in behavior between individuals in a population (heritability).

Classical recording

- Twin studies (MZ-DZ twins), adoption studies (adoptees vs biological siblings).

- Assumptions (!) about (not) shared environment and (not) shared genes.

- E.g. assumption: MZ share 100% genes and 100% environment, DZ only 50% genes and 100% environment. Differences in Zshg. between MZ and DZ would therefore have to be of a genetic nature

-> Attempt to estimate the influence of genes

Heritability indices (estimated values), e.g. E2=(rMZ-rDZ):(1-rDZ)

Falconer formula: h2=2*(rMZ-rDZ)

- More complex models: Estimation of the contribution of the shared vs. unshared environment.

Classical models of predisposition-environment covariation from population genetics

1. Passive genotype-environment fit: Biological parents create an environment that corresponds more closely to their genome and thus also to their genetically similar children.

2. Reactive genotype-environment fit: The child evokes actions and offerings in the environment that correspond to its genotype.

3. Active genotype-environment fit: Children select those offers from the environment that correspond to their genotype.

Assumption: The extent of the three processes changes in the course of development.

Passive GOP is dominant in young children, the older the more active. Explains the reported increase in the H coefficient.

Criticism of the predisposition-environment covariation models:

- Genes influence psyche highly indirectly, mediated through many interaction processes with different environments: Idea of "fit" between environment and genes (as if they were two independently detectable factors) is suspect, outdated picture of development

1) Danger of misinterpretation

- Results say...

a) nothing about individual persons and

b) nothing about the absolute expression of a characteristic (e.g. the statement "50% of my intelligence is inherited" is incorrect), but attempt to explain variance within a population

2) Lack of relevance for psychological explanatory models

- Values are not fixed, but change depending on the population or environment.

- E.g. if the variance of the environment is reduced (e.g. through a different sample), increased variance elucidation through gene factor-> without anything having changed in the underlying psychological development process.

==> psychological relevance of the statistical results questionable, say nothing about psychological processes

3) Methodologically questionable assumptions, e.g.

- Assumption that stronger correlation in MZ compared to DZ can be traced back to genes alone, problematic: MZ are more similar to each other than DZ, therefore also cause more similar environmental reactions-> stronger Zshg can also be environmentally caused

- Assumption: adopted siblings share 50% of genes, but no environment, problematic: carried by the same mother, similar environmental influences (e.g. stress of the mother)

- Environments are not measured, only "estimated", can be very dynamic; "environment" is not a clear term at all, is always relative

-> Methodical misjudgement of environmental influences

4) Theoretical question is psychologically questionable

- Question about relative proportion not a meaningful question if process is to be explained/understood: variance-analytical results do not represent causal processes

- Genes act as one link in a long chain of processes (genes - protein biosynthesis - cell structures/cell processes - biochemical processes - metabolism - ...), each of which has conditional interactions with other processes (environments)

Molecular genetics: search for the influence of specific genes

- (1) In individual cases (clinical phenomena), individual genes can have massive effects (e.g. metabolic disease phenylketonuria: recessive anomaly on gene 12 -> missing enzyme to break down phenylalanine, leads to brain damage)

- (2) Search for individual candidate genes or a small group of common alleles (QTL) to explain the variance in typical development -> once the great hope of early genetics

- Repeatedly published individual findings, which are often greatly exaggerated

- However: findings inconsistent, individual findings hardly replicable==> to be viewed critically!

- Important distinction: What type of variance is to be explained? In (1) variance between neurotypical and atypical development, in (2) variance within typical development.

—> No support for historical candidat gene or candidate gene by interaction Hypotheses for major Depression across Multiple Large Samples

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS)

- Approach: Differences in single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP; variation of a base pair in the DNA) should explain differences in traits and abilities

- Initial findings on correlations with basal cognitive abilities, weak/unclear correlations with personality

- Problem: several million base pairs in the genome

- Largely exploratory research, risk of false positive findings

- Extremely large samples and statistical corrections necessary

- Interactions cannot be mapped

- Provide no explanation of developmental processes (have understood nothing)

"Their contribution to the explanation of personality traits is still rather modest." (Rauthmann, 2017, p. 388)

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Antwort erzeugen

Maturation: Biologically (genetically) triggered, age-related developmental processes

- Classic explanatory concept of (early) developmental psychology, when universal new functions >apparently< cannot be traced back to learning

- Problematic concept: nothing develops without interaction with the environment (cf. transactional model); concept provides no explanation for development

Sensitive periods: P. in which specific experiences have maximum effect

- E.g. second language acquisition: high grammatical. Competences only in the first years of life

- Possible explanation: stabilization of dispositions and expectations

New things become less likely (= end of s.p.)

- At the same time: purely descriptive term; more precise explanations needed

Construction: Development as a process of building up functions that enable goal-oriented action. Ordered sequence of construction steps.

- Fundamental idea that further development builds on previously developed prerequisites

- E.g. in the acquisition of conceptual knowledge, sensorimotor skills

- Open task: Naming the processes on which the construction is based.

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