Notes while reading:
Sameroff
A Unified Theory of Development: A Dialectic Integration of Nature and Nurture
Arnold Sameroff
Dialectic: two seemingly conflicting things are true at the same time.
The understanding of nature and nurture within developmental science has evolved with alternating
ascendance of one or the other as primary explanations for individual differences in life course
trajectories of success or failure. A dialectical perspective emphasizing the interconnectedness of
individual and context is suggested to interpret the evolution of developmental science in similar
terms to those necessary to explain the development of individual children. A unified theory of
development is proposed to integrate personal change, context, regulation, and representational
models of development
From unidirectional view: biological OR social, a more multidirectional perspectives is now common
where individual behavior reciprocally changes both biological and social circumstance. The models
we use to understand how individuals change over time have increased in complexity from linear to
interactive to transactive to multilevel dynamic systems.
Sheldon white points out that the study of development needs a self-concept, just as each child
requires ‘‘the building of some kind of selfreferential, self-regulating, self-knowing set of structures.’’
The science paid for by the public is increasingly being asked to meet a translational rather than a
statistical criterion with the application of research to policy an important consideration.
The primary question remains as to how we can improve the fate of individuals growing up in our
society. To answer that question requires a continuing examination of the models we need both to
study and to understand development. In what follows I will present a contemporary summary of
what such models should contain and offer a suggestion for an integrated view of development that
captures much of the variance that needs explaining
A Rough History of the Nature Versus Nurture Question
The history of developmental psychology has been characterized by swings between opinions that
determinants of an individual’s behavior could be found either in their irreducible fundamental units
or in their irreducible fundamental experiences. The growth process between babyhood and
adulthood could be explained either by appeals to intrinsic properties of the child or to extrinsic
properties of experience.
,The history of the nature–nurture question can be used as an organizing construct to understand the
history of the field of developmental psychology.
Do nature and nurture interact deterministically so that the proportions attributable to each can be
decomposed or do they transact probabilistically so that the contribution of each can only be an
abstraction from the activity of dynamic systems?
17th century: John Locke
18th century: Rousseau
19th century
First empirical psychological research.
Francis Galton coined the ‘‘nature versus nurture’’
phrase and in his view inherited characteristics were
the origins of human nature. The nurture
counterpoint was most strongly stated in the work of
John Watson in the 1920s who propounded a new
approach he labeled behaviorism, extending Pavlov’s
conditioning processes to explain human individual
differences.
After this tilt toward nurture came a shift in the 1960s – started by motivations from three directions
—ethology, behavioral genetics, and the cognitive revolution.
Ethology:
Where Stimulus-Response theorists had argued that the laws of learning were primary in explaining
developmental change, ethologists were demonstrating that many complex behaviors did not seem
to need any reinforcement. And not all animals could learn the same response to the same stimulus.
Ethologists argued that the nature of the species put large restrictions on the effects of nurture such
that certain prepared responses were impervious to experience.
Behavioral genetics – twin research
Statistical advances and data from large samples of twins permitted behavioral geneticists to argue
that the effects of genes and environments could be separated, and that very large proportions of
behavioral differences could be explained by genetic differences.
The cognitive revolution
The cognitive revolution characterized in the work of Jean Piaget placed the source of development
in the mind of the child. Experience was necessary for the child to construct the world but it did not
play a role in individual differences.
In the 1980s there came a nurturist shift driven by advances in the social sciences: the war on
poverty, the concept of a social ecology, and cultural deconstruction.
War on poverty
Scientists were arguing that economic circumstance was a major constraint on the availability of
reinforcements, such that the developmental environments of the poor were deprived in contrast
with those of the affluent.
,Social ecology
Bronfenbrenner (1977) identified the distal influences of family, school, work, and culture on the
availability of reinforcements to the child, providing a more comprehensive empirical model for
predicting individual differences in development.
Cultural deconstruction (postmodernist)
Meaning rather than behavior, became dominant through demonstrations that the same child
behaviors could be given different meanings in different societies leading to different developmental
consequences, and conversely, different behaviors could be given the same meaning leading to the
same consequences.
In 2000 there came a shift back to nature – influenced by advancements in the biological science:
molecular science and neuroscience.
The more recent swings between nature and nurture have been getting shorter and their
intermingling has been increasing.
I have presented a descriptive case for the cycling of explanations between nature and nurture to
raise the question if there is an explanation of the repetitive pattern. It could be interpreted as
simply the result of technological or theoretical advances, but it also could be a phenomenon in
itself. The development of the nature–nurture debate might follow developmental principles similar
to those that regulate human development and the examination of the two in parallel might
illuminate both.
Nonlinear Models of Development
Yin & Yang
An initial approach to dialectics is best captured by consideration of the Taoist diagram of the dark
yin and the light yang (see Figure 1) that emphasizes that opposites are in a mutually constituting
relationship. In the dialectical yin–yang there is a unity of opposites and an interpenetration of
opposites. In the psychological realm these ideas have been applied frequently, for example by
Hegel and by Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. There is a unity of opposites between one’s
cognitions and the world that is being cognized.
- The dialectical perspective on nature and nurture is that they mutually constitute each
other. There is a unity of opposites in that development will not occur without both, and
there is an interpenetration of opposites in that one’s nature changes one’s nurture and
conversely one’s nurture changes one’s nature, as captured in current transactional models
- Gottlieb’s (1992) construct of probablistic epigenesis centered on the joint regulation by
organismic and experiential factors that produced development with neither having priority
over the other.
-
The developmental double helix
2a
The line to the right influences the line back to the left, which in turn influences the next line to the
right and so on. Therefore the lines to the right are never quite the same.
2b
Differentiation and Hierarchic Integration
Werner’s (1957) orthogenetic principle:
‘‘Wherever development occurs it proceeds from
a state of relative globality and lack of
differentiation to a state of increasing
, differentiation, articulation, and hierarchic integration.’’ So that means that it becomes more divers
and divers.
2c about developmental psychology
The progression of nature and nurture conceptions can be summarized by a double helix that
captures their alternating differentiation and integration waxing and waning through time. Each new
breakthrough initially goes through a stage of differentiation as a new methodology comes into play
and then integration as it becomes connected to developmental phenomena.
Whether nature or nurture gains ascendance over the other is a complex result of psychology (e.g., it
is easier to conceptualize the parts we are made of than the wholes of which we are parts),
anthropology (e.g., the preference in Western culture for individual-based rather than relationship-
based explanations of behavior), sociology (e.g., whether there is a greater societal demand to
mitigate the effects of biological disease or social disorder), and economics (e.g., whether
investments in nature or nurture research offer the best opportunity to reduce the costs of
developmental problems).
he development of our science may be very similar to, and thus very useful for, understanding the
development of human beings. The dialectics of differentiation and hierarchic integration may
characterize all developmental processes.
Two prepositions:
- The first is that the cycling between nature and nurture will continue until either one or the
other gets it right effectively ending the argument. Unfortunately, the problem of
multifinality and equifinality undercuts this possibility.
- The second proposition is that nature and nurture represent a unity of opposites such that
neither can ever get it right on its own.
How do nature and nurture work in a unified way? Can we constitute a unified theory of
development?
A Unified Theory of Development
Contemporary developmental science requires at least four models for understanding human
growth: a personal change one, a contextual one, a regulation one, and a representational one.
Combining these four models offers a comprehensive view of the multiple parts, wholes, and their
connecting processes that comprise human development.
Personal Change Model
Because psychology’s central focus is on individuals, developmental psychology’s main concerns
have been on how children change over time. Three ways of conceptualizing change are:
- Trait - If one believes that an individual consists of a set of unchanging traits then there is no
need for developmental research.
- Growth - If development is considered a growth process then it can have classic epigenetic
explanations in that all the parts are there to start with and it is their interactions that
produce the changes in the phenotype, or it can be considered experience dependent but
only as nutrition for the unfolding maturation process.
- Developmental stages - Viewing personal change as a stage process can have a descriptive or
theoretical meaning
o Descriptive stages: for example – 1 year old, 2 years old, 3 years old and a list of
accomplishments
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