Suchergebnisse

Design for a life / Patrick Bateson -- Areal specialization of the developing neocortex: differentiation, developmental plasticity and genetic specification / Dennis D. M. O'Leary -- Genes and environment / John C. Loeblin -- Causes and outcome of perinatal brain injury / Osmund Reynolds -- A systems view of psychobiological development / Gilbert Gottlieb -- Neurotransmitter receptors in the changing brain: allosteric transitions, gene expression and pathology at the molecular level / Jean-Pierre Changeux -- Learning, memory and synaptic plasticity: cellular mechanisms, network architecture and the recording of attended experience / Richard G. M. Morris -- Brain size, behavior and the allocation of neural space / Dale Parves ... [et al.] -- Selection and development: the brain as a complex system / Gerald M. Edelman, G. Tononi -- Cognitive development / Franz E. Weinert, Josef Perner -- Cognitive and neural development: clues from genetically based syndromes / Ursula Bellugi, Edward S. Klima, Paul P. Wang -- Language acquisition at different ages / Wolfgang Klein -- Advances in cognitive neuroscience / Antonio R. Damasio, Hanna Damasio -- Socialization and sociogenesis / Robert B. Cairns -- Patterns of juvenile behavior following early hormonal interventions / Robert W. Goy -- Gonadal hormones and the organization of brain structure and function / Roger A. Gorski -- The brain and socialization: a two-way mediation across the life course / Pierre Karli -- The interpenetration of biology and culture / Robert A. Hinde -- Temperamental contributions to the development of social behavior / Jerome Kagan -- Developmental psychopathology as an organizing research construct / Michael Rutter -- Social competence and human conflict / David Hamburg -- Psychological aspects of aging: facts and frontiers / Paul B. Balters, Peter Graf -- Genetics of aging and Alzheimer's disease / John Hardy -- Aging and molecular biology / David G. Morgan, Marcia N. Gordon -- Biological bases for plasticity during aging of individual life histories / Caleb E. Finch

In everyday language the terms psychology and psychological are used in very different meanings, without a clear definition of what the terms refer to. This article is an attempt to meet the need for clarification of the content and boundaries of psychology as a scientific discipline. This is a prerequisite for real scientific contribution to progress in cross-disciplinary research and to decision making in societal and cultural processes. Applying a holistic – interactionistic view as the frame of reference for planning, implementation, and interpretation of single studies, the target of theoretical and empirical analyses is the human psychobiological and social being in continuous interaction with his/her proximal and distal environment.

This article asserts the claim for linking methods to phenomena—and not vice versa—in research on individual development. It is argued that proper application of theory, design, and methodological tools in studies of specific problems requires strict consideration of four basic features of developmental processes: (1) the holistic-interactionistic nature of such processes, (2) individual development as a process of adaptation, (3) developmental change as transformation, and (4) synchronization and coordination of operating elements in developmental change. The research strategy and methodological consequences of this claim are discussed.

A description of two cases from my time as a school psychologist in the middle of the 1950s forms the background to the following question: Has anything important happened since then in psychological research to help us to a better understanding of how and why individuals think, feel, act, and react as they do in real life and how they develop over time? The studies serve as a background for some general propositions about the nature of the phenomena that concerns us in developmental research, for a summary description of the developments in psychological research over the last 40 years as I see them, and for some suggestions about future directions.