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An overview of Relational Developmental Systems (RDS), a metatheory of human development that emphasizes the integration of individual and context relations across various levels of organization, from biology to culture and history. RDS holds that development involves mutually influential individual-context relations and that specific contextual conditions shape specific facets of development through individual-context coaction. The document also discusses several RDS-based models in developmental science, including those from evolutionary biology, molecular genetics, comparative psychology, sociology, and human development.
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Richard M. Lerner Tufts University 26 Winthrop Street, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155 – Phone (617) 627-
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►Metatheories of human development: Mechanistic, Organismic, Relational Developmental (Dynamic) Systems Mechanistic theories: Nature or Nurture reductionism Organismic theories: Stages and predetermined versus probabilistic epigenesis Relational Developmental Systems (RDS)-based theories
►The integration of levels of organization, from biology/physiology through culture, the physical ecology, and history (temporality) ►Developmental regulation across life involves mutually influential individual context relations ►Integrated actions, individual context relations, are the basic unit of analysis within human development ►Temporality and relative plasticity in human development ►Optimism, the application of developmental science, and the promotion of positive human development: The potential for furthering social justice
►In contemporary developmental science, RDS-based theories are at the cutting-edge of developmental science research. ►The following slides present several illustrations of such models in developmental science. ►These examples are drawn from evolutionary biology, molecular genetics (specifically, epigenetics), comparative psychology, sociology, and human development.
►Epigenetics researcher David Crews presents an RDS-based model of the molecular epigenotype molar epiphenotype relations involved in individual context relations.
►Derived from Johanson and Edey (1981), this figure provides an RDS model of human evolution. It provides a view of the phylogenetic (evolutionary) history of the components of individual context relations that provided a basis for the evolution of the suite of characteristics that define homo sapiens. The RDS-based ideas presented in the model are analogous to the ideas associated with the work of the evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould (e.g., 1977).
► Writing in 1998, Glen H. Elder, Jr. presented a life- course theory that embraced RDS thinking and included the idea that time had a different meaning at different levels of the relational developmental system (individual life time, family time, and historical time). Elder’s conception influenced the bioecological model of Urie Bronfenbrenner.
► This figure presents the well-known (perhaps the best known) instance of an RDS-based model for human development across the life span: Urie Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological model. The model evolved across the period of 1979-2005 (when Urie passed away). The chronosystem portion of the model was influenced by Urie’s discussions with sociologist Glen H. Elder, Jr. (the next slide presents a different rendition of the Bronfenbrenner model).
►Ford and Lerner (1992) presented an RDS-based model of individual context relations across time, operationalized in the model as individual state physical structures and functions.
►R. M. Lerner, writing from the early 1990s through the mid-part of the first decade of the 21st century presented what he termed a developmental contextual model of the individual context relations within the relational developmental system. The influences of Bronfenbrenner and of Elder are clearly evident in this model.
►The individual and the context must be aligned in order to demonstrate a child’s developmental range and potential for thriving. ►There must be aligned individual context relations for an individual to thrive. “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” Albert Einstein
►The process of development involves mutually influential (dynamic) relations between an individual and his/her context: Individual Context Relations. ►The specificity principle emphasizes that specific contextual conditions, of specific people, occurring at specific times, shapes specific facets of development (e.g., physiological, psychological, sociocultural) through specific processes of individual context coaction. ►The specificity principle emphasizes, then whole-child development AND the individuality of each child’s development. Development Involves Relations Between a Specific Individual Occurring at a Specific Time and in a Specific Place