Systems Methods for Developmental Research

Abstract

In this chapter a broad variety of aspects of dynamic systems approaches is discussed, including heuristic descriptions of methodological issues, experimental designs, mathematical models associated with such approaches and, in particular, statistical methods to fit dynamic systems models to appropriate empirical data. The authors start with a breakthrough in statistical modeling that has fundamental consequences for developmental science. It is shown that a general mathematical theory, called ergodic theory, puts dynamic systems approaches at the center of statistical modeling in developmental science. A general dynamic factor model is presented, which captures most of the statistical models that are appropriate in linear dynamic systems approaches. It is shown how specific variants of dynamic factor models enable critical tests of key characteristics of developmental processes. The chapter continues with an extensive discussion of the implications of nonlinear dynamic systems approaches for an important topic in developmental science: the analysis of stage‐wise development. Special emphasis is given here to neural network models and dynamic systems models based on catastrophe theory. The chapter closes with a heuristic presentation of mathematical control theory of dynamic systems as an important tool for optimal guidance of developmental processes.

Adolescent Health Development: A Relational Developmental Systems Perspective

“…Indeed, methodological work framed by RDS concepts (e.g., Molenaar andNesselroade 2014, 2015;Nesselroade 1988;Nesselroade and Molenaar 2010) indicates that the purported life span stability of traits, as well as the purported immunity to contextual influences, is empirically counterfactual. Moreover, underscoring the importance of this third moment of analysis discussed by Overton (2015), these methodological innovations demonstrate the ability to index with psychometric precision integrative individual ⇔ context (including individual ⇔ individual) units of analysis (e.g., Molenaar 2014;Molenaar and Nesselroade 2015). This innovation in developmental methodology is important for understanding key features of the individual⇔context relational process propelling developmental change in adolescence.…”

The Study of Character Development: Towards Tests of a Relational Developmental Systems Model

“…Indeed, methodological work framed by RDS concepts [e.g., Molenaar & Nesselroade, 2014Nesselroade, 1988;Nesselroade & Molenaar, 2010] indicates that the purported life-span stability of traits, as well as the purported immunity to contextual influences, are empirically counterfactual. Moreover, and underscoring the importance of this third moment of analysis discussed by Overton [2015], these methodological innovations demonstrate the ability to index with psychometric precision integrative, individual ← → context (including individual ← → individual) units of analysis [e.g., Molenaar, 2014;Molenaar, Lerner, & Newell, 2014;Molenaar & Nesselroade, 2015].…”

Finally! A Developmental Science that Privileges Development

“…Yet at the same time, basic developmental processes are dynamic and can play out in different specific ways because the vicissitudes of individual and social and cultural circumstances shape varied developmental experiences across time and space. [Raeff, 2016, p. 2] Raeff, then, both addresses and puts to rest the EDP contention that a developmental perspective cannot account for the nomothetic features of human development with resorting to a prior-to-individual-conception entity -a gene -governing this uniformity [see also Witherington & Lickliter, 2016], and, at the same time, she accounts for the nonergodicity of human development [Molenaar & Nesselroade, 2015;Rose, 2015]. As such, Raeff provides a theoretical foundation for an idiographic approach to human development.…”

“…She presents ideas that Overton [2015] and others [e.g., see the chapters in Overton & Molenaar, 2015] have associated with the process-relational paradigm and the relational developmental systems (RDS) metatheory derived from it. She explains the features of systems theory, for example, multiple and interrelated constituents, emergence, soft assembly, intraindividual variability [and hence nonergodicity and the need for idiographic analysis to be primary in developmental science; Molenaar & Nesselroade, 2015;Rose, 2015], interindividual differences in intraindividual change, equi-and multifinality [and hence plasticity; Lerner, 1984], and autopoiesis. She explains as well that an integrated developmental system creates processes that " include the dynamics of what happens during development and the dynamics of how development changes " [Raeff, 2016, p. 2, italics in original].…”