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The central thesis of this paper is that grand theories of development are alive and well and should be paramount to those interested in behavioral intervention. Why? Because how we think about development affects how we approach treatment. Here I discuss the central concepts of a new theory of development-dynamic systems theory-to highlight the way in which a theory can dramatically alter views of what intervention is all about. Rather than focusing on one root of maladaptive behavior such as biological predispositions, environmental causes, or motivational states, dynamic systems theory presents a flexible, time-dependent, and emergent view of behavioral change. I illustrate this new view with a case study on how infants develop the motivation to reach for objects. This example highlights the complex day-by-day and week-by-week emergence of new skills. Although such complexity presents daunting challenges for intervention, it also offers hope by emphasizing that there are multiple pathways toward change.
The Role of Theory
IN 1996, THE JOURNAL PSYCHOLOGICAL SCIENCE DEVOTED A SPECIAL ISSUE to commemorate the centennial of Jean Piaget's birth. Developmental psychologists have been sniping away at Piaget for many years, and some have declared his massive and eloquent theory as dead. In that issue, Alison Gopnik (1996, p. 221) wrote that the search for a grand developmental theory is, indeed, futile. We are better off, she advised, working out the details domain by domain: a theory of language, a theory of numerosity, a theory of mind, a theory of attachment, and so on. The traditional big issues of developmental theory-nature versus nurture, continuity and discontinuity, modularity versus distributed processes-should be cast aside in favor of the specifics of content.
I beg to disagree. We surely need the details of content, but we also need the big picture. We need to grapple with the hard issues at the core of human change. We must not scuttle the past masters-Freud, Piaget, Erikson, Bowlby-who were likely wrong in some of the details and perhaps in some of their assumptions. Rather, we must use as models their bold visions to probe deeply into the mystery and complexities of human development and to articulate general principles that give meaning to so many details.
Why does theory matter at all? Why do we still...