A TRULY Integral Model of Psychological Development

Here is a TRULY integral perspective on psychological development that comes from Willis F. Overton, Thaddeus L. Bolton Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, at Temple University. A great number of his papers are available on Research Gate.

The quotations below come from a paper by three other authors, but they are heavily influenced by Overton's Relational Developmental Systems model of development (see here and here for papers by Overton describing his model).

From "Emergence, Self-Organization and Developmental Science"
By Gary Greenberg, Kristina Schmid Callina, & Megan Kiely Mueller

Advances in Child Development and Behavior, 44
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-397947-6.00004-0

"With respect to embodiment, Overton (2008) states, “embodiment [is not] about a set of genes causing behavior, or a split-off brain causing or being the mind …. Embodiment is a concept of synthesis, a bridge that joins broad areas of inquiry into a unified whole (e.g., the biological, the phenomenological, the sociocultural and environmental) as relative standpoints that together constitute the whole” (p. 3, emphasis added)." (p. 118)

Incorporating "the biological, the phenomenological, the sociocultural, and environmental" in his model, Overton has covered each of the AQAL quadrants (biological = it; phenomenological = I; sociocultural = we; and environmental = its). He does this within an embodied and embedded framework, and it is also enactive - but he uses the terms relational, or relationism instead.

This model is focused on development, but is also is applied to all other realms of inquiry, including mind and consciousness. Importantly, Overton puts a special emphasis on the embodied nature of all of these processes.

"Consistent with our definition of psychology as a biopsychosocial science, development is an embodied phenomenon (Overton, 2006, 2007). Among the implications of embodiment is that at any point in time, development cannot be understood in reference to a single variable or a single dimension, either internal or external. As we have pointed out, the study of cognitive development, brain development, personality development, or any psychological phenomenon must recognize the fusion of these processes with other internal and external dimensions of change in which they are fused. Of course, embodiment with all levels of the ecology necessarily includes the individual’s embeddedness with temporality (history) that involves at the very least ontogenetic and phylogenetic time (Elder, 1998). Furthermore, embodiment is not static; that is, due to epigenesis, developmental scientists should expect qualitative discontinuities in the nature of the embodied developing individual across time and place, both ontogenetically and phylogenetically." (p. 119)

Here, the authors adds something I have not seen explicitly stated in the AQAL model - temporality, or history. We are always embedded not just in space, but also in our unique time. The author cited here is Elder, but I have seen this same distinction made in Overton's work as well. 

Here is one last quote from Overton and Lerner, from a 2014 article that served as an introduction to a special issue of Research in Human Development.

"It will come as no surprise to the readers of this issue that we seriously embrace the relational scientific paradigm, which we have referred to as relationism and relational developmental systems (e.g., Lerner & Benson, 2013; Lerner & Overton, 2008; Overton 2010, 2013; Overton & Lerner, 2012). Briefly, the primary ontological and epistemological categories of this paradigm are (1) process (vs. Cartesian substance), (2) becoming/being (vs. Cartesian being), (3) holism (vs. Cartesian atomism), (4) relational analysis (vs. Cartesian either/or split analysis), (5) multiple perspectives (vs. Cartesian dualistic split objectivism– subjectivism), (6) coaction (vs. Cartesian split interaction), and (7) multiple forms of determination (vs. Cartesian-Newtonian efficient/material causality).

As a derivation from these relational categories, the relational developmental systems paradigm characterizes the living organism as a spontaneously active, self-creating (autopoetic, enactive), self-organizing, and self-regulating nonlinear complex adaptive system. The system’s development occurs through its own embodied activities and actions operating in a lived world of physical and sociocultural objects, according to the principle of probabilistic epigenesis. This development leads, through positive and negative feedback loops created by the system’s action, to increasing system differentiation, integration, and complexity, directed toward adaptive ends.

The categories and characterizations of relational developmental systems are abstract and form the frame within which the meanings of lower order concepts become defined. As Searle (1992) pointed out, categories and characterizations of the sort we describe lead to vocabularies, and these vocabularies ultimately affect the way we think about issues and investigate empirical questions."

Overtone and Lerner, "Fundamental Concepts and Methods in Developmental Science: A Relational Perspective." Research in Human Development, 11: 63–73, 2014.

Peter J. Marshall - Coping with Complexity: Developmental Systems and Multilevel Analyses in Developmental Psychopathology

The article below is a follow-up to Willis F. Overton's "Relationism and Relational Developmental Systems: A Paradigm for Developmental Science in the Post-Cartesian Era" and Peter J. Marshall's "Beyond Different Levels: Embodiment and the Developmental System," (which is a more recent piece than the one below, but the one below is more in-depth).

This another installment in my continuing fascination with Relational Developmental Systems and its application in both psychology and epigenetics.

Full Citation:
Marshall, PJ. (2013). Coping with complexity: Developmental systems and multilevel analyses in developmental psychopathology. Development and Psychopathology; 25(4, pt 2): 1311–1324. doi:10.1017/S0954579413000631

Coping with complexity: Developmental systems and multilevel analyses in developmental psychopathology

PETER J. MARSHALL
Temple University

Abstract

Developmental psychopathology is not characterized by adherence to one specific theory but instead serves as an organizational framework in which research is driven by a number of key assumptions. In the developmental psychopathology approach, two primary assumptions emphasize the importance of systems thinking and the utility of multilevel analyses. As will be illustrated here, these emphases are inextricably linked: a systems approach necessitates a multilevel approach, such that a level of organization must bring coherence to a level of mechanisms.Given this assumption, coming to an integrative understanding of the relation between levels is of central importance. One broad framework for this endeavor is relational developmental systems, which has been proposed by certain theorists as a new paradigm for developmental science. The implications of embracing this framework include the potential to connect developmental psychopathology with other approaches that emphasize systems thinking and that take an integrative perspective on the problem of levels of analysis.


* * * *

Among the foundational emphases of developmental psychopathology are the necessity of a systems approach and the value of explanations that bridge multiple levels of analysis (Cicchetti, 2010; Sroufe & Rutter, 1984). Both of these emphases have played a significant role in the success of the developmental psychopathology approach by framing the understanding of adaptation and maladaptation across the life span. Accordingly, most contemporary developmental psychopathologists would view themselves as subscribers to some form of systems approach (e.g., as espoused by Cicchetti & Toth, 1997; Sameroff, 2000), and the encouragement and use of multilevel analyses remains a key theme (Burnette & Cicchetti, 2012; Cicchetti, 2008, 2011; Cicchetti & Curtis, 2007). It may therefore be objected that in undertaking a discussion of these familiar constructs I am preaching to the converted. However, my suggestion is that the 25th anniversary of the first volume of Development and Psychopathology presents an opportunity not only to reiterate the theoretical importance of systems thinking and multilevel analyses but also to consider the changing background for these emphases as we look ahead to the next 25 years.

The initial focus of this article concerns the influence of embryology and developmental biology on the systems approach in developmental science more generally and on developmental psychopathology more specifically. Although much of the original impetus for systems thinking came from classic work in embryology, recent advances in developmental and evolutionary biology have further underscored the necessity of a systems approach. These advances are illustrating the vast complexity involved in the construction of a phenotype, and they are putting a great deal of pressure on traditional approaches to conceptualizing the interplay of biology and environment in understanding developmental processes. With its status as an inherently integrative discipline, developmental psychopathology promises to be an important testing ground for these issues as we head into the next decades of the discipline.

One key premise of the current paper is that a systems approach and the need for multiple levels of analysis go hand in hand. This premise is based on the assumption that a systems approach requires the consideration of two types of explanations that can be seen as occupying different levels of analysis: a level of organization (i.e., a systems level) that serves to bring intelligibility to a different level of mechanisms. This key tenet is manifested in the central principle of organicism, which stipulates that mechanisms (i.e., the parts of a system) can only make sense in the context of a holistic systems level that, in turn, cannot be reduced to its parts (Pepper, 1942; von Bertalanffy, 1968).

Given the necessity of multiple levels of analysis, conceptualizing the relations between these levels becomes of utmost importance. Overton (2006, 2010) has written extensively on the contrast between a Cartesian worldview that imposes a “split,” or separation between levels, and a relational worldview that emphasizes their interdependence. A worldview constitutes a broad metatheoretical framework “that both describes and prescribes what is meaningful and meaningless, acceptable and unacceptable, central and peripheral, as theory . . . and method . . . in a scientific discipline” (Overton, 2007, p. 154). As described by Overton (2013), the split and relational worldviews give rise to different “midrange metatheories,” which in turn provide meaning contexts for more specific theoretical constructs. One such midrange metatheory that arises from the relational worldview is that of relational developmental systems, which Lerner and Overton have suggested provides a paradigm for the future of developmental science (Lerner, 2006; Lerner & Overton, 2008; Overton, 2006, 2010, 2013). As such, the relational developmental systems approach recognizes the dynamic complexity of developmental processes and exposes the inadequacy of split approaches, which emphasize simple interaction and the elevation of one level of analysis over another.

One goal of the current article is to explore the potential role for the relational developmental systems approach in maintaining the vitality of the study of adaptation and maladaptation in human development. To begin this exploration, I will first step back and briefly trace biological influences on systems thinking in developmental psychopathology. This tracing then leads to a discussion of the concept of the developmental system, its deep connections with developmental and evolutionary biology, and its place in the broader relational paradigm as formulated by Overton and Lerner (2012). This relational aspect is then more fully elaborated through an exploration of multiple levels of analysis.

Systems Approaches in Developmental Psychopathology: Biological Influences

As documented by Cicchetti (1990, 2010), the systems emphasis in developmental psychopathology has its origins in principles derived from the embryological studies of Kuo (1939), Spemann (1938), Waddington (1957), and Weiss (1939), among others. Key emphases from the classic work in embryology include the hierarchical nature of development, principles through which more complex forms arise from simpler ones, and the importance of context in early development. In turn, one even earlier influence was that of von Baer (1828/1956), who used his own findings concerning embryological development to formulate general principles of developmental change, particularly the concept of development as a continuing process of differentiation and integration.

One reason for the foundational quality of the classic work in 20th century embryology was that it was characterized by an organicist perspective that emphasized the emergent properties of higher level systems. Organicism is closely connected to the notions that parts of a system can only be understood through their relation to the whole system and that the behavior of a system cannot be predicted from, or reduced to, the simple aggregation of its parts (Pepper, 1942). Among other biological influences, the organicist perspective had received particular support from the embryological work of Spemann (1938), whose seminal findings with Mangold had highlighted the importance of plasticity, constraints, and context in early development (Mangold & Spemann, 1924, 2001).

Within developmental psychology, the influence of the organicist perspective in embryology was manifested in various ways (Cairns & Cairns, 2006; Sameroff, 1983). For instance, the orthogenetic principle of Werner (1948) and Piaget’s (1977) concept of equilibration were partly formulated with reference to evidence about the generation of novelty from the study of embryological development. More recently, Gottlieb (1992, 1998, 2007) drew on research in embryology (including his own) in delineating the theory of probabilistic epigenesis, which stands as an example of a biologically inspired systems approach that has also been specifically applied to the area of developmental psychopathology (Gottlieb & Willoughby, 2006). Probabilistic epigenesis is fundamentally an organicist, holist theory that emphasizes the interconnected nature of the parts of the developmental system. From this perspective, conceptualizing these connections goes beyond simple notions of interaction to a more dynamic set of reciprocal, bidirectional, coacting, interpenetrating processes (Overton, 2013).

Related to its influence on developmental psychopathology, Gottlieb’s seminal work played a formative role for a particular systems approach that is rooted in biology and that has been labeled developmental systems theory (DST). Here I wish to explore the contention that a broader extension of this approach, that of relational DST, can provide a potentially fruitful organizing framework for developmental science (Overton & Lerner, 2012). As a product of the relational worldview, this framework has at its core the related concepts of the developmental system and multiple levels of analysis (Overton, 2013). In this sense there is a distinct alignment between relational developmental systems and core tenets of the developmental psychopathology approach. However, noting this basic alignment is not enough for us to realize the transformative implications of the relational approach for developmental psychopathology. In order for that to take place, we also need to appreciate how the broader relational approach informs more specific, lower level theoretical approaches and how such approaches can inform empirical work in developmental psychopathology. As an initial step in this direction,we can now turn to the biologically inspired approach of DST as one such approach, and we can then consider how its extension through a broader relational aspect can expand the purview of this approach to the study of human adaptation and maladaptation across the life span.

DST

In the early 1990s, the term DST was introduced in two separate contexts and disciplines: by the developmental psychologists Ford and Lerner (1992) and then by two philosophers of biology, Griffiths and Gray (1994). Both sets of authors drew on the work of Gottlieb and other theorists (e.g., Lehrman, 1970; Oyama, 1985) who emphasized the importance of a systems perspective in the study of developmental processes. For current purposes, I will overlook differences between specific approaches (see Keller, 2005) and will simply introduce the core tenets of DST as a biologically oriented theory.

For proponents of DST, the explanandum (what is to be explained) is how the individual organism becomes constructed, and the explanans (the explanation) is the entire developmental system itself, which includes all biological and environmental resources available to the organism. This emphasis relates to the parity thesis of DST, which does not allow any one aspect of the developmental system to take an elevated causal role (Griffiths & Knight, 1998). From this perspective, parts of the developmental system derive their meaning from the context of the entire system, and the elevation of one developmental resource over another makes little sense (for a discussion, see Shea, 2011). This thesis gives rise to a fundamental tenet of DST, which is a strong objection to explanations of development that privilege the role of genes (see e.g., Ford & Lerner, 1992; Griffiths & Gray, 1994; Keller, 2010, 2011; Lerner, 2006; Lickliter & Honeycutt, 2003; Oyama, Griffiths, & Gray, 2001; Robert, 2004). Although DST theorists would acknowledge that the presence of genetic material is a necessary condition for cellular function, they emphasize that genes are not unmoved movers in that they only become causally relevant through their involvement in the entire developmental system.

In denying a privileged developmental role for genes, DST is diametrically opposed to any suggestion that DNA contains the information needed to construct an organism. The notion of a “genetic blueprint” has been the focus of intense criticism from a variety of developmental systems theorists (Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Lerner, 2006). This criticism has arisen through recent developments in biology that have challenged traditional notions of genetics (Charney, 2012) and evolution (Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005). These developments have included advances in epigenetics (Meaney, 2010) and the way in which the genome is conceptualized (Keller, 2011) as well as the converging appreciation that what is inherited by an individual organism is not only a complement of genes but also the biological and environmental scaffolding of the developmental system (Griffiths & Gray, 1994; Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005). Although a full discussion of these issues cannot be entered into here, they hold a great deal of importance for developmental science (Overton, 2013).

Today the gene-centric notion that the genome contains a blueprint for development, which ensures a direct relation between genotype and phenotype, is antithetical to most developmental scientists. However, it may still have some implicit appeal to those who are seeking ways to manage the complexity of development. To understand why, consider the suggestion of 17th century preformationists, aided by van Leeuwenhoek’s advances in microscopy, that fully formed miniature adults could be glimpsed within sperm or eggs. As ridiculous as it seems today, this suggestion makes sense when placed in its historical perspective. At the time, the alternative to preformationism was a form of vitalism in which mysterious, unknowable forces direct the appearance of form in the initially formless material of the egg (Gilbert&Sarkar, 2000). Gould (1977) suggested that, when seen in this way, preformationism can be understood as an attempt to copewith the daunting complexity of embryological development. Its allure was that vital forces did not need to be invoked to explain the biological world: if development was mainly a process of getting bigger, it could be more readily placed within the mechanistic worldview of Newtonian science. However, the glimpses of the preformationists turned out to be misplaced, and explicit mentions of preformationism are now mainly confined to introductory lecture courses as an illustration of a failed and naıve attempt to understand human development. However, echoing back more than 300 years, proponents of DST argue that the preformation–vitalism debate remains relevant to contemporary developmental science. In short, they see the mission of DST as countering preformationism in its modern guise of genetic determinism with DST as a nonvitalistic, scientific, epigenetic organicism (Godfrey-Smith, 2000; Robert, 2004).

The rejection of preformationism or a simplistic genetic determinism may seem trivial to those who already endorse a developmental psychopathology approach. More broadly, it could be argued that the genetic blueprint metaphor represents a straw argument that is not the purview of contemporary developmental science. Perhaps we could take a less deterministic perspective on genes, denying them a fully explanatory or causal role and relaxing the literal blueprint metaphor to a kind of looser plan. In this arrangement, we could still see genetic information as specifying a latent, but potentially modifiable, representation of a trait and allowing other influences to play potentially important roles in determining the phenotypic expression of that trait. However, part of the challenge presented by DST is that even this looser conceptualization is seen as problematic: it is here that the stronger claims of DST take the approach into what may be less comfortable territory for many (Stotz, 2008). At the heart of DST is the view that the developmental system as a whole cannot be partitioned or split apart without a fundamental loss of intelligibility (Overton, 2007). Through its rejection of any such developmental dichotomy, DST stands in opposition to the notion that developmental outcomes are some combination of genetic and environmental influences (Oyama et al., 2001).

The oppositional stance of DST originally arose in part as a response to attempts by behavior geneticists to separate genetic and environmental influences into additive components (for a discussion, see Partridge, 2011). Although such attempts continue to be under distinct pressure from findings in developmental and evolutionary biology, Charney (2012) recently argued that they have not been replaced by an adequate paradigm that accounts for the immense complexity of how a phenotype is constructed. In response, Lerner and Overton (2012) suggest that the paradigm of relational developmental systems that combines DST with a broader relational worldview can provide such a framework. To support this contention, one can turn to a vast amount of work in developmental biology that has begun to unravel the complexities of developmental processes at the level of gene expression and regulation. Although the accommodation of these complexities is not possible from the Cartesian perspective of traditional behavior genetics, DST was itself founded on the acknowledgement and understanding of these complexities (Keller, 2010).

Lessons from developmental biology

A primary source of support for DST comes from ongoing work in developmental biology describing how spatial and temporal patterns of gene expression and regulation in the developing embryo relate to the development of bodily form (Gilbert, 2010). Although early work in this area suggested the existence of “master control genes” that direct the formation of certain morphological features (Gehring, 1998), it has become clear that such genes operate in a highly context-dependent fashion (Mikhailov, 2005). For instance, expression of the paired box gene 6 gene is essential for eye formation in species as diverse as fruit flies and humans, but only in the presence of other transcription factors that are also involved in pattern formation in the head region. In other parts of the body, expression of the same gene plays an important role in very different functions (e.g., the differentiation of the pancreas).

One key lesson from this work (much of which has been done in model organisms such as drosophila) is that there are no genes that specifically or solely determine major characteristics of bodily form, such as segments, eyes, or wings. The same could be said for all bodily structures, including the mammalian brain (Stiles, 2008). Similar principles also extend to the development of more abstract bodily characteristics, such as symmetry or polarity (e.g., of hands, limbs, or eyes), which are not predetermined, but instead arise through the organized activity of the system (Minelli, 2009). There are genes involved in the development of all these structures and characteristics, and changes to these genes, in specific temporal and spatial contexts, can impede or divert the typical course of development. However, morphology clearly arises not through a specific genetic plan but through the reciprocal coaction of component parts of the wider developmental system.

Another lesson from developmental biology is that genes are not simply switched on and off in a maturational or predetermined fashion, but rather gene expression and regulation operate in the context of a wider and highly intricate developmental system. In support of the original organicist work in embryology, the picture that has emerged from developmental biology is that construction of the organism proceeds through dynamic cellular and molecular coactions involving genes, but not directed by them (Gottlieb, 2007). Thus, what becomes crucial are the laws governing these coactions rather than the programmed expression of genes. Developmental biologists have begun to uncover the principles that govern embryological growth at a cellular and molecular level, including fate maps, induction, morphogenetic gradients, redundancy, pleiotropy, positive and negative feedback, and nonlinearity (Gilbert, 2010; Rudel & Sommer, 2003; Wolpert, 1994).

The above themes suggest how the organicist framework in embryology, which provided part of the foundation for the developmental psychopathology approach, has been further strengthened by more recent findings in developmental biology. It is worth noting that lessons for developmental psychopathology from contemporary developmental biology extend much further than this brief treatment allows (Cicchetti & Cannon, 1999; Cicchetti & Curtis, 2006). For instance, other connections have been made through the emergent subfield of evolutionary developmental biology, or what is commonly known as “evo-devo” (Hall, 1992). Through the consideration of evolutionary influences on life history development (Gilbert, 2001), aspects of evo-devo have served as the inspiration for recent work on phenotypic plasticity in relation to environmental circumstances and the consequences of this plasticity for adaptation and maladaptation across the life span (Ellis & Bjorklund, 2012). However, it could be argued that much of the field of evo-devo has neglected the lessons from DST concerning the extended nature of the developmental system and the implications of this extension for evolutionary theory (Robert, Hall, & Olson, 2001).

Another theme shared with developmental biology comes from the notion that the process by which a pattern is constructed cannot be deduced from the final pattern itself, but only from a serious consideration of development. This connects to the raison d’eˆtre of developmental psychopathology: that a disorder can only be meaningfully viewed through the lens of development (Cicchetti, 2010). This issue may be more familiar as the concept of equifinality, the observation that the same pattern can arise through different mechanisms, with only the study of development being able to shed light on what these mechanisms might be. What is particularly fascinating is how far this core developmental principle extends, from the development of the patterns of butterfly wings (Brunetti et al., 2001) to the development of psychopathology (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996).

Complexity in developmental systems: Finding a way forward

The findings gleaned from developmental biology (as modern day embryology) have provided important insights into development as an epigenetic process that proceeds through dynamic and reciprocal coactions among coding and noncoding DNA, transcription and translation factors, the cytoplasm, and the intra- and intercellular environments more generally. From this perspective, the function of a gene depends heavily on contextual factors, including its temporal and spatial coactions with other genes and gene products. Along these lines, there have been important changes in the definitions of what constitutes a gene and the genome as well as a reframing of the role of environmental influences on gene expression (Greenberg & Partridge, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Jablonka & Raz, 2009; Keller, 2011). These developments are very much in line with the core tenets of DST, which places the construct of the gene within the wider developmental system. These complexities are being increasingly recognized in terms of their implications both for developmental science more generally and developmental psychopathology more specifically (Grigorenko & Cicchetti, 2012; Rutter, 2012).

A related lesson can be seen in the realm of developmental disorders, where the appeal of a biologically oriented DST approach has been bolstered by the growing consensus that the original promise of the revolution in molecular psychiatric genetics has not been realized (Charney, 2012). For example, the hunt to isolate straightforward genetic effects in disorders such as autism and schizophrenia has been severely hampered by factors such as genetic heterogeneity, pleiotropic effects, de novo mutations, and polygenic inheritance (Wahlsten, 2012). This is not to imply that genetics is uninvolved in such disorders or that novel methodological combinations of genetic and neuroimaging methods cannot shed light on the development of psychiatric disorder (Addington & Rapoport, 2012). It is rather that the sheer complexity involved in the construction of a phenotype requires the adoption of revised sets of assumptions and principles that would essentially constitute a paradigm shift away from traditional approaches (Charney, 2012).

As noted earlier, acknowledging the complexity of development has long been a key aspect of DST, and in this sense it potentially provides a signpost for progress in developmental science. Taking this further, Overton and Lerner (2012) have suggested that the requisite paradigm shift can be achieved through the combination of DST with a broader relational worldview that emphases “co-acting, co-developing processes functioning according to the reciprocal causality entailed by complex positive and negative feedback loops” (Overton & Lerner, 2012, p. 376). However, to better understand what this approach entails, we need to look closely at the question of multiple levels, since the core of the relational developmental systems approach concerns a particular way of conceptualizing different levels of analysis and the relations between these levels.


* * * *

This work was supported by an award from the NIH (HD-68734) and by a Fellowship from the Center for Humanities at Temple University. This article is dedicated to Willis F. Overton on the occasion of his retirement from the Department of Psychology at Temple University. For more than four decades, Bill has espoused the value of the relational approach as a guiding framework for psychological science, with deep implications for the study of typical and atypical development. The influence of Bill’s thinking on my writing here is unmistakable, and I am very grateful for his mentorship and for his input on previous drafts.

Peter J. Marshall - Beyond Different Levels: Embodiment and the Developmental System

Last night I posted an introductory chapter on the Relational Developmental Systems model, developed (seemingly on his own) by Willis Overton. For lack of a better descriptor, it's an integral developmental model.

Below is the article that led me to this (new to me) relational model for all forms of developmental science. The applications of this approach are endless and can be used in every major field of study, from consciousness to epigenetics.

I'm not quite sure how all of this fits into Ken Wilber's AQAL model, but I sense that this is the emergence of a relational worldview, maybe the first real signs of an integral perspective (Teal/Yellow) in the sciences.

I will be posting more on this as I read more....


Full Citation: 
Marshall PJ. (2014, Aug 20). Beyond different levels: embodiment and the developmental system. Frontiers in Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology; 5:929. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00929

Beyond different levels: Embodiment and the developmental system

By Peter J. Marshall

• Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

The value of studying a phenomenon at multiple levels of analysis is often emphasized in psychology, but a lack of clarity about the nature of levels and the relations among them remains an impediment to progress. The suggestion here is that an approach combining the tenets of embodiment with the construct of the developmental system provides a way forward. Embodiment opposes the splitting off and elevation of a level of mechanisms that has characterized much of cognitive science. In contrast, a constructivist embodied approach places a level of mechanisms in the context of a formal or systems level of analysis, with developmental process framing the interpenetrating relations between levels. Such an approach stems from a relational worldview that opposes conceptual splits and posits that levels of structure and process comprise an indissociable complementarity. The combination of embodiment and developmental systems within a relational worldview is discussed and elaborated through outlining the integrative approach of relational developmental systems, which has been proposed as a scientific paradigm within which formulations of the interrelations among brain, body, and mind can be advanced.

The value of explanations spanning multiple levels of analysis has become an important emphasis in psychological science, yet a coherent framework for explicating such levels and the relations among them remains elusive. Within the field of cognitive science, one influential attempt to conceptualize different levels of analysis was put forward by the vision scientist David Marr (1982). In line with the computational emphasis that characterized cognitive science at the time he was writing, Marr's account concerned three levels “at which any machine carrying out an information processing task must be understood” (Marr, 1982, p. 25). The first level, which Marr called the computational level, concerns the general nature of the problem or task at hand. At the second level of representation and algorithm, a sequence of operations and a representational format is specified that would solve the problem specified at the first level. At the third level of implementation, the question is how that particular solution could be realized on a machine (i.e., a description of the physical hardware needed). There are similarities between Marr's account and other levels-based proposals from the same era (e.g., Simon, 1969; Dennett, 1971; Wimsatt, 1976), but his model has remained particularly influential. However, on closer examination, two particular issues constrain the utility of this basic framework (see also Marshall, 2013, in press).

First, psychological science has often been characterized by a tendency to emphasize the explanatory priority of one level over another. For example, it could be argued that cognitive science has historically been too concerned with Marr's second level of representation and algorithm, or the level of problem-solving in terms of what symbols are needed for a solution, and the rules under which those symbols can be manipulated. This emphasis can be partly traced to the influence of the idea that cognition consists of formal computational reasoning processes acting on the syntactic, but not the semantic, aspects of symbolic representations (Fodor, 1975). This cognitivist approach was associated with an alignment of cognitive psychology with the emerging discipline of artificial intelligence, which further contributed to the dominance of an information processing view of the mind (Newell et al., 1958). From this perspective, cognitive operations could be seen as manipulations of sub-personal representations to which meaning had been pre-assigned (for a recent critique, see Allen and Bickhard, 2013). It has been argued in various places that the move toward cognitivism, with its associated emphasis on Marr's second level, was fundamentally a wrong turn in that it prevented the emergence of more integrative accounts of mental life (see Bruner, 1990; Thompson, 2007; Rowlands, 2010).

Second, psychology as a discipline has not arrived at a clear formulation of how to conceptualize the relations between levels. Indeed, it could be argued that the lack of a coherent explanatory framework for understanding the relations between different levels is one of the biggest obstacles to progress in the discipline. This problem can be partly traced to an emphasis within cognitive science on the relative autonomy of each of Marr's levels, which in turn stemmed from the proposal that a given task or problem could be solved in a myriad of ways, using different representational systems or forms of physical implementation (Fodor, 1975; Putnam, 1975; Pylyshyn, 1984). While this notion of multiple realization appears to avoid the problem of causal reductionism (Miller, 2010), it sidesteps the crucial question of how to conceptualize the relations among levels.

Given the lack of coherence concerning the nature of levels and the relations among them, how are we to move forward? The suggestion here is that a framework that recognizes the interpenetrating nature of the relations between levels, and in which considerations of development play a key role, is a way forward. More specifically, it is argued that a relational developmental systems approach (Overton, 2013), in which the interconnections among levels can be articulated within the context of embodiment, provides a route toward a truly integrative account.

Embodiment

Embodied approaches have become increasingly visible in psychology over the past three decades (e.g., Varela et al., 1991; Damasio, 1994; Glenberg, 1997; Clark, 1998; Anderson, 2003; Wheeler, 2005; Thompson, 2007; Barsalou, 2008; Beer, 2008; Overton, 2008; Semin and Smith, 2008; Menary, 2010). Although there are clearly different theoretical and empirical strands of embodied cognition (Wilson, 2002; Kiverstein, 2012), to a greater or lesser extent they all challenge the isolated computational mind of cognitivism, which lacks a brain, a body and a culture (Edelman, 1992).

By locating the brain in the body of an active, agentive organism, embodiment threatens the clear distinctions between perception (input), cognition (information processing) and action (the execution of instructions or output) that underpin the cognitivist account. One key tenet of embodied approaches is that cognition can no longer be packaged into an isolated level of information processing, or Marr's second level of representation and algorithm. As noted by Clark (2000), “our notions of what top-level task needs to be performed, and what kinds of algorithms are adequate to perform it, are deeply informed by reflection of details of bodily implementation, current needs, and action-taking potential” (p. 96). As such, embodiment puts pressure on a tidy separation of levels (or the isolation of any one level), and the need to understand the relational ties among levels moves to the fore.

Embodiment places the organism as an active agent that is tightly interconnected with its environment, with the actions of the individual constantly modifying these interconnections, a process that in turn influences subsequent actions. In one particular theoretical approach to embodiment, this feedback loop is the foundation of a dynamic system in which the boundaries between individual and environment cannot be clearly determined (Stewart et al., 2010). In turn, this proposal brings with it some far-reaching suggestions. Specifically, advocates of what Chemero (2009) terms radical embodied cognitive science suggest that the dynamic coupling of organism and environment has two related implications for framing the study of mental life (see also Hutto and Myin, 2012). First, that cognitive processes are distributed across the dynamic system that results from the non-linear coupling of individual and environment. Second, that the formulation of the wider cognitive system as a dynamic system challenges the need to invoke the concept of representation in accounts of mental life (Silberstein and Chemero, 2012). This challenge is partly founded in the work of Gibson (1979), who proposed that preexisting environmental structure largely negates the need for the concept of mental representation as it is usually understood.

In line with these points, empirical work from the radical embodied perspective often draws on dynamical systems theory as a basis for modeling the coupling of an agent's behavior over time with the changing state of the environment. However, it would be misleading and potentially damaging if an embodied approach was equated with one particular flavor of dynamic systems models. Among others, David Witherington has argued that a full understanding of living things entails seeing levels of organization and process as being complementary and indissociable (e.g., Witherington, 2011; Witherington and Heying, 2013). He makes the point that this stipulation pushes against the Gibsonian emphasis that is apparent in certain flavors of dynamic systems theory, for instance that of Thelen and Smith (1994). According to Witherington (in press), embodiment could be productively aligned with an approach more resembling Piagetian constructivism (see also Witherington and Margett, 2011), a sentiment that would be endorsed by those dynamical systems practitioners who see constructivism as being fundamentally consistent with systems approaches (e.g., van Geert, 2011).

Relational Developmental Systems

Here I wish to highlight the suggestion that a particular constructivist approach to embodiment, informed by specific lines of systems thinking in developmental science and the philosophy of biology, has a great deal of potential for informing the understanding of different levels of analysis. This approach is termed relational developmental systems (RDS), as put forward by Willis Overton and Richard Lerner, who have suggested that it has key implications for understanding the nature of levels and the relations between them (Overton and Lerner, 2012; Overton, 2013). As the term suggests, RDS combines two broader metatheoretical streams: relationism and developmental systems. The worldview of relationism rejects any simple notion of separable causes, and can be contrasted with what Overton (2006) terms a Cartesian worldview that encourages dichotomies, elevates the explanatory value of proximate mechanisms, and precludes integration. Working under the umbrella of relationism allows these constraints to be jettisoned and enables a move toward a more integrative, developmentally oriented account of brain, body, and mind.

At a finer grain of theory, RDS is further informed by the developmental systems approach that emerged from a particular strand of psychobiological research in the 20th century (Lehrman, 1953; Schneirla, 1959; Gottlieb, 1970) and which brings together related viewpoints from developmental and evolutionary biology (Oyama, 1985; Griffiths and Gray, 1994). While this strand consists of various threads with different emphases (Johnston, 2010; Griffiths and Tabery, 2013), at its core are the notion of the developmental system, the necessity of multiple modes of explanation, and the stipulation that no single aspect of the system can be elevated in terms of its causal role (Shea, 2011). In turn, the developmental systems approach has its roots in principles derived by embryologists in the mid-20th century (e.g., Spemann, 1938; Kuo, 1939) who documented how organismic development proceeds through a process of differentiation and integration. This foundational notion went on to influence developmentalists such as Werner (1948) and Piaget (1952) who laid the foundations for a biologically-informed developmental science of life and mind.

Drawing on the construct of the developmental system, RDS embraces several forms of explanation and brings them together in a relational framework. One key emphasis is on the importance of what can be called pattern explanation, or what Overton (1991) labeled competence. In turn, the notion of competence is similar to Aristotle's notion of the formal cause, which is interrelated with, but different from, other types of explanation such as efficient or material causes (Caston, 2006). It is important here to emphasize the necessarily abstract quality of pattern explanation, which transcends the framing of temporally related antecedents and consequences that is usually associated with the notion of causation. As such, pattern explanation refers to the structure or organization of the endogenously active system. This abstraction reflects the view that organization is not something that exists over and above the parts of a system, yet at the same time allowing organization more than a descriptive role. In this sense, the notion of organization as constraint (Thompson, 2007; Deacon, 2012) is helpful. As framed by Witherington (in press):

“the explanatory causality of a system's organization rests in its top-down constraint. Constraint involves a lessening of variability, a narrowing of degrees of freedom, and as such plays a critical role in causal explanation by virtue of establishing limitations for what kinds of bottom-up processes… are available to a given system; thus, the nature of local interactions cannot be fully understood divorced from the organizational whole in which these interactions are embedded” (p. 90).

The necessity of relating multiple modes of explanation is central to the RDS approach, in which pattern explanation provides the meaning context for a different and complementary level of processes, or what Overton (1991) labeled procedures. In referring to distinct, observable factors having a casual action that precedes a specific effect, processes (or what in Aristotelian terms would be efficient causes) are quite close to everyday notions of causation. However, as discussed by Witherington (2011, in press), this can too easily lead to a diminished role for structure and a denial of the explanatory import of the formal patterns. According to accounts that discount a causal role for pattern explanation, the appearance of structure arises from the operation of complex positive and negative feedback processes, but does not causally influence the subsequent operation of those processes. However, this neglects the fact that complex processes must be organized in some way, and it is this issue that necessitates the formal level of explanation, which becomes the system of a systems approach. Simply put, it is a mistake to believe that pattern explanations are rendered unnecessary if enough processes are described. Adopting such a position would present a conundrum that stretches far back in the history of philosophical and scientific thought, which is that every efficient cause or mechanism cannot be caused by another efficient cause or mechanism. In contrast, from a relational viewpoint, form and process can be seen as inextricably linked through the notion of circular causality (Witherington, 2011). Any living system acts according to its particular organization, and that organization changes through its activity.

Perhaps the most problematic manifestation of the neglect of pattern explanation comes through a situation in which processes—as properties of parts of a system—are conflated with the properties of the whole system. In their critique of cognitive neuroscience, Bennett and Hacker (2003) termed this the mereological fallacy, such that an accumulation of neural mechanisms cannot stand in as a full explanation of the properties of the individual person. Related instances of conflating subpersonal processes with personal-level properties of the individual are a widespread problem in many areas of contemporary psychology, including developmental science (for discussion of one example, see Rakoczy, 2012). Avoiding these pitfalls requires the understanding that processes at the procedural level must be organized in some way, and that in and of themselves, processes or mechanisms have no context. It is this issue that brings the focus to competence or formal explanation as a different level of analysis, with the stipulation that this level provides a functional context for a different, complementary level of processes.

Given the above, we can move toward seeing the importance of a dynamic pattern that entails an indissociable relation between organization and activity. To use the terminology of Overton (1991), if the level of procedures is understood as the active processes through which competence comes into being, while simultaneously the competence level serves as a context for organizing the procedural level, we can begin to understand how the two levels operate in a complementary fashion. This allows arrival at a relational frame in which the interleaving of pattern explanation and the understanding of specific processes is appreciated as being fundamental to the scientific enterprise (Overton, in press).

A relational perspective on the different levels of structure and mechanism also brings considerations of change and transformation to the fore (Overton, 1991), because the reciprocal relations between the levels must be seen in the context of the developmental process itself. From the viewpoint of RDS, the dynamic tension between competence (pattern explanation or system) and procedures (specific processes) becomes the basis of an inherently developmental, constructivist perspective. As circular causation, the developmental process recognizes both the emergence of form through process along with the constraining (downward) influence of form on process (Witherington, 2011, 2014).

Through an awareness of circular causality, we can begin to understand how the relational and inherently developmental ties between levels provide an integrative foundation for the study of brain, body, and mind. This understanding then allows us to chart a course away from the fallow territory that psychology currently occupies. The integration of the concept of the developmental system with the relational worldview brings forth the importance of considering “co-acting, co-developing processes functioning according to the reciprocal causality entailed by complex positive and negative feedback loops” (Overton and Lerner, 2012, p. 375). As such, the framework of RDS has been offered as an integrative paradigm in which living organisms are understood as dynamic, adaptive, non-linear, self-organizing and self-regulating systems (Lerner, 2006; Overton, 2013). From this perspective, the notion of a system provides a formal explanation, with the directional features of adaptation and self-organization constituting a final pattern explanation (Overton, 2010). RDS recognizes the dynamic complexity of developmental processes and further exposes the inadequacy of split approaches that emphasize simple interaction and the elevation of one level of analysis over another.

In terms of applications of the relational framework, it is important to recognize that RDS is a “mid-range” metatheory that provides a set of core concepts that can inform more specific theories and guide empirical investigation (Overton, 2013). Compatible approaches are those that reject split, mechanistic, or reductionist tendencies and instead put an emphasis on understanding the ontogeny of the individual in the context of the developmental system. One practical example of how this emphasis is realized comes from the family of empirical methods known as person-centered approaches, which in contrast to variable-centered analyses, focus on intraindividual variation rather than on group means (Nesselroade and Molenaar, 2010; von Eye et al., in press).

Finally, if we consider how developmental processes can illuminate the relational ties between different levels, various fundamental questions arise. How can novel structures arise that are different from the sum of their parts? How can activity at one level of explanation account for change at a qualitatively different level? How can the result of “doing more of the same” not simply be “more of the same”? From a much broader perspective, similar puzzles are at the center of the fundamental philosophical problems of intentionality, consciousness, free will, and agency. The underlying question running through these problems involves the problem of relating a level of system or meaning to a level of processes. The conventional approach of isolating or splitting off one of these levels leads directly to the brain-mind or mind-body problems, which are irresolvable when viewed through the traditional lens of analytic philosophy and an associated Cartesian-Split-Mechanistic framework. In moving toward a more embodied framework, the integration provided by relational developmental systems offers a transformation that is based on the fundamental premise that levels of meaning and processes should not be set against each other, but must be viewed as an indissociable complementarity (Overton, 2006, 2010, 2013, in press).

Conflict of Interest Statement

The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Willis F. Overton and David C. Witherington for providing helpful feedback on a previous version of this manuscript.

References available at the Frontiers site.

Willis F. Overton - Relationism and Relational Developmental Systems: A Paradigm for Developmental Science in the Post-Cartesian Era

This article is actually a book chapter from Embodiment and Epigenesis: Theoretical and Methodological Issues in Understanding the Role of Biology within the Relational Developmental System (Advances in Child Development and Behavior, Vol. 44), edited by In R. M. Lerner & J. B. Benson (2013). The article is posted by the author at Research Gate.

As so often happens, I came across this term - Relational Developmental Systems (a good primer here) - in another article and was curious to know more, so I went to Google Scholar and found several articles (most of them paywalled) and this book chapter (the author's copy, posted at the link above). I will post the article that led me to this one tomorrow.

I am including the introduction and the 2nd section below - there is a lot to chew on here, but this feels like an important move forward for develomental theory - and a necessary move toward a more integral model. Be sure to read the whole chapter at the link provided above or below.

Relationism and Relational Developmental Systems: A Paradigm for Developmental Science in the Post-Cartesian Era

By Willis F. Overton

Abstract

This chapter argues that the Cartesian-split-mechanistic scientific paradigm that until recently functioned as the standard conceptual framework for subfields of developmental science (including inheritance, evolution, and organismic—prenatal, cognitive, emotional, motivational, sociocultural—development) has been progressively failing as a scientific research program. An alternative scientific paradigm composed of nested metatheories with relationism at the broadest level and relational developmental systems as a midrange metatheory is offered as a more progressive conceptual framework for developmental science. Termed broadly the relational developmental systems paradigm, this framework accounts for the findings that are anomalies for the old paradigm; accounts for the emergence of new findings; and points the way to future scientific productivity.

Discerning trends in any scientific field is a dangerous undertaking, as an individual’s trend may well be another’s random walk. Nevertheless, between 2001 and 2010 or so, there seems to be clearly identifiable trends in several subfields of developmental science. One such trend involves the most recent recycling of the nature–nurture debate (i.e., the issue of inheritance). Here, advances in epigenetics and a broader understanding of the genome itself have made the route from genotype to phenotype complex to the point that the classic position claiming that who we are and what we become to be a simple additive function of gene × environment interactions has become highly untenable (see, e.g., Charney, 2012; Gottlieb, 1997, 2003; Gottlieb, Walhsten & Lickliter 2006; Greenberg, 2011; Joseph, 2010; Keller, 2010; Lerner, 2012a; Meaney, 2010; Moore, 2001; Partridge, 2005; Wahlsten, 2012).

The second trend entails the relation of evolution and development. Here, the field is rapidly moving from the traditional Modern Synthesis (Pigliucci & Mueller, 2010a)—integrating Mendelian genetics with neo-Darwinian variation and natural selection, and split-off from individual development—to a position in which individual development has become an integral part of the fabric of evolution (e.g., Batson & Gluckman, 2011; Gilbert & Epel, 2009; Gottlieb, 2002; Ho, 2010; Jablonka & Lamb, 2005; Jablonka & Raz, 2009; Lickliter & Schneider, 2006; Laubichler, 2010; Pigliucci & Mueller, 2010b; Robert, 2004; West-Eberhard, 2003). This second trend is intertwined with the first as any analysis of evolution—given the Modern Synthesis—necessarily involves a discussion of population genetics.

The third trend concerns cognition and cognitive development. Here, the standard position that mental processes are exclusively located in the brain is increasingly being challenged by the view that mental processes extend out into the body and into the technological and cultural worlds (e.g., Marshall, 2009; Menary, 2010; Overton, 2006; Rowlands, 2010; Stewart, Gapenne, & Di Paolo, 2010).

Finally, in the area of sociocultural development, there appears to be a clear trend away from the positions that identify individual development and culture as separate and distinct, if interacting, entities, and toward the position that recognizes their coconstruction, codetermination and codevelopment (e.g., Eckensberger, 2003; Mistry, Contreras, & Dutta, 2012).

As these trends advance empirically with increasing frequency, there are also suggestions that earlier conceptual frameworks that have contextualized these fields have proven, at best, inadequate to the task of integrating the new empirical advances, and, at worst, a major obstacle to integration and to scientific advancement. For example, Lickliter and Honeycutt (2010), exploring changes in the understanding of evolution, explicitly capture this sentiment in the very title of their chapter, Rethinking Epigenesis and Evolution in the Light of Developmental Science. Similarly, West-Eberhard (2003) addressing the genotype–phenotype issue in both individual development and evolution argues, “The need for a conceptual framework for the study of organization lies at the heart of unsolved problems in both ontogeny and phylogeny (p. 16).” Rowlands (2010), calling for a new science of mind in which embodied processes, the environment, and culture all enter as constitutive features of mind, expresses the need for conceptual reflection in this field when he says that this “new science…is aspirational rather than descriptive…It’s premature to say it because the new science, as yet, has no clear conceptual foundation.” (p. 25, emphasis added). Charney (2012), in an exceptionally valuable review and analysis of the significant new empirical findings in genetics and epigenetics, expresses the need for conceptual reflection in his argument that although the new evidence creates virtually insurmountable obstacles for the population (quantitative) behavior genetics paradigm, and while the evidence moves genetics into a postgenomic era, it does not itself yet constitute a paradigm because, “the postgenomic perspective has not yet coalesced around a core set of principles or assumptions characteristic of a paradigm (2012, p. 332 emphasis added).” Finally, Keller (2010), in trying to bring new light to the nature–nurture debate, finds a “morass of linguistic and conceptual vegetation grown together in ways that seem to defy untangling (p. 9; emphasis added),” and ultimately concludes:

Daily, we are discovering new and extraordinarily ingenious ways in which noncoding DNA sequences participate in the mammoth projects of regulating the spatially and temporally specific transcription of DNA, the construction and translation of messenger RNA and the positioning, conformation, and activity of proteins. Early concepts of the gene were predicated on the assumption of a relatively simple transformation from genotype to phenotype, but now we are beginning to understand just how enormously complex that process is. Such findings not only require us to rethink basic assumptions in biology, they also create the opportunity for such reconceptualizations (p. 78; emphasis added).

In this chapter, I will argue that a good deal of rethinking, conceptual reflection, and reconceptualization has already occurred with respect to these and other issues in the field of developmental science (Lerner, 2012b). Further, I will argue that this conceptual work does, in fact, offer a clear conceptual framework entailing a core set of principles or assumptions that taken together constitute a new scientific paradigm for developmental science, including each of the subfields (inheritance, evolution, and organismic development—including prenatal, cognitive, emotional, motivational, and sociocultural) mentioned above.

* * * *

2. ALTERNATIVE PARADIGMS FOR DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCE

With an understanding of scientific paradigms and their implications as background, we may turn to an examination of the paradigm that has been the standard model across the developmental sciences—the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview and its midrange metatheories—and to an examination of the paradigm that Lerner and I have argued (Lerner, 2006, 2011; Lerner & Overton, 2008; Overton & Lerner, 2012; Overton, 2006, 2010, 2012) better accommodates the new data emerging in developmental science—the relationism and relational developmental systems paradigm.

2.1. The Cartesian-Split-Mechanistic Worldview and Split-Mechanistic Midrange Metatheories as Scientific Paradigm

The worldview that constitutes the broad abstract framework for the paradigm to be described here is the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview, while metatheories of the midrange subsumed within this worldview vary across subfields of developmental science. Thus, in the field of population genetics, a midrange metatheory has involved the Fisher–Wright ANOVA model; in traditional evolutionary biology, a midrange metatheory is the Modern Synthesis; in cognition, the computational model of mind is a midrange metatheory, and in traditional cultural approaches, it has been the person–culture dichotomy.

The Cartesian worldview as paradigm hard core is, as suggested earlier, the “Cartesian metaphysics, that is, the mechanistic theory of the universe—according to which the universe is a huge clockwork (and system of vortices) with push as the only cause of motion (Lakatos, 1978, p. 47)” and in which fundamental features of this world are split into dichotomous pure forms. A worldview is rarely, if ever, developed by one individual and this point holds for the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview. The early protagonists who developed the basic tenets of this broad metatheory were Galileo Galilei, and his physics of a natural world disconnected from mind; Rene Descartes, whose epistemology elevated disconnection or splitting to a first principle and whose ontology began the path to viewing the world in terms of the categories of the machine, later elaborated by Newton’s admirers such as John Locke; and Thomas Hobbes who envisioned both mind and nature in terms of an ontology of mechanically operating atomistic materialism. Of the three main figures, Descartes was, perhaps, to have the greatest and the most lasting impact on the text and subtexts of this particular metatheoretical story.

Here I focus primarily on Descartes major epistemological contributions, although the ontological contribution of Hobbs static, fixed materialism cannot be ignored. Descartes epistemological contributions consisted of the introduction of splitting, foundationalism, and atomism as key interrelated themes in the story of scientific knowing. Splitting is the separation of components of a whole into mutually exclusive pure forms or elements. In splitting, these ostensibly pure forms are cast into an exclusive “either/or” framework that forces them to be understood as contradictions in the sense that one category absolutely excludes the other (i.e., follows the logical law of contradiction that it is never the case that A = not A). But, in order to split, one must accept the twin principles of foundationalism and atomism. These are the metatheoretical axioms that there is ultimately a rock bottom unchanging nature to Reality (i.e., with a capital R, distinguishing this ultimate real from the commonsense reality of everyday objects [Putnam, 1987]). This conception is Descartes’ foundationalism, describing a final fixed secure base. It constitutes an absolute, fixed, unchanging bedrock; a final Archimedean point (Descartes, 1969). Further, this rock bottom is composed of elements—pure forms—(the atoms of atomism) that preserve their identity regardless of context. A corollary principle here is the assumption that all complexity is simple complexity or simply complicated in the sense that any whole is taken to be a purely additive combination of its elements.

Splitting, foundationalism, and atomism are all principles of decomposition; breaking the aggregate down to its smallest pieces, to its bedrock (Overton, 2006). This process also goes by other names, including reductionism and the analytic attitude (Overton, 2002, 2006). Split metatheory, however, requires another principle to reassemble or recompose the whole. This is the principle of unidirectional, linear and additive associative or causal sequences. The elements must be related either according to their contiguous cooccurrence in space and time, or according to simple efficient or material mechanical cause–effect sequences that proceed in a single direction (Bunge, 1962; Overton & Reese, 1973). In fact, split metatheory admits no determination other than individual efficient and material causes, or these individual causes operating in a conjunctive (i.e., additive) plurality. Truly reciprocal causality <-->, or circular causality, are not permitted in this system (Bunge, 1962; Overton & Reese, 1973; Witherington, 2011).

2.1.1. Implications of the Cartesian-Split-Mechanistic Worldview for Developmental Science

The standard traditional frame for the issues of developmental science that are the focus of this chapter has been the principles of this Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview. In classic genetics, the gene was introduced as an analog to the chemical element as the foundational biological element (Keller, 2010); the gene was conceptualized as the “master molecule” that “causes” the production of proteins; a linear additive, unidirectional causal path was asserted to operate from DNA to RNA to protein as defined by the “central dogma of molecular biology” (Gottlieb, 2000). With respect to population (quantitative) genetics, the relation of genes to environment is conceptualized within a completely additive (Lewontin, 1974; Overton & Reese, 1973) model, and statistical gene × environment interactions are themselves completely decomposable into strictly additive elements. As Turkheimer (2011) points out, this assumption of additivity is “the foundation of modern quantitative genetics”. And Partridge (2005, 2011), supporting Turkheimer’s point, goes on to describe how advances in the Fisher–Wright ANOVA model, such as extensions to multivariate and latent variable models and multilevel models, adhere to the same additive structure as the original Fisher model.

For the evolutionary Modern Synthesis, development and evolution are split (see, e.g., Lickliter & Honeycutt, 2010). Further, internal is splitoff from external, yielding an isolated internalism of gene centrism (i.e., gene as the sole unit of variation), and an isolated externalism of change (i.e., emphasis on natural selection as the virtually sole vehicle of change) (see, e.g., Pigliucci & Mueller, 2010a). The Modern Synthesis also entails commitment to evolutionary “gradualism” (i.e., additive continuity) that derives from the same mathematical formalism identified above that Pigliucci and Mueller (2010a) refer to as the “backbone” of population genetics, and, hence the backbone of the Modern Synthesis.

The field of cognition and cognitive development, more than the biological or cultural fields of developmental science, has most frequently given explicit recognition to the fact that, at least until recently, the discipline has been framed by the Cartesian metatheory (e.g., Marshall, 2009; Mueller & Newman, 2008; Rowlands, 2010; Varela, Thompson, & Rosch, 1991). Early in this field’s emergence—known as the Cognitive Revolution—what became termed “cognitivism” was based on the midrange metatheory of the computational model of mind. Not only did this midrange metatheory strictly follow the dictates of the Cartesian worldview of splitting mind from body, it also explicitly framed itself within the worldview’s basic category system, the machine. As Marshall (2009) describes it, “The ascent of cognitivism depended on making the mind more transparent by using computers to model mental processes…. The Cartesian foundation of this approach has inspired a rising tide of criticism over the last three decades, mainly centered around the problem that the computational mind of cognitivism lacks a brain, a body, and a culture (p. 120).” Later, as Rowlands (2010) pointed out, “from the mid-1980s on, this [computer model of mind] emphasis gradually gave way to a renewed emphasis on ‘hardware’ in the form of connectionist or neural network approaches (p. 2).” These models attempt a mechanical modeling of cognition that, while perhaps more neurobiologically realistic (see, however, Edelman, 1992), continues to adhere to Cartesian dictates, thereby leaving mental process locked in the brain, split-off from the full functioning of the body and from culture. This Cartesian position is clearly articulated by Adams and Aizawa (2010) in their argument that “There are processes that (1) are recognizably cognitive, (2) take place in the brain, (3) do not take place outside of the brain, and (4) do not cross from the brain into the external world (p. 69).” In the end, as Goode (2007) notes, “on the cognitivist view…the starting point is the solitary Cartesian subject detached from the world and its objects (including other people). Thus, the cognitivist has to account for the way the knower ‘hooks on to’ the world and to other people in it (p. 272).”

In the area of culture and development, Cartesian tracks are found in a number of areas where individual and culture are viewed as split-off pure forms. For example, in their analysis of the culture and development literature, Mistry et al. (2012) point to the fact that in both crosscultural and ecological approaches, culture is treated as an antecedent variable that influences, but is not constitutive of, the individual and development:

On the issue of how culture should be conceptualized, cross-cultural psychologists tended to view culture as an ‘independent variable’ that influenced human behavior. Some cross-cultural psychologists suggested that culture should be operationalized as a set of conditions … For example Poortinga (1997) defined the cross-cultural approach as: ‘… a tendency to take cultural context, including ecological as well as sociocultural variables, as a set of antecedent conditions, while behavior phenomena, including attitudes and meanings as well as observed behaviors as outcomes or consequents’ (p. 350). In the ecological model (Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 1986), which had been particularly influential in developmental psychology, culture was operationalized as the macro (pervasive) influence on the developing person.

Although still an influential worldview, the Cartesian metatheory and the midrange metatheories it subsumes have come under increased criticisms as an adequate scientific paradigm for developmental science. These criticisms are cross-disciplinary, coming both from those cited above and, more generally, from biology and neuroscience (e.g., Damasio, 1994; Gallese & Lakoff, 2005), philosophy (Gallagher, 2005; Taylor, 1995), anthropology (Ingold, 2000; Sheets-Johnstone, 1990), and psychology (Barsalou, Simmons, Barbey, & Wilson, 2003; Colombetti & Thompson, 2008; Hobson, 2002; Mueller & Newman, 2008; Smith, 2005).

2.2. Relationism and Relational Developmental Systems: A Paradigm for Developmental Science

The question arises as to whether these conceptual criticisms raised against the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview and its midrange metatheories; the empirical anomalies faced by the paradigm; and failures of the paradigm to generate new ideas and new data are sufficient to conclude that this paradigm should be rejected as invalid? The answer is no. While these may be necessary conditions for dismissing the Cartesian-split-mechanistic metatheory and its subsumed midrange metatheories, only an available alternative paradigm constitutes a sufficient condition for rejection. It is argued here that there is such a paradigm available; one that (1) better accommodates the new data from several fields; (2) overcomes the conceptual problems of the Cartesian-split-mechanistic metatheory and its subsumed midrange metatheories, and (3) generates novel and empirically productive predictions for the field of developmental science. This is the relationism (as worldview) and relational developmental systems (as midrange metatheory) paradigm, which I next describe.

2.2.1. Relationism

Relationism finds its historical origins in Aristotle’s insistence that form and matter cannot be separated into two discrete elements, and later in Kant’s attempt to reconcile empiricism and rationalism and in Hegel’s elaboration of dialectical logic. One broad effect of adopting relationism as a paradigm worldview is that it leads to the healing of the classic fundamental antimonies (e.g., subject–object, mind–body, nature–nurture, culture–individual, culture–biology, self–other) (Table 2.1) and provides concepts that are inclusive and concepts that adequately ground science generally and developmental science specifically. In an analysis of the historical failures of classical split metatheory, as well as the emptiness of its seeming rival—postmodern thought—Bruno Latour (1993, 2004) proposed a move away from the extremes of Cartesian splits to a center or middle kingdom position where entities and ideas are represented, not as pure forms, but as forms that flow across fuzzy boundaries. This movement is one toward what Latour terms relationism, a metatheoretical space where foundations are groundings, not bedrocks of certainty, and analysis is about creating categories, not about cutting nature at its joints. The present version of relationism builds on Latour’s proposal.

Relationism is a worldview formed as a principled synthesis of Pepper’s (1942) organicism and contextualism (for details, see Overton, 2007a; Overton & Ennis, 2006a, 2006b).[3] As a worldview, it is composed of a coherent set of intertwined ontological and epistemological principles. The ontology of relationism offers a Real based on process-substance rather than a split-off substance (Bickhard, 2008). This ontology is what Gadamer (1989) argues to be the movement of to and fro and what has been sometimes defined as an ontology of Becoming (Allport, 1955; Overton, 1991). It includes process, activity, dialectic change, emergence, and necessary organization as fundamental defining categories, but it does not exclude categories of substance, stability, fixity, additivity, and contingent organization.

The epistemology of relationism is, first and foremost, a relatively inclusive epistemology, involving both knowing and known as equal and indissociable complementary processes in the construction, acquisition, and growth of knowledge. It is relatively inclusive, because inclusion itself—much like Hegel’s master–slave dialectic—can be grasped only in relation to its complement exclusion. Thus, just as freedom must be identified in the context of constraint, inclusion must be identified in the context of exclusion. Relational epistemology specifically excludes Cartesian dualistic ways of knowing because Cartesian epistemology trades on absolute exclusivity; it constitutes a nothing but epistemology. For the same reason, relationalism rejects both the mechanistic worldview and a strict contextualist interpretation of the contextualist worldview (Overton, 2007a; Witherington, 2007, 2011). Epistemologically, relationism begins by clearing the “nothing but” splitting, foundationalism, atomism, and objectivism from the field of play and in so doing, it moves toward transforming antinomies into coequal, indissociable complementarities. In the relational frame, fixed absolute elements are replaced by contextually defined parts.

In place of the rejected splitting, foundationalism and atomism, relationism installs holism as the overarching epistemological first principle. Building from the base of holism, relationism moves to specific principles that define the relations among parts and the relations of parts to wholes. In other words, relational metatheory articulates principles of analysis and synthesis necessary for any scientific inquiry. These principles are (1) The Identity of Opposites, (2) The Opposites of Identity, and (3) The Synthesis of Wholes.

2.2.2. Holism

Holism is the principle that the identities of objects and events derive from the relational context in which they are embedded. Wholes define parts and parts define wholes. The classic example is the relation of components of a sentence. Patterns of letters form words and particular organizations of words form sentences. Clearly, the meaning of the sentence depends on its individual words (parts define whole). At the same time, the meaning of words is often defined by the meaning of the sentence (wholes define parts). Consider the word meanings in the following sentences: (1) The party leaders were split on the platform; (2) The disc jockey discovered a black rock star; and (3) The pitcher was driven home on a sacrifice fly. The meaning of the sentence is obviously determined by the meaning of the words, but the meaning of each italicized word is determined by context of the sentence it is in. Parts determine wholes, and wholes determine their parts (Gilbert & Sarkar, 2000).

Holistically, the whole is not an aggregate of discrete elements but an organized system of parts, each part being defined by its relations to other parts and to the whole. Complexity in this context is organized complexity (Luhmann, 1995; von Bertalanffy, 1968a, 1968b), in that the whole is not decomposable into elements arranged in additive sequences of mechanistic cause–effect relations (Overton & Reese, 1973). In the context of holism, principles of splitting, foundationalism, and atomism are, by definition, rejected as meaningless approaches to analysis, and fundamental antimonies are similarly rejected as false dichotomies (Table 2.1). In an effort to avoid standard (i.e., neopositivistic and conventionalist) misunderstandings here, it must be strongly emphasized that nondecomposability does not mean that analysis itself is rejected. It means that analysis of parts must occur in the context of the parts’ functioning in the whole. The context-free specifications of any object, event, or process—whether it be a DNA, cell, neuron, evolution, the architecture of mind, or culture—are illegitimate within a holistic system (see, e.g., Ingold, 2000). Bunge (2003) well[4] captures both the problem of reductionism and the issue of holism in the following:

At first sight, the discovery that genetic material is composed of DNA molecules proves that genetics has been reduced to chemistry …. However, chemistry only accounts for DNA chemistry: it tells us nothing about the biological functions of DNA – for instance that it controls morphogenesis and protein synthesis. In other words, DNA does not perform any such functions when outside a cell, anymore than a stray screw holds anything together. Besides, DNA does nothing by itself: it is at the mercy of the enzymes and RNAs that determine which genes are to be expressed or silenced. In other words, the genetic code is not the prime motor it was once believed to be. This is what epigenesis is all about (p. 138).

Although holism is central to relationism, holism does not in itself offer a detailed program for resolving many dualisms that have framed scientific knowing and knowledge. A complete relational program requires principles according to which the individual identity of each concept of a formerly dichotomous pair is maintained, while simultaneously it is affirmed that each concept constitutes, and is constituted by, the other. This understanding is accomplished by considering identity and differences as two moments of analysis. The first moment is based on the principle of the identity of opposites; the second moment is based on the principle of the opposites of identity.

2.2.3. The Identity of Opposites

The principle of the identity of opposites establishes the identity among parts of a whole by casting them, not as exclusive contradictions as in the split epistemology but, as differentiated polarities (i.e., coequals) of a unified (i.e., indissociable) inclusive matrix—as a relation. As differentiations, each pole is defined recursively; each pole defines and is defined by its opposite. In this identity moment of analysis, the law of contradiction is suspended and each category contains and, in fact, is its opposite. Further—and centrally—as a differentiation, this moment pertains to character, origin, and outcomes. The character of any contemporary behavior, for example, is 100% nature because it is 100% nurture; 100% biology because it is 100% culture. There is no origin to this behavior that was some other percentage—regardless of whether we climb back into the womb, back into the cell or back into the DNA—nor can there be a later behavior that will be a different percentage. There are a number of ways to illustrate this principle; one particularly clear illustration is found in the famous ink sketch by M. C. Escher titled Drawing Hands (Overton, 2006). In this sketch, a left and a right hand assume a relational posture according to which each is simultaneously drawing and being drawn by the other (Fig. 2.2(a) is a schematic illustration). In this matrix, there is a sense in which each hand is different (opposite left and right hand) and a sense in which the hands are identical (each is drawing and being drawn). In the latter analytic Identity of Opposites moment, the hands are identical (i.e., A = Not A), thus coequal and indissociable.This moment of analysis is one in which the law of contradiction (i.e., not the case that A = not A) is relaxed and identity (i.e., A = Not A) reigns. In this identity moment of analysis, pure forms or the notion of “natural kinds” collapse and categories flow into each other. Here, each category contains, and is, its opposite. As a consequence, there is a broad inclusivity established among categories.

Within the identity moment of analysis, it is often a useful exercise to write on each hand (or the arrows of the schematic) one of the bipolar terms of an often split dualisms (e.g., genotype and phenotype, development and evolution, encapsulated and extended mental processes, person, and culture) and to explore the resulting effect (see, for example, Fig. 2.2(b), (c)). This exercise is quite different than an illustration of a familiar bidirectionality of mechanical cause and effects. This exercise makes tangible a central tenet of the relational metatheory; seemingly dichotomous ideas often thought of as competing alternatives (Table 2.1) can, in fact, enter into inquiry as coequal and indissociable. This exercise also concretizes the meaning of “causality” within relationism. In this framework, the concepts reciprocal determination (Overton & Reese, 1973), coaction (Gottlieb, Wahlsten, & Lickliter, 2006), fusion (Greenberg, 2011; Partridge, 2011) as well as relational bidirectional (<-->) causality (Lerner, 2006), relational causality (Gottlieb, 2003), and circular causality (Witherington, 2011) are relatively similar terms used to differentiate the positive and negative feedback loops of relationism from additive (even bidirectionally additive) causality of the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview.

The principle of the identity of opposites imposes theoretical and methodological constraints on any field of inquiry—biological, evolutionary, individual, and cultural—just as other metatheories impose constraints on any field of inquiry. The primary constraints within relationism are that (1) splits are not permitted (e.g., the split of genotype and phenotype in genetics, the split of internalism and externalism in the Modern Synthesis, the split of brain, body, and culture in cognitivism, and the cultural split of individual and culture) and (2) phenomena cannot be thought of as being decomposable into independent and additive pure forms (e.g., the Fisher–Wright AVOVA model in genetics and in the Modern Synthesis).[5]

If the principle of the identity of opposites introduces constraints, it also opens possibilities. One of these is the recognition that—to paraphrase Searle (1992)—the fact that a behavior implicates activity of the biological system does not imply that it does not implicate activity of the cultural system, and the fact that the behavior implicates activity of the cultural system does not imply that it does not implicate activity of the biological system. In other words, the identity of opposites establishes the metatheoretical rationale for the theoretical position that biology, person, and culture operate in a truly interpenetrating relational manner.

2.2.4. The Opposites of Identity

Although the identity of opposites sets constraints and opens possibilities, it does not in itself set a positive agenda for empirical scientific inquiry. The limitation of the identity moment of analysis is that, in establishing a flow of categories of one into the other, a stable base for inquiry that was provided by bedrock material atoms of the split metatheory is eliminated. In the split approach, no relativity entered the picture; all was absolute. Reestablishing a stable base—not an absolute fixity, nor an absolute relativity, but a relative relativity (Latour, 1993)—within relational metatheory requires moving to a second moment of analysis. This is the oppositional moment, where the figure of identity and ground of opposites reverses and opposites become figure. This moment becomes dominated by a relational exclusivity. Thus, in this opposite moment of analysis, it becomes clear that despite the earlier identity, the schematic of Escher’s sketch does illustrate both a right hand and a left hand (see Fig. 2.3 for culture and person). In this moment of opposition, the law of contradiction is reasserted and categories again exclude each other. As a consequence of this exclusion, parts exhibit unique identities that differentiate each from the other. These unique differential qualities are stable within any holistic system and, thus, may form relatively stable platforms for empirical inquiry. The platforms created according to the principle of the opposites of identity become standpoints, points-of-view, or lines-of-sight, in recognition that they do not reflect absolute foundations (Latour, 1993, 2004) but perspectives in a multiperspective world. They may also be considered under the common rubric levels of analysis when these are not understood as bedrock foundations.

Again, thinking of the Escher sketch (or the schematic of Fig. 2.3), when left hand as left hand (A) and right as right (Not-A) are separately the focus of attention, it then becomes quite clear that, were they large enough, one could stand at either hand and examine the structures and functions of that location, as well as its relation to the other location (i.e., the coactions of parts). Thus, to return to the example of nature–nurture, although explicitly recognizing that any behavior is both 100% biology and 100% culture, alternative points of view permit the scientist to analyze the acts of the person from a biological or from a cultural standpoint. Biology and culture no longer constitute competing alternative explanations; rather, they are two points of view on an object of inquiry that has been created by, and will be fully understood only through, multiple viewpoints. More generally, the unity that constitutes the organism and its development becomes discovered only in the diversity of multiple interrelated lines of sight.

2.2.5. The Synthesis of Wholes

Engaging fundamental bipolar concepts as relatively stable standpoints opens the way, and takes an important first step toward establishing a broad stable base for empirical inquiry within relational metatheory. However, this solution is incomplete as it omits a key relational component, the relation of parts to the whole. The oppositional quality of the bipolar pairs reminds us that their contradictory nature still remains, and still requires a resolution. Further, the resolution of this tension cannot be found in the split approach of reduction to a bedrock absolute reality. Rather, the relational approach to a resolution is to move away from the extremes to the center and above the conflict, and there discover a novel system that will coordinate the two conflicting systems. This principle is the synthesis of wholes, and the synthesis itself is another standpoint.

The synthesis of interest for the general metatheory would be a system that is a coordination of the most universal bipolarity that can be imagined. Arguably, there are several candidates for this level of generality, but the polarity between matter or nature, on the one hand, and society, on the other, is sufficient for present purposes (Latour, 1993). Matter and society represent systems that stand in an identity of opposites. To say that an object is a social or cultural object in no way denies that it is matter; to say that an object is matter in no way denies that it is social or cultural. And further, the object can be analyzed from either a social–cultural or a physical standpoint. The question for synthesis becomes the question of what system will coordinate these two systems. Arguably, the answer is that it is life or living systems that represent the coordination of matter and society. Because our specific focus of inquiry is the psychological subject, we can reframe this matter–society polarity back into a nature–nurture polarity of biology (matter) and culture (society). In the context of psychology, then, as an illustration, if we again write biology on one and culture on the other Escher hand (or schematic figure), and question what system represents the coordination of these systems, it is life, the human organism, the person (Fig. 2.4). That is, the person is the relational synthesis of biological and sociocultural processes.

At the synthesis, then, a standpoint coordinates and resolves the tension between the other two components of the relation. This synthesis provides a particularly broad and stable base for launching empirical inquiry. A person standpoint opens the way for the empirical investigation of universal dimensions of psychological structure–function relations (e.g., processes of perception, thought, emotions, values), the particular variations associated with these wholes, their individual differences, and their development across the life span. Because universal and particular are themselves relational concepts, no question can arise here about whether the focus on universal processes excludes the particular; it clearly does not as we already know from the earlier discussion of relations. The fact that a process is viewed from a universal standpoint in no way suggests that it is not situated and contextualized; the fact that it is viewed from an individual standpoint in no way denies its universality.

It is important to recognize that one standpoint of synthesis is relative to other synthesis standpoints. Life and Society are coordinated by Matter. As a consequence, if we are broadly considering the scientific field of psychology, biology represents a standpoint as the synthesis of person and culture (Fig. 2.4). The implication of this idea is that a relational biological approach to psychological processes investigates the biological conditions and settings of psychological structure–function relations and the actions they express. This exploration is quite different from split foundationalist Cartesian- split-mechanistic approaches to biological inquiry that assumes an atomistic and reductionistic stance toward the object of study. Neurobiologist Antonio Damasio’s (1994, 1999) work on the brain–body basis of a psychological self and emotions is an excellent illustration of this biological relational standpoint. In the context of this standpoint, Damasio (1994) is emphatic that:

A task that faces neuroscientists today is to consider the neurobiology supporting adaptive supraregulations [e.g., the psychological subjective experience of self] … I am not attempting to reduce social phenomena to biological phenomena, but rather to discuss the powerful connection between them. … Realizing that there are biological mechanisms behind the most sublime human behavior does not imply a simplistic reduction to the nuts and bolts of neurobiology [emphasis added] (pp. 124–125).

A similar biological example comes from the Nobel laureate neurobiologist Gerald Edelman’s (1992; 2006) work on the brain–body base of consciousness:

I hope to show that the kind of reductionism that doomed the thinkers of the Enlightenment is confuted by evidence that has emerged both from modern neuroscience and from modern physics. … To reduce a theory of an individual’s behavior to a theory of molecular interactions is simply silly, a point made clear when one considers how many different levels of physical, biological, and social interactions must be put into place before higher order consciousness emerges. (Edelman, 1992, p. 166).

And finally, Gilbert and Epel (2009) in presenting ecological developmental biology (eco-devo) describe several “revolutions” occurring in biology, including a new relational orientation: “Rather than analyzing independent ‘things’ a new focus of developmental biology concerns ‘relationships’. Nothing , it seems, exists except as part of a network of interactions (p. xiii, emphasis added).”

A third synthesis standpoint recognizes that Person and Matter are coordinated by Society, and again granting that our domain of scientific interest is psychological inquiry about psychological processes, then culture or sociocultural represents a standpoint as the synthesis of person and biology (Fig. 2.4). Thus, a relational cultural approach to psychological processes explores the cultural conditions and settings of psychological structure–function relations. From this cultural standpoint, the focus is on cultural differences in the context of psychological functions as complementary to the person standpoint’s focus on psychological functions in the context of cultural differences.

Valsiner (1998) gives one illustration of a relational, developmentally oriented cultural standpoint in his examination of the “social nature of human psychology”. Focusing on the “social nature” of the person, Valsiner stresses the importance of avoiding the temptation of trying to reduce person processes to social processes. To this end, he explicitly distinguishes between the dualisms of split foundationalist metatheory and dualities of the relational stance he advocates.

When the three points of synthesis—biology, person, and socioculture—are cast as a unity of interpenetrating coacting parts, there emerges what Greenberg and Partridge (2010) describe as a biopsychosocial model of the organism. In their tripartite relational approach, each part interpenetrates and coconstructs the other or coevolves with the other. Development of the biological organism begins from a relatively undifferentiated biosocial action matrix, and through coconstructive interpenetrating coactions, the biological, the cultural, and the psychological or person part systems emerge, differentiate, and continue their interpenetrating coconstruction, moving through levels of increased complexity toward developmental ends.

2.2.6. Relational Developmental Systems

Taken as a whole—including both its ontological and epistemological assumptions—relationism operates as the contextual frame for the construction of midrange metatheories. These latter metatheories are less broad in scope, more specific to particular domains of inquiry, and together with relationism, constitute a conceptual framework for a scientific paradigm. Relational developmental system is itself the broadest of these midrange metatheories, all of which incorporate systems concepts, including developmental, dynamic, dialectical, transactional systems, and enaction.[2] Relational developmental systems represents an extension (Lerner, 2006, 2011; Lerner & Overton, 2008; Overton & Lerner, 2012; Overton, 2006, 2010, 2012) of the original developmental systems “theory” described by Ford and Lerner (1992) and Gottlieb (1996) (see also Lerner, 2002). This extension was motivated by an increasing recognition of relationism as a central feature of the conceptual framework of an alternative scientific paradigm to that formulated within the Cartesian-split-mechanistic worldview.

Relational developmental systems is a perspective on developmental science (i.e., development [behavioral, cognitive, motivational, emotional, and sociocultural], inheritance, and evolution). The relational nature of the system emphasizes causality as reciprocal bi- or multidirectional (<-->) or circular (positive and negative feedback loops).[6] All facets of the individual and the context exist in mutually influential relations (Elder, 1998; Molenaar, 2007). Accordingly, the potential for plasticity (Batson & Gluckman, 2011; Charney, 2012; West-Eberhard, 2003) of intraindividual change is a hallmark of Relational developmental systems.

This metatheory conceptualizes living organisms as active agents, (Overton, 1976) that is, as relational, spontaneously active, complex adaptive systems, that are self-creating (i.e., enactive; autopoetic), self-organizing (i.e., process according to which higher level system organization arises solely from the coaction of lower level components of the system), and self-regulating. Further, the development process—including embryogenesis, ontogenesis, and phylogenesis—is conceptualized as entailing, five defining features: (1) nonlinearity (i.e., inputs are not proportional to outputs), (2) order and sequence, (3) direction, (4) relative permanence and relative irreversibility, and (5) epigenesis and emergence. Epigenesis is conceptualized as “probabilistic epigenesis” (Gottlieb, 1992), which designates a holistic approach to understanding developmental complexity. Probabilistic epigenesis is the principle that the role played by any part of a relational developmental system—DNA, cell, tissue, organ, organism, physical environment, and culture—is a function of all of the interpenetrating and coacting parts of the system. It is through complex reciprocal bidirectional and circular reciprocal interpenetrating actions among the coacting parts that the system moves to levels of increasingly organized complexity. Thus, epigenesis identifies the system as being completely contextualized and situated.

Epigenesis entails the closely related feature of emergence of system novelty.[7] As systems change, they become increasingly complex. This increased complexity is a complexity of form rather than an additive complexity of elements. The butterfly emerges from the caterpillar through the differentiation and reintegration of organization, the frog from the tadpole, the plant from the seed, and the organism from the zygote. In an identical manner, higher order psychological structures emerge from lower order structures; also in an identical manner, new forms of organization exhibit novel features that cannot be reduced to (i.e., completely explained by) or predicted from earlier forms. The novel features are termed systemic, indicating that they are properties of the whole system and not properties of any individual part. This emergence of novelty is commonly referred to as qualitative change in the sense that it is the change that cannot be represented as purely additive. Similarly, reference to “discontinuity” in development is simply the recognition of emergent novelty and qualitative change of a system.

System constitutes the core concept of this metatheory and this concept has been defined in various ways. For example, van Geert (2003) offers “any collection of phenomena, components, variables” (p. 655). However, this conception and other “collection” or aggregate-like definitions are inconsistent with holism and, consequently, inconsistent with relational developmental systems. A more adequate relational definition of system is “a whole which functions as a whole by virtue of the interdependence of its parts” (Overton, 1975). Thus, a system is by its nature organized and organized holistically. Further, the relational system is an adaptive system. Here, adaptation refers to how the system responds to changing environments—“perturbations” in systems language—so as to increase its probability of survival, not in the sense of adjusting to an environment. Adaptive systems are defined in contrast with “determined” systems. In determined systems, the relation between inputs and outputs are exactly and reproducibly connected. For example, an automobile is a determined system. When the driver presses the accelerator or turns the steering wheel, both driver and passenger expect the auto to speed up or turn. All components of the auto must be fully determined to achieve this collective response. And determined systems are linear—small inputs resulting in small outputs; large inputs in large outputs—thus, outputs are predictable. In adaptive systems, the parts follow simple rules, whereas the behavior of the whole system is not determined.

The second core concept of relational developmental systems is action. The relational developmental system is the source of action. At subpersonal levels, where it is not necessary to limit a definition to organismic development or even to living systems, action is defined as the characteristic functioning of any complex adaptive self-creating and system-organizing system. For example, weather systems form high-and low-pressure areas and move from west to east. Living systems, on the other hand, organize, and adapt to, their biological, sociocultural, and environmental worlds. At the person level, organismic development action is defined as intentional activity (i.e., meaning giving activity). Intentionality, however, is not to be identified solely with consciousness. While all acts are  intentional, only some intentions are conscious or self-conscious. In a similar manner, intention is not to be identified solely with a symbolic or reflective level of knowing. Following Brentano (1973), all acts, even those occurring at early sensorimotor levels of functioning, intend some object. 

The primary function of action is that at the microscopic level, it represents the general mechanism for all development. It is through the coconstituting actions of any target system of interest (e.g., genetic, epigenetic, cell, zygote, embryo, fetus, infant…species) with its environments, as well as the resistances (perturbations) the target system encounters that the system changes and, hence, becomes differentiated and reintegrated at increasingly complex and novel levels of organization.

The final core concept is that of embodiment (Overton, 1994, 2008). All acts are embodied acts and, consequently, the general case is that embodied action is the general mechanism for all development. Embodiment represents the interpenetrating relations between person, biology, and culture. It is the claim that perception, thinking, feelings, and desires—the way we behave, experience, and live the world—are contextualized by our being active agents with this particular kind of body (Taylor, 1995). The kind of body we have is a constitutive precondition for having the kind of behaviors, experiences, and meanings that we have. Embodiment includes not merely the physical structures of the body but the body as a form of lived experience, actively engaged with the world of sociocultural and physical objects. The body as form references the biological point of view, the body as lived experience references the psychological subject standpoint, and the body actively engaged with the world represents the sociocultural point of view. Within a relational context, embodiment is a concept that bridges and joins in a unified whole these several research points of synthesis without any appeal to splits, foundationalism, elements, atomism, and reductionism.[8]


NOTES (for these sections):

3. Witherington (2007, 2011) employs a similar organicism–contextualism integration to distinguish between dynamic systems metatheories based on a strict contextualist worldview (e.g., Thelen & Smith, 1994; Spencer, Perone, & Johnson, 2009) from those based on an organicist–contextualist integration (e.g., van Geert, 2003; van der Maas & Molenaar, 1992; Lewis, 2011).

4. I am indebted to Gary Greenberg for pointing me to this quote.

5. West-Eberhard’s (2003) evolutionary work provides a biological example of the identity of opposites in her resolution of the conflict between the quantitative genetics of continuous variation and the developmental biology of the discrete traits. This resolution is “a theory of the phenotype based on the complementarity of continuous and discrete variation (p. 13 emphasis added).” All antimonies are best viewed as complementaries. Relationism articulates the meaning of complementarity.

6. In order to avoid serious conceptual confusion, it is essential to differentiate this type of causality from “mechanical” or “mechanistic” causality. An example of the failure to make this distinction appears in the writings of Pigliucci and Mueller (2010a) and Mueller (2010). In discussions of new trends in evolution, these authors acknowledge the centrality of systems concepts, but simultaneously describe this as “a shift towards a causal-mechanistic approach,” “a shift…to a causal-mechanistic theory (Pigliucci & Mueller, 2010a, p. 12),” and a “turn towards the mechanistic explanation of phenotypic change (Mueller, 2010, p. 309)”. There is a profound difference between the claim that there has been a trend away from correlational approaches to causal approaches, and the claim that there has been a trend away from correlational approaches to mechanistic causal approaches.

7. For an extensive, in-depth analysis of meanings of “emergence,” which are and are not compatible with an integrated organism–contextualism (i.e., relationism) worldview, see Witherington (2011).

8. See Withherington (this volume) for a discussion of alternative interpretations of “embodiment” within a strictly contextualist and within an organismic–contextualist (relationism) worldview.