In the first chapter in this part, Arnold J. Sameroff and Ronald Seifer begin by providing a historical overview of the traditional debates regarding the etiologies of mental disorders. They then discuss some of the successes and shortcomings of the risk-research strategy focused on parental psychopathology as the prepotent risk factor for psychopathology. Using parental schizophrenia as an exemplary model, these authors outline the bases for the early etiologic reasoning of the risk-for-schizophrenia researchers and describe how the Rochester Risk Project failed to confirm all of the model's predictions. Of particular importance to these authors were the discoveries of the nonspecificity of effects of parental diagnosis on children's current adjustment, the more salient effects of chronicity and severity regardless of maternal diagnosis, and the powerful influences of socioeconomic status on children's early adaptations. Given these findings and those of their contemporaries in both risk research and more basic developmental research, these authors contend that the medical-illness model and the high-risk child model are flawed. This is because the models fail to include a transactive systems model of competence and vulnerability during development.

The next chapter is authored by John Richters and Sheldon Weintraub. It illustrates the promise of the developmental psychopathology perspective when applied to the rich body of prospective data from the Stony Brook Risk Project. This project is one of the largest and longest-running longitudinal studies from the Risk for Schizophrenia Research Consortium. Their data, gathered from children, parents, schools, and clinical records, provide evidence of the dynamic interplay between the parents’ schizophrenic or affective disorder, rearing family environments, and the changing competencies of the at-risk offspring.