Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Biological and Experiential Influences on Psychological Development
- 2 Neural Development and Lifelong Plasticity
- 3 Mother and Child: Preparing for a Life
- 4 Early Experience and Stress Regulation in Human Development
- 5 Biology and Context: Symphonic Causation and the Distribution of Childhood Morbidities
- 6 Understanding Within-Family Variability in Children's Responses to Environmental Stress
- 7 Origins, Development, and Prevention of Aggressive Behavior
- 8 Mental Health Intervention in Infancy and Early Childhood
- 9 Bringing a Population Health Perspective to Early Biodevelopment: An Emerging Approach
- 10 Society and Early Child Development: Developmental Health Disparities in the Nature-and-Nurture Paradigm
- Index
- References
1 - Biological and Experiential Influences on Psychological Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 May 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Biological and Experiential Influences on Psychological Development
- 2 Neural Development and Lifelong Plasticity
- 3 Mother and Child: Preparing for a Life
- 4 Early Experience and Stress Regulation in Human Development
- 5 Biology and Context: Symphonic Causation and the Distribution of Childhood Morbidities
- 6 Understanding Within-Family Variability in Children's Responses to Environmental Stress
- 7 Origins, Development, and Prevention of Aggressive Behavior
- 8 Mental Health Intervention in Infancy and Early Childhood
- 9 Bringing a Population Health Perspective to Early Biodevelopment: An Emerging Approach
- 10 Society and Early Child Development: Developmental Health Disparities in the Nature-and-Nurture Paradigm
- Index
- References
Summary
INTRODUCTION
Over recent decades there have been major developments in our understanding of the various ways in which biological and experiential factors influence psychological development (Rutter & Rutter, 1993; Rutter 2000a, 2006a; Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). In this chapter, I focus on the conceptual issues that are involved, on possible causal mechanisms, on effects on abnormal or suboptimal functioning, and on implications for intervention. Throughout, the arguments are based on empirical research findings (placing most emphasis on those that have been replicated by independent research groups) and, when dealing with causal mechanisms, reference is made to studies in biology and medicine, as well as in psychology, to draw conclusions on likely processes.
DEVELOPMENT
In much of the literature, there has been a tendency to seek to partition influences into those that are genetic (G) and those that are environmental (E), as if between them they accounted for all possibilities. This is a seriously misleading oversimplification because it focuses exclusively on individual differences without taking account of the universals of development (see Rutter, 2002). Also, it wrongly assumes that G and E are separate and involve no co-action (see Rutter, 2006a) and ignores the role of chance. Accordingly, I start with a consideration of some of the key features of developmental processes.
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- Information
- Nature and Nurture in Early Child Development , pp. 7 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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