This volume is a product of a study group convened by the Society for Research in Child Development at Cornell University to assess the progress that social scientists have made in understanding the processes linking persons and contexts in the course of development. The contributors to this volume represent the disciplines of developmental, personality, and clinical psychology; behavioral genetics; and sociology. They are also identified with a wide range of methodological approaches including longitudinal studies, laboratory experiments, field observations, and the sequential analysis of social interactions. In addition, each contributor has made a distinctive theoretical and empirical contribution to an interactional perspective on human development.

In preparation for the conference, the participants were asked to circulate working papers summarizing their approaches. To stimulate discussion during the conference, a less usual procedure was adopted. Each participant presented the viewpoint of another group member rather than a commentary on his or her own work. The successful dialogue that emerged in the course of the conference continues in this volume.

The central theme of the volume is how to relate different environmental contexts to one another and to individuals in the course of development. In the first chapter, Niall Bolger, Avshalom Caspi, Geraldine Downey, and Martha Moorehouse provide a map of the territory to be explored as they enumerate the various linkages between different environmental influences and individual development. Environmental influences range from social conditions at the macro level, like a prosperous or depressed national economy, to the immediacy of a child's playful exchange with a parent at the micro level.