How Do We Develop?
September 12, 2022 Everything anyone does develops. You got to be the way you are through development. But how does development happen? It's complex...
Hello It’s Complex Readers,
I hope all is well and that you are not too overwhelmed by complexity. With this newsletter, I hope not to overwhelm you too much with the complexities of human development. I imagine you have thought about how people get to be the way they are, including how you yourself got to be the way you are. Through development, that’s how! How then does development happen? There is a lot to get into today.
Please keep telling anyone and everyone about It’s Complex. Thank you!
A Reminder for Familar Readers and an Orientation for New Readers
Here at It’s Complex we think about and deal with the world’s many complexities—from global issues to individual experiences. The world sure is a complex place, and it is easy to get overwhelmed. We end up glossing over complexity and postpone thinking about it. But much is at stake for humanity and for individuals. Let’s stop postponing; let’s embrace complexity and deal with it. At It’s Complex, we think about and deal with complexity from a holistic systems perspective. A system is a wider whole made up multiple, connected, and dynamic parts. So, we think about and deal with any complex issue in terms of multidimensionality (M), connectedness (C), and dynamics (D). I like to abbreviate them as MCD. Think MCD, be MCD!
Multidimensionality refers to how complex phenomena are made up of multiple parts.
Connectedness refers to the varied ways in which complex phenomena are connected or linked. Systems theory emphasizes interrelatedness, which refers to mutual and reciprocal connections between and among parts and wholes.
Dynamics refers to how system processes are ongoing and can be played out in stable ways, as well as in varied, changing, and sometimes unpredictable ways.
For further details (or as a refresher), check out some of the first newsletter posts.
Newsletter: How Do We Develop?
The world is a complex place in part because it is populated by people who are complex. And people are complex in part because they develop. Development is central to human functioning. Everyone develops and everything people do develops. Literally! I cannot think of any human action that does not develop. None of you were born able to read, but here you are reading. You developed the ability to read, among many other abilities and ways of acting. How did that happen? As we saw in the first newsletter about identity, identity develops. We can ask: How does identity develop? If you want to see the first newsletter on identity, here it is.
Introducing Development
The word development implies progress, getting better, or improving. It is good when someone develops and it is good because their functioning is getting better in some way. What if someone told you that their friend was developing by forgetting more and more every day? Would you think they were joking? I would. I would say: “Wait, what? How is it development if someone is forgetting more and more?” Of course, what counts as progress or improved functioning can be, has been, and is debated by people the world over. The point for now is that development involves improvement in relation to some standards or expectations. If someone is developing tennis skills, there are some standards to aspire to. If you think it is important for children to share their toys or not throw temper tantrums, then you have some expectations and goals for their development.
In addition and thinking systemically, when someone develops an ability or way of acting, the multiple parts of what they are doing are structured or organized in new ways. New and improved ways of functioning include differentiating and refining the parts that comprise some mode of functioning, as well as integrating or coordinating them in new ways. For example, during early language development, babies differentiate among sounds and integrate them into combinations of consonants and vowels (e.g., mama, dada). Children subsequently integrate sounds to produce differentiated words, which are integrated to construct and convey more complex meanings. And all of this differentiating and integrating involves progress in relation to the grammatical rules of particular languages, as well as standards for culturally particular ways of using language.
Identity development involves defining oneself in terms of increasingly differentiated physical, social, active, psychological, and cultural characteristics. It also involves defining oneself in terms of increasingly integrated or connected characteristics. For example, someone might see themselves as a parent whose goals for their children are based on the beliefs and values they identify with.
Maybe you are starting to think about multiple factors that affect development. Maybe you are thinking about how specific people influence development, from parents, siblings, and extended family, to schoolmates, friends, and acquaintances, to teachers and mentors, to colleagues and employers. Maybe you are thinking about how you developed by going to school and also by doing all kinds of activities outside of school, such as sports or music. Maybe you are thinking that neighborhoods and communities affect development. Maybe you are thinking that gender and race affect development. Maybe you are thinking about how socioeconomic status affects development. Maybe you are thinking that the internet and social media affect development. Maybe you are thinking about how political policies affect development. Maybe you are thinking that cultural beliefs and values influence development. Maybe you have heard that birth order affects development. Maybe you are thinking about genes. Maybe you are thinking, “Aagh, there are too many possible factors to think about!”
Not surprisingly, we have yet another list that is getting out of hand. It is too all over the place and it is overwhelming to jump from one possible factor that affects development to another. Development is complex and we can avoid getting too overwhelmed by thinking systemically about how development happens in terms of multidimensionality, interrelatedness, and dynamics. As the unfinished list of multiple factors indicates, we are clearly dealing with multidimensionality. In addition, many of the factors mentioned thus far are interrelated, as well as dynamic.
Developing through Individual, Social, Cultural, Bodily, and Environmental Processes
Fortunately we can turn to what is known as sociocultural theory and research within developmental psychology to think about the many many many possible factors that affect development in an organized way. Contemporary sociocultural theory is traced back to the developmental psychologist Lev Vygotsky who lived from 1896-1934. Sociocultural theory provides a systems compatible framework for conceptualizing how development happens through multiple, interrelated, and dynamic processes. As its name suggests, sociocultural theory emphasizes cultural and social processes. It also posits that individuals actively contribute to their own development.
Briefly in one sentence, according to sociocultural theory, development happens through guided participation (a term articulated by developmental psychologist Barbara Rogoff), which is when a person participates in cultural activities with others who guide them. Think about anything that people do, from playing sports and musical instruments, to cooking and eating, to greeting and consoling, to telling stories, reading, writing, and arithmetic, to thinking logically and expressing emotion, to constructing identity. These and other ways of acting develop as an individual actually does these activities, which are played out in culturally particular ways. As such, the developing person is actively participating in cultural activities. And it certainly helps if someone can help or guide a developing person, at least at first. From a sociocultural perspective, a goal of development is for a person to no longer need guidance to act in culturally particular ways.
When a person actively participates with others in cultural activities, individual, social, and cultural processes are contributing to how development happens. Individual processes are involved as an individual is participating in their particular way. Social processes are involved because at least one other person is guiding a developing person as they are participating. And cultural processes are involved because any human action is cultural. Insofar as bodily and environmental processes are also involved in all that we do, we can think about how development happens through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. Do those processes sound familiar? Yes! They are the processes that we first encountered in the Newsletter about why people do what they do.
Human action emerges through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes, and it is not a coincidence that they are relevant here as well. Insofar as development is a particular kind of action emergence, it happens through the same processes through which action generally emerges.
Cultural Processes. Culture shapes how development happens because people are developing in relation to cultural goals, standards, and expectations. Also, people develop ways of acting that are played out in culturally particular ways and reflect culturally particular meanings. Also, in varied cultures, there may be different opportunities to engage in cultural activities for different people, in relation to cultural meanings, as well as in relation to political and economic processes. For example, educational opportunities in some cultures are unequally constrained and enabled in relation to conceptions of gender and race, or in relation to economic status. If a person does not have the opportunity to participate in some activity, how could they develop with regard to that activity?
Social Processes. Social processes contribute to development because the developing person is interacting with others who are guiding what the developing person is doing. The specifics of how someone guides depend on the guide, the developing person, their relationship, and the modes of action or skills that are developing. In different cultures, guidance can be played out in some different ways. Sometimes guides guide intentionally or explicitly, sometimes they do not. Guides can be older, younger, or the same age as the developing person they are guiding. As people engage in varied activities together, others can guide a developing person in multiple ways that promote differentiation and integration. For example, what is known as scaffolding in developmental psychology involves breaking a task down into chunks that are manageable for a developing person to handle. Scaffolding enables the developing person to focus on differentiated parts of the task and the guide can help them to integrate the parts into the task as a wider whole. Depending on what is developing, guidance can also include demonstrating, instructing, explaining, suggesting, arguing, and physically guiding someone’s movement. Socrates was onto something centuries ago by asking pointed questions in ways that enabled the person being questioned to develop understanding. Guides can ask questions about what to do and provide feedback in ways that facilitate development. We are in danger of ending up with another long, but non-exhaustive list, so I will leave the examples of guidance at that. The point here is that social processes refer to what others do to promote development.
Today, the internet enables varied forms of indirect social guidance to occur. Some years ago, I started taking pottery lessons and in between weekly in-person lessons with an instructor, I turned to YouTube where I found innumerable pottery demonstrations. If a developing individual is searching the internet for demonstrations or certain kinds of social media content, then they are actively involved and contributing to their own development. This example points to interrelations between (indirect) social and individual processes, thus taking us to individual processes.
Individual Processes. Individual processes are involved in how development happens because the developing person is actively participating in activities with others and contributing to their own development. Development does not occur passively or to a passive person. The developing person is not passively receiving development or lying around passively waiting for development to happen to them. The developing person is contributing to their own development by actually participating in or doing what is developing. Hence, the word participation in guided participation. Systemic multidimensionality is involved here insofar as contributing to one’s own development can occur in multiple ways. For about five years now, a friend of mine has been posting photos and videos of his son, starting when he was just a few weeks old. The videos are full of examples of him actively contributing to his own development. While playing in the park, he stops and inspects some leaves. At home, he repeatedly takes objects out of containers and puts them back in. By searching for and attentively watching YouTube pottery demonstrations, I was trying to contribute to my own development as a potter. And when I was in the studio, I tried and tried, and practiced and practiced making pots for years and years. People also contribute to their own development by choosing to participate in some cultural activities rather than others based on individual interests and subjective experience, thus pointing to interrelations between individual and cultural processes. People may choose to interact with some people rather than others in the context of particular cultural activities, pointing to interrelations among individual, social, and cultural processes.
Interrelations between social and individual processes are also evident when guides tailor their guidance to the current competencies of particular individuals (which does not occur with the indirect guidance of YouTube videos). Individual and social processes are also interrelated as individuals subjectively make sense of the guide’s guidance, as well as the activity that is developing. As teachers know very well, sometimes students interpret what they say in ways that they never anticipated. You know how you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink? The same goes for development. A guide may guide in all kinds of ways, but if the individual does not participate, they may not develop, or at least they may not develop as one might hope, want, or expect. In other words it is not enough to be “exposed” to some activity. To me, “exposed” implies passively experiencing an activity or event that is done to a person. Being exposed does not connote active participation and sense-making by a developing person. It is also not enough to “give” someone tools and skills. You can expose and give all you want, but a person may not end up “having” the tools or skills. Developing ways of acting with the tools and developing varied skills require active participation by the individual, as well as social guidance.
Environmental Processes. Environmental processes contribute to how development happens insofar as all human action takes place in particular physical environments. If you do not encounter environmental opportunities to ski, you will probably not develop as a skier. People may develop different ways of acting and different abilities in different physical environments. Alas, the physical environments in which many people live and develop are full of all sorts of toxins. Children who are exposed to lead, asbestos, and pesticides may experience brain damage, and they may struggle cognitively and be prone to behavioral problems. (Here “exposed” is okay because environmental toxins happen to a child and do not require participating actively or guiding to wreak their effects.) Nevertheless, they can still develop by participating with others in cultural activities, pointing to interrelations between environmental processes and the other processes through which development happens.
Bodily Processes. Insofar as there would be no human functioning without a human body, bodily processes certainly contribute to development. Already at birth, babies are bundles of bodily motion. They wiggle, squirm, and kick. They blink their eyes, and open and close their mouths and hands. They can suck and swallow. In addition, bodily processes enable babies to start making sense of the world from the get go. Research shows that they can distinguish among some tastes and smells, and that they orient toward sounds and visually track moving objects. The great developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1982) taught us that insofar as babies can see, hear, taste, smell, taste, and/or touch something, they have a basis for starting to develop some understanding of the world. If they can see, hear, and/or touch someone, there is a basis for developing ways of engaging with others. And of course, genetic processes affect development. It is beyond the scope of this one newsletter to get into genetics, so I will leave that for another time. Suffice it for now to say that genes do not function independently to determine development. The same genes can have different effects in different people who live different lives in different circumstances. As with any complex system, genes function in relation to individual, social, cultural, environmental, and other bodily processes.
Developmental Dynamics
In addition to being multiple and interrelated, individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are dynamic. Thus, thinking systemically about the complexities of how development happens involves considering how development is affected by processes that are played out in varied and changing ways. Individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes are sometimes played out in unpredictable ways, making it difficult to predict a person’s future behavior. The same goes for development. It is sometimes difficult to predict a person’s development because you never know how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes will be played out. What happens during development is thus not set in stone, either at conception, or at birth, or at any time during the lifespan. Do you know some people who have developed in ways that no one ever would have imagined? Apparently, Michael Jordan did not seem destined for basketball greatness early on. One of my favorite lines from research in developmental psychology is about attachment during infancy: “Sometimes attachment in infancy predicts later psychosocial functioning, and sometimes it does not” (Thompson, 1999, p. 274). A lot can happen to a person between infancy and later functioning, including changes in the ongoing structuring of individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes. And maybe it is good that development is not set in stone early on because it leaves life a bit open and exciting. At any time during the life span, you can potentially veer off your current course and pursue different developmental pathways. You can start fresh tomorrow, because tomorrow remains the first day of the rest of your life. Developmental hope springs eternal.
Social processes are dynamic during development as a person may be guided in varied ways by different people, as well as in varied ways by the same people. There can be stability in social processes as well, as a person may be guided by some of the same people in some of the same ways.
Individual processes are certainly dynamic insofar as what a person contributes to their own development changes as the person develops. The person’s developing abilities are also part of why a guide may vary how they guide someone, pointing to how the dynamics of individual and social processes are interrelated.
A person’s body changes throughout the lifespan and may variously constrain and enable the development of different modes of action, skills, and abilities.
The same physical location does not stay the same, and a changing environment can constrain and enable development in changing ways. Global climate change is wreaking havoc on the planet as a whole, with implications for the specific physical environments that people live and develop in. Dealing with climate change involves the development of new ways of thinking and problem solving. Many coastal areas are being literally washed away by climate change and some people are no longer able to live and work as they used to. They may be forced to develop new ways of living and working, and some may struggle to do so. Some may develop new ways of constructing identity and interacting with others, whereas others may struggle to do so. Developing new ways of acting in relation to others worldwide may contribute to saving the planet.
Cultural processes are dynamic, and cultures around the world have certainly changed throughout history, and are changing today. For example, what counts as culturally appropriate action for males and females has undergone change around the world. Individual and cultural ways of defining gender are in flux and are enabling new pathways of development for many.
So…
When you try to understand someone (including yourself)—especially how they got to be the way they are—think about development. Think about how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes contributed to their development. Think about if and how the processes provided opportunities for them to participate in particular cultural activities. Think about what others did (or did not do, as the case may be) to guide them in ways that enabled them to progress, as well as to act in increasingly refined and integrated ways. Think about what the person did to contribute to their own development. Think about how public policies and economic processes enabled and/or constrained their developmental opportunities. Keep going from there.
If you hear or read about some factor that affects development, think about it in terms of guided participation and how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes comprise a person’s participation experiences. For example, maybe you read that birth order affects development. How so? What kinds of different participation opportunities might account for different developmental trajectories for a first child versus a second or third child? How might individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes be played out differently for them? If you are interested in how race or gender affects development, think about guided participation and how individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes comprise a person’s participation experiences. What cultural activities do people of different races or genders participate in, and how do varied ways of structuring individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes comprise their participation experiences?
Some Questions to Think and Comment About
What do you think? What interested you, what surprised you, what struck you?
How have you or someone you know developed through individual, social, cultural, bodily, and environmental processes?
How could you promote someone’s development through guided participation?
What questions do you have about any of this?
Reference
Thompson, R. A. (1999). Early attachment and later development. In J. Cassidy & P. R. Shaver (Eds.), Handbook of attachment: Theory, research, and clinical applications (pp. 265-286). New York: Guilford Press.