Concepts and Theories of Human Development . - 3rd ed - book review

Adolescence, Spring, 2002

LERNER, Richard M. Concepts and Theories of Human Development (3rd ed). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002. 613pp. $69.95 (h).

Substantially updated and expanded from previous editions, this third edition continues to emphasize the philosophical and historical bases of the key conceptual issues in the field, the centrality of the nature-nurture issue, the importance of understanding the dynamics between continuity and discontinuity across the life span, the ways in which stances on the nature-nurture and continuity-discontinuity issues frame theories of human development, and on the associations among philosophy, concepts, theories, methods, and applications of developmental science. Chapters include--human development: facts or theory?; historical roots of human development: concepts and theories; philosophical models of development; the nature-nurture controversy: implications of the question how?; the continuity-discontinuity issue; resolving the nature-nurture controversy: T.C. Schneirla and the concept of levels of integration; developmental systems theories; developmental systems theory: the sample case of developmental context ualism; life-span, action theory, life-course, and bioecological perspectives; nature approaches to human development: behavioral genetics; nature approaches to development: the sample case of intelligence and the work of Sir Cyril Burt and Arthur Jensen; nature approaches to development: Konrad Lorenz and the concept of "instinct"; nature approaches to development: sociobiology; cognition and development: from neo-nativism to developmental systems; stage theories of development; the differential approach; the ipsative approach to development; methodological issues in the study of human development: applied developmental science.