Child Development, January/February 2010, Volume 81, Number 1, Pages 6–22

A Unified Theory of Development: A Dialectic Integration of Nature

and Nurture
Arnold Sameroff
University of Michigan

The understanding of nature and nurture within developmental science has evolved with alternating ascen-
dance of one or the other as primary explanations for individual differences in life course trajectories of suc-
cess or failure. A dialectical perspective emphasizing the interconnectedness of individual and context is
suggested to interpret the evolution of developmental science in similar terms to those necessary to explain
the development of individual children. A unified theory of development is proposed to integrate personal
change, context, regulation, and representational models of development.

The attention of philosophers and then scientists to circumstance controlled individual behavior are
human development has always begun with a con- becoming multidirectional perspectives where indi-
cern that children should grow up to be good citi- vidual behavior reciprocally changes both biologi-
zens who would contribute to society through cal and social circumstance.
diligent labor, moral family life, civil obedience, The models we use to understand how individ-
and, more recently, to be happy while making these uals change over time have increased in complex-
contributions. The motivation for these concerns ity from linear to interactive to transactive to
was that there were many adults who were not. multilevel dynamic systems. Was this progression
Although attention was paid to the socialization in complexity an expression of empirical advances
and education of children, it was ultimately in the in our developmental research or is it related to
service of improving adult performance. The socie- more general progressions in the history of science
tal concern has always had a life-span perspective. as a whole? Several years ago during a discussion
Without healthy, productive adults no culture of a need for a critical social history of develop-
could continue to be successful. This concern mental psychology by a number of distinguished
continues to be a major motivator for society to scientists (Bronfenbrenner, Kessel, Kessen, &
support child development research. Although the White, 1986), Sheldon White argued that it is nec-
intellectual interests of contemporary develop- essary to engage and deconstruct the history of the
mental researchers range widely in cognitive and field in parallel with efforts to understand the
social–emotional domains, the political justification child. He continued by pointing out that the study
for supporting such studies is that they will lead to of development needs a self-concept, just as each
the understanding and ultimate prevention of child requires ‘‘the building of some kind of self-
behavioral problems that are costly to society. referential, self-regulating, self-knowing set of
With these motivations and supports there have structures.’’
been major advances in our understanding of the If there is a more sophisticated understanding of
intellectual, emotional, and social behavior of the development of humans, is there a more sophis-
children, adolescents, and adults. Moreover these ticated understanding of the development of our
understandings have increasingly involved multi- science? The models we use to understand the his-
level processes cutting across disciplinary bound- tory of our field from child psychology to develop-
aries in the social and natural sciences. This mental science should increase in complexity.
progress has forced conceptual reorientations as Understanding developmental science requires
earlier unidirectional views that biological or social developmental science. And as in the study of any

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to

Arnold Sameroff, Center for Human Growth and Development,  2010, Copyright the Author(s)
University of Michigan, 300 N. Ingalls Building, Ann Arbor, MI Journal Compilation  2010, Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
48109-0406. Electronic mail may be sent to sameroff@umich.edu. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2010/8101-0002
 Unified Theory of Development 7

historical process there should be hope that under- translational rather than a statistical criterion with
standing the past will help us predict the future. the application of research to policy an important
The premise of the general systems theories that consideration (Huston, 2008). The primary question
arose in the 1930s was that there were general prin- remains as to how we can improve the fate of indi-
ciples of organization in every scientific domain viduals growing up in our society. To answer that
that were at a level of abstraction somewhere question requires a continuing examination of the
between mathematical formulations and the spe- models we need both to study and to understand
cific processes being studied (Boulding, 1956). This development. In what follows I will present a con-
has become apparent in every discipline from phys- temporary summary of what such models should
ics to political science, as each has moved to models contain and offer a suggestion for an integrated
of dynamic regulation, where parts cannot be sepa- view of development that captures much of the var-
rated from wholes and useful predictions can only iance that needs explaining. No part of what I pro-
be made based on local interactions of multiple sys- pose has not been previously suggested by creative
tems. The hope of the founders of general systems others. Combining these elements into a unified
theory (cf. von Bertalanffy, 1968) was that scientists developmental theory acknowledges the contempo-
would use a top-down strategy to interpret empiri- rary zeitgeist moving toward more dynamic con-
cal data from a complexity perspective (Sameroff, ceptualizations at every level of analysis that is
1983). This aspiration was not realized because each taking place in every other scientific discipline.
science has tried to be as theoretically simplistic as
possible, resisting the demise of deterministic mod-
els until overwhelmed by the complexity of empiri-
A Rough History of the Nature Versus Nurture
cal data. The science of psychology has been no
Question
exception.
Developmental research aspired to the dicta of Before complexity was simplicity. For developmen-
Ockham’s razor in the hope of finding simple basic tal explanations, simplicity was expressed in
elements and processes that would explain the appeals to aspects of an individual’s nature or nur-
emergence of life’s complexity. Up through the ture. The history of developmental psychology has
1960s and into the 1970s statistically significant been characterized by swings between opinions
t tests and analyses of variance gave an illusion that that determinants of an individual’s behavior could
science was advancing, but when regression mod- be found either in their irreducible fundamental
els became dominant and the metric changed to units or in their irreducible fundamental experi-
size of effects (Cohen, 1988), it became clear that ences. The growth process between babyhood and
the field was not doing well at explaining how chil- adulthood could be explained either by appeals to
dren were growing up. Contemporary developmen- intrinsic properties of the child or to extrinsic prop-
talists are quite competent at short-term predictions erties of experience. The nature–nurture question
of similar cognitive or emotional constructs but has been a central content of developmental
much worse at the prediction of long-term success- research, but it can also be considered to be a major
ful life adaptations starting from initial conditions. context for developmental research in its appeal to
Increasingly, sophisticated statistical models have deterministic thinking. As a consequence the his-
been sought to separate the behavioral signal of tory of the nature–nurture question can be used as
interest from the noise of real life. This effort has an organizing construct to understand the history
led to some frustration in the decreasing amounts of our field.
of variance that can be attributed to any single fac- Practically, the nature–nurture question comes
tor when everything imaginable is controlled and into play when a child has a problem and the ques-
obscured the possibility that the unexplained vari- tion arises, ‘‘Who is responsible?’’ Most parents’
ance, the noise, might contain the signals of many first response is to blame the child and most profes-
other dimensions of the individual or context that sionals’ first response is to blame the parents. How-
are necessary for meaningful long-term predictive ever, most scientists know that it is both. It is both
models. child and parent, but it is also neurons and neigh-
Applicability may not be the most salient criteria borhoods, synapses and schools, proteins and
for getting research accepted for publication, but it peers, and genes and governments. But that conclu-
is highly salient for suggesting ways to change sion does not explain how it is both. Do nature and
developmental outcomes. The science paid for by nurture interact deterministically so that the pro-
the public is increasingly being asked to meet a portions attributable to each can be decomposed or
8 Sameroff

do they transact probabilistically so that the contri- gencies that worked in one species did not work in
bution of each can only be an abstraction from the another (Breland & Breland, 1961). For example,
activity of dynamic systems? How this question has rats could learn to push a lever to avoid a
been answered in the course of recent history offers shock but pigeons could not. Ethologists argued
a window into how developmental science has that the nature of the species put large restrictions
evolved and a perspective on how the question will on the effects of nurture such that certain
be answered in the future. prepared responses were impervious to experience
Since ancient times philosophers have weighed (Seligman, 1970). Statistical advances and data from
in with their perspectives on the relative influences large samples of twins permitted behavioral gene-
of constitution and experience in determining the ticists to argue that the effects of genes and envi-
life course, but it is in the last few hundred years ronments could be separated, and that very large
that these positions have been well articulated, proportions of behavioral differences could be
most notably John Locke in the 17th century and explained by genetic differences (Defries &
Rousseau in the 18th. I will begin my rough histori- McLearn, 1973). The cognitive revolution character-
cal account in the late 19th century with the begin- ized in the work of Jean Piaget placed the source of
nings of empirical psychological research in the development in the mind of the child. Experience
work of Francis Galton (see Table 1). Francis Galton was necessary for the child to construct the world
coined the ‘‘nature versus nurture’’ phrase and in but it did not play a role in individual differences.
his view inherited characteristics were the origins Where the nativist shift in the 1960s was driven
of human nature. The nurture counterpoint was by advances in biological science, the nurturist shift
most strongly stated in the work of John Watson in in the 1980s was driven by three advances in the
the 1920s who propounded a new approach he social science—the war on poverty, the concept of a
labeled behaviorism, extending Pavlov’s condition- social ecology, and cultural deconstruction. Where
ing processes to explain human individual differ- behaviorist research focused on proximal connec-
ences. Learning theory came to dominate human tions between reinforcements and performance, sci-
developmental research for almost 50 years entists in other social disciplines were arguing that
strengthened by the operant paradigms promoted economic circumstance was a major constraint on
in the work of the Skinnerians. the availability of reinforcements, such that the
This tilt toward nurture began to shift in the developmental environments of the poor were
1960s under assault from three directions—ethol- deprived in contrast with those of the affluent. Sim-
ogy, behavioral genetics, and the cognitive revolu- ilar individuals in different social classes would
tion. Where S-R theorists had argued that the laws have quite different developmental outcomes.
of learning were primary in explaining develop- Bronfenbrenner (1977) in his vision of the social
mental change, ethologists were demonstrating that ecology offered a more differentiated model than
many complex behaviors did not seem to need any provided by economics alone. He identified the
reinforcement (Lorenz, 1950) and that S-R contin- distal influences of family, school, work, and
culture on the availability of reinforcements to the
child, providing a more comprehensive empirical
Table 1 model for predicting individual differences in
Rough History of Nature–Nurture development. The influence of postmodernist
deconstruction was manifest in the emergence of a
Historical era Empirical advance cultural psychology that went beyond cross-
1880–1940s—Nature Inherited differences
cultural descriptive studies. Meaning rather than
Instincts behavior became dominant through demonstrations
1920–1950s—Nurture Reinforcement theory that the same child behaviors could be given
Psychoanalytic theory different meanings in different societies leading
1960–1970s—Nature Ethology—species differences to different developmental consequences, and
Behavioral genetics conversely, different behaviors could be given the
Cognitive revolution same meaning leading to the same consequences.
1980–1990s—Nurture Poverty The new millennium coincided with another
Social ecology swing of the pendulum in the nativist direction,
Cultural deconstruction
again tied to major advances in biological science.
2000–2010s—Nature Molecular biology
Neuroscience and molecular biology have been
Neuroscience
making major contributions to our understanding
 Unified Theory of Development 9

of development with new technologies for imaging

the brain and manipulating the genome. But, as
will be discussed below, the more recent swings
between nature and nurture have been getting
shorter and their intermingling has been increasing.
An examination of Table 1 emphasizes the
swings between the popularity of nature and nur-
ture as developmental explanations. At each point
in time there are strong adherents of both positions
waiting for some new technological advance to
reinforce their point of view. Although this polarity
provides motivation for empirical innovation, it has
the unfortunate side effect of inhibiting theoretical Figure 1. Unity of opposites and interpenetration of opposites in
innovation. Despite the alternating claims that the yin and yang diagram. Nu = nurture; Na = nature.
argument is now closed by those on the frontier of
new explorations of nature or nurture, the fact
remains that after each advance most of the vari- units, only ultimate relationships. In the dialectical
ance in long-term developmental outcomes is still yin–yang there is a unity of opposites and an inter-
unexplained. It is the pressure of unexplained vari- penetration of opposites. The unity is indicated by the
ance that continually negates claims of ascendancy mutual embrace of the yin and the yang, as seen in
and dialectically motivates continuing exploration. the figure, but yin and yang also interpenetrate
I have presented a descriptive case for the each other as depicted by the small black spot of
cycling of explanations between nature and nurture yin within the yang and small white spot of yang
to raise the question if there is an explanation of within the yin.
the repetitive pattern. It could be interpreted as In the psychological realm these ideas have been
simply the result of technological or theoretical applied frequently, beginning with the philosophi-
advances, but it also could be a phenomenon in cal writings of Hegel and most manifest in Piaget’s
itself. The development of the nature–nurture theory of cognitive development. There is a unity
debate might follow developmental principles simi- of opposites between one’s cognitions and the
lar to those that regulate human development and world that is being cognized. Without the world
the examination of the two in parallel might illumi- there would be nothing to cognize, and without the
nate both. cognizer there would be no cognitions. But there is
also an interpenetration of opposites. One’s cogni-
tion leads to one’s action which becomes part of the
world (the small black dot in the white area), and
Nonlinear Models of Development
then the changed world becomes a part of one’s
An appreciation of cycling requires an appreciation cognition (the small white dot in the black area) in
of a number of nonlinear processes that I will dis- a continuing dialectical progression.
cuss under the general rubric of dialectical theory The dialectical perspective on nature and nurture
with specific attention to a developmental helix and is that they mutually constitute each other. There is
processes of differentiation and integration. Dialec- a unity of opposites in that development will not
tics have been directly or indirectly emphasized for occur without both, and there is an interpenetration
studying development and especially relationships of opposites in that one’s nature changes one’s nur-
(Hinde, 1997; Riegel, 1976). An initial approach to ture and conversely one’s nurture changes one’s
dialectics is best captured by consideration of the nature, as captured in current transactional models.
Taoist diagram of the dark yin and the light yang Moreover, and most salient, without the one, the
(see Figure 1) that emphasizes that opposites are in other would not exist. Species and their environ-
a mutually constituting relationship. They were cre- ments evolved together in a coactive and transac-
ated together and remain bound to each other. This tional relationship. Gottlieb’s (1992) construct of
philosophical statement is empirically validated at probablistic epigenesis centered on the joint regula-
the most fundamental level of physics where tion by organismic and experiential factors that
quarks, the current basic entities, are always in a produced development with neither having priority
relationship with each other. At the most funda- over the other. The reciprocal bootstrapping
mental level of the universe there are no ultimate between cultural change in groups and cognitive
10 Sameroff

change in individuals is well articulated by Cole is different because of the experience of the previ-
(2006) in his description of human phylogeny. ous night and each night is different because of the
Although Galton and Watson are the straw men experience of the preceding day. A more complex
that nurturists and nativists, respectively, rail example would be the development of representa-
against, both appreciated the unity of constitutions tion in children (Werner, 1948). Initially, infants
and environments. Galton (1876) recognized the represent the world as images of here and now
influence of social class and wrote, ‘‘Nature pre- experiences. Preschoolers cycle over the same mate-
vails enormously over nurture when the differences rial but now have the capacity to depict images in
of nurture do not exceed what is commonly to be drawings that may have a one-to-one correspon-
found among persons of the same rank in society dence to the images but are not the same as the
and in the same country.’’ Watson (1914), in turn, images. In a few years they will recycle over the
recognized that individual and species differences same contents but now with the ability to do
were important, ‘‘effectiveness of habit training abstract representations such as maps where the
would be facilitated by knowledge of an animal’s pictorial aspects may be completely eliminated in
individual instinctive responses.’’ The unity and favor of words and symbols. Such developmental
interpenetration of nature and nurture will be more recycling also occurs in the social-emotional
fully explored in the unified model of development domain where relationship experiences and repre-
to follow. sentations derived from early parent–child relation-
ships are reworked as children enter into peer
relationships and reworked again in the romantic
The Developmental Double Helix
relationships beginning in adolescence. Erikson
The dynamic dialectical interplay between oppo- (1959), although not known for his empiricism, was
sites can best be captured as an image of a helix very articulate in describing the recycling of iden-
that depicts the developmental aspects of changes tity issues that are never resolved but through a
over time as can be seen in Figure 2a. A simple balancing of opposites provide the impetus for each
example of a developmental progression is the succeeding stage. The figure of the helix empha-
daily cycle where spiraling to the right would be sizes that the same issues in a variety of domains
the movement toward day and spiraling left would are revisited again and again during development.
be the movement toward night. Although this is a The ubiquity of this helical concept is even found
repetitive cycle, it becomes helical in that each day in Graduate Record Examination practice questions

Figure 2. (a) Developmental helix. (b) Differentiation and integration of helix. (c) Developmental double helix of nature and nurture.
 Unified Theory of Development 11

(Princeton Review, 2009) where a correct answer is Figure 2c). Each new breakthrough initially goes
‘‘Science advances in a widening spiral in that each through a stage of differentiation as a new method-
new conceptual scheme embraces the phenomena ology comes into play and then integration as it
explained by its predecessors and adds to those becomes connected to developmental phenomena.
explanations.’’ The developments in molecular biology would be a
recent example on the nature side where the gen-
ome project produced the differentiated genes that
Differentiation and Hierarchic Integration
now can be integrated into endophenotypes that
The developmental helix pushes us toward a have more proximal connections to behavior. On
more elaborate nonlinear process expressed as dif- the nurture side, the differentiation of the social
ferentiation and hierarchic integration. As formu- ecology into a set of subsystems of family, school,
lated in Werner’s (1957) orthogenetic principle, peer group, and neighborhood influences, for
‘‘Wherever development occurs it proceeds from a example, led to efforts at integrating its effect on
state of relative globality and lack of differentiation to development within comprehensive statistical mod-
a state of increasing differentiation, articulation, and els. Whether one gains ascendance over the other is
hierarchic integration.’’ If viewed within the helical a complex result of psychology (e.g., it is easier to
metaphor in Figure 2b, we could consider the conceptualize the parts we are made of than the
movement toward differentiation as going in one wholes of which we are parts), anthropology (e.g.,
direction with a widening of the coil, as for exam- the preference in Western culture for individual-
ple, the number of words in a child’s vocabulary or based rather than relationship-based explanations
the number of color concepts increases, and then of behavior), sociology (e.g., whether there is a
the movement toward integration going in the greater societal demand to mitigate the effects of
other direction with a narrowing of the coil, as for biological disease or social disorder), and econom-
example, the chunking of metacognition occurs, ics (e.g., whether investments in nature or nurture
only once again to begin differentiating again as the research offer the best opportunity to reduce the
number of metaconcepts increases. costs of developmental problems).
If we consider the historical differentiation of What is important in this discussion is to appre-
nature, what began in Galton’s laboratory as a cata- ciate that there is a cycling between nature and
logue of measurable differences in behavior was nurture explanations of development that have a
reconceptualized as really being differences in neu- developmental course. The development of our sci-
rological electrical activity, and then as really being ence may be very similar to, and thus very useful
differences in neurotransmitter activity, and then as for, understanding the development of human
really being differences in genomic activity, and beings. The dialectics of differentiation and hierar-
most recently as really being differences in epige- chic integration may characterize all developmental
nomic activity. processes.
Analogously, there was also a historical differen- We can come away from this discussion with
tiation of nurture where an early romantic con- one of two propositions. The first is that the cycling
ception of the power of mother love was between nature and nurture will continue until
reconceptualized as differences in the pattern of either one or the other gets it right effectively end-
reinforcements provided by the parent, and then ing the argument. Unfortunately, the problem of
reconceptualized when it was discovered that multifinality and equifinality undercuts this possi-
differences in social circumstance constrained the bility (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996). On the nature
patterns of reinforcement available to the child, and side, whatever measure of individual differences
then reconceptualized when social circumstance has been discovered, two children with the same
was differentiated into the subsystems of the child’s characteristics can have quite different outcomes
social ecology, and then reconceptualized when it and two children with different characteristics can
was realized through social deconstruction that the have the same outcome. On the nurture side, what-
effects of social ecology were constrained by the ever measure of the social environmental has been
meanings that families and cultures imposed on discovered, two children with the same experiences
behavior. can have different outcomes and two children
The progression of nature and nurture concep- with quite different experiences can have the same
tions can be summarized by a double helix that outcome.
captures their alternating differentiation and inte- The second proposition is that nature and nur-
gration waxing and waning through time (see ture represent a unity of opposites such that neither
12 Sameroff

can ever get it right on its own. Because of their

Personal Change Model
interpenetration advances in our understanding of
nature illuminate nurture and changes in our Because psychology’s central focus is on individ-
understanding of nature illuminate nature. uals, developmental psychology’s main concerns
Although the literature contains many references to have been on how children change over time. How
the fact that one cannot separate nature from nur- one thinks about developmental change will have a
ture, there are fewer references to how their unity clear influence on research objectives. Three ways
operates. The rest of this article will be devoted to of conceptualizing change can be seen in
an effort to integrate contemporary advances in our Figure 3—trait, growth, and developmental. If one
understandings of both nature and nurture into a believes that an individual consists of a set of
unified theory of development. unchanging traits then there is no need for develop-
mental research. If development is considered a
growth process then it can have classic epigenetic
explanations in that all the parts are there to start
A Unified Theory of Development
with and it is their interactions that produce the
Contemporary developmental science requires at changes in the phenotype, or it can be considered
least four models for understanding human experience dependent but only as nutrition for the
growth: a personal change one, a contextual one, a unfolding maturation process. Viewing personal
regulation one, and a representational one. The per- change as a stage process can have a descriptive or
sonal change model is necessary for understanding theoretical meaning (Kessen, 1962). Descriptive
the progression of competencies from infancy on. It stages are paraphrases for age and consist of lists of
requires unpacking the changing complexity of the average achievements, for example, of 1-year-olds,
individual as he or she moves from the sensorimo-
tor functioning of infancy to increasingly intricate
levels of cognition; from early attachments with a
few caregivers to relationships with many peers,
teachers, and others in the world beyond home and
school; and from the early differentiation of self
and other to the multifaceted personal and cultural
identities of adolescence and adulthood. The contex-
tual model is necessary to delineate the multiple
sources of experience that augment or constrain
individual development. The growing child is
increasingly involved with a variety of social set-
tings and institutions that have direct or indirect
impact as exemplified in Bronfenbrenner’s (1977)
view of the social ecology. The regulation model
adds a dynamic systems perspective to the relation
between person and context. During early develop-
ment, human regulation moves from the primarily
biological to the psychological and social. What
begins as the regulation of temperature, hunger,
and arousal soon turns to regulation of attention,
behavior, and social interactions. The last is the rep-
resentational model where an individual’s here and
now experiences in the world is given a timeless
existence in thought. These representations are the
cognitive structures where experience is encoded at
abstracted levels that provide an interpretive struc-
ture for new experiences, as well as a sense of self
and other. Combining these four models offers a
comprehensive view of the multiple parts, wholes,
and their connecting processes that comprise Figure 3. Personal change depicted as a trait, growth, or
human development. development.
 Unified Theory of Development 13

2-year-olds, or 3-year-olds, similar to how intelli- from the social context. Our understanding of expe-
gence quotient (IQ) tests are constructed. In con- rience has moved from a focus on primary caregiv-
trast, the theoretical use of stage implies that there ers to multiple other sources of socialization. There
is a period of stability of functioning followed by a were many predecessors who felt that families,
transition to a structurally different period of stabil- schools, neighborhoods, and culture had influences
ity presumed to reflect more encompassing cogni- on development, but Bronfenbrenner turned these
tive and social functioning. The classic examples of ideas into a comprehensive framework with predic-
theoretical use of stages are in the writings of Freud tions of how these settings affect the child but also
and Piaget. Although there have been major revi- how they affect each other. Although his terminol-
sions or rejections of these particular formulations, ogy of microsystems, mesosystems, macrosystems,
there are some generally accepted notions that exosystems, and chronosystems may not be univer-
within many domains individuals move from sally accepted, his principles that the family, school,
novices, to experts, to masters where they do not and community are all intertwined in explaining
just do things better, they do things differently any particular child’s progress is now universally
(Ericsson & Charness, 1994). acknowledged (see Figure 4).
The general range of developmental changes has Traditionally, social contacts were considered to
been extended well into adulthood and aging by expand from participation wholly in the family mi-
the orientations of life span (Baltes, 1979) and life crosystem into later contact with the peer group
course theories (Elder, 1979) with their heavy and school system. Today, however, many infants
emphasis on the importance of continuing altera- are placed in out-of-home group child care in the
tions in the family, the workplace, and the histori- first months of life. Each of these settings has its
cal epoch as individuals move into adulthood. The own system properties such that their contributions
inability to separate individuals from context in the to the development of the child are only one of
life-span models of adulthood provides a motiva- many institutional functions. For example, the
tion to reconceptualize the importance of develop- administration of a school setting needs attention to
mental context for younger individuals as well. The financing, hiring, training of staff, and building
child or individual is not a unity and any model maintenance before it can perform its putative func-
of the person also has to include the complex of tion of caring for or educating children (Maxwell,
psychological and underlying biological changes 2009). Thus, a sociological analysis of such settings
as well. provides information about its ability to impact
children.
Attention to the effects on children of changing
Contextual Model
settings over time must be augmented by attention
Although developmental psychology is focused to changing characteristics of individuals within a
on individuals, it has become clear that under- setting. Contemporary social models take a life
standing change requires an analysis of an individ- course perspective that includes the interlinked life
ual’s experience. Behavior, in general, and trajectories of not only the child but other family
development, in particular, cannot be separated members (Elder, Johnson, & Crosnoe, 2003). For
example, experience for the child may be quite dif-
ferent if the mother is in her teens with limited
education, or in her 30s after completing profes-
sional training and entry into the job force.
Capturing the complex effects of multiple envi-
ronmental situations has been a daunting enterprise
requiring vast sample sizes to capture the unique
contributions of each setting. An alternative meth-
odology to dimensionalize the negative or positive
quality of a child’s experience has been the use of
multiple or cumulative risk or promotive factor
scores. For example, a set of data on the effects of a
number of environmental variables on adolescent
development was provided by a study of a large
group of Philadelphia families (Furstenberg, Cook,
Figure 4. Social-ecological model of context. Eccles, Elder, & Sameroff, 1999).
14 Sameroff

In the Philadelphia project 20 environmental fac- families with few promotive factors on each of our
tors were assessed and combined to approximate array of adolescent outcomes. For the youth in the
an ecological model containing six contextual sub- Philadelphia sample, the more risk factors, the
systems. These were Family Processes that included worse the outcomes, and the more promotive fac-
support for autonomy, behavior control, parental tors, the better the outcomes. In sum, context
involvement, and family climate; Parent Characteris- includes a constellation of environmental influences
tics that included mental health, sense of efficacy, that have general effects on child development, fos-
resourcefulness, and level of education; Family tering child development at one end and inhibiting
Structure that included the parents’ marital status it at the other.
and socioeconomic indicators of household crowd- Of great significance for the life course, these
ing and welfare status; Family Management com- effects play out over time as a manifestation of the
posed of variables of institutional involvement, Matthew effect, ‘‘To the man who has, more will be
informal networks, social resources, and adjust- given until he grows rich; the man who has not will
ments to economic pressure; Peers that included lose what little he has’’ (Matthew 13:12). In a study
indicators of association with prosocial and antiso- of high- and low-IQ 4-year-olds we tracked their
cial peers; and Community that included census academic achievement through high school
tract information on average income and educa- (Gutman, Sameroff, & Cole, 2003). The low-IQ
tional level of the neighborhood, a parent report of group living in low contextual risk conditions
neighborhood problems, and measures of the ado- consistently did better than the high-IQ group
lescent’s school climate. In addition to the large living in high risk conditions. Over time promotive
number of ecological variables, we used a wide or risky contextual effects either fostered or wiped
array of youth developmental outcomes in five out prior individual competence.
domains: Psychological Adjustment, Self-Competence,
Conduct Problems, Extracurricular Involvement, and
Regulation Model
Academic Performance.
For the environmental risk effects analyses each The third component of the unified theory is the
of the 20 variables was dichotomized with approxi- regulation model reflecting the systems orientation of
mately one fourth of the families in the high-risk modern science (Sameroff, 1983). The idea that that
group and then the number of high risk conditions the child is in a dynamic rather than passive rela-
summed. When we examined the relation between tionship with experience has become a basic tenet
the multiple risk factor score and the five adoles- of contemporary developmental psychology. How-
cent outcomes, there were large declines in out- ever, most of the rhetoric is about ‘‘self’’-regulation.
come with increasing risk and a substantial overlap Whether it is Piaget’s assimilation-accommodation
in slope for each (Sameroff, 2006). Although this model in cognition or Rothbart’s (1981) reactivity
kind of epidemiological research does not unpack and self-regulatory view of temperament, equilibra-
the processes by which each individual is impacted tion is primarily a characteristic native to the child.
by contextual experience, it does document the The context is necessary as a source of passive
multiple factors in the environment that are candi- experiences that stimulate individual adaptation,
dates for more specific analyses. but has no active role in shaping that adaptation.
We also examined the effects of promotive influ- These views promote a belief that regulation is a
ences in the Philadelphia study. Sameroff (1999) property of the person. However, self-regulation
proposed that a better term for the positive end of mainly occurs in a social surround that is actively
the risk dimension would be promotive rather than engaged in ‘‘other’’-regulation. At the biological
protective factors. A promotive factor would have a level the self-regulatory activity of genes is inti-
positive effect in both high- and low-risk popula- mately connected to the other-regulatory activity of
tions, which is far more common than a protective the surrounding cell cytoplasm. In Thelen’s (1989)
factor that only facilitates the development of high- view of dynamic systems other-regulation is pro-
risk children. We created a set of promotive factors vided by the strange attractors of chaos theory. The
by cutting each of our environmental variables at self-regulation leading to an infant’s neurologically
the top quartile, rather than the bottom, and sum- based coordination of walking is constrained by the
ming them. The effects of the multiple promotive other-regulation of the child’s muscle development,
factor score mirrored the effects of the multiple risk the strange attractor.
score. Children from families with many promotive This issue of the developmental expansion of
factors did substantially better than children from self-regulation to include other-regulation is
 Unified Theory of Development 15

captured by the ice-cream-cone-in-a-can model of between family and their cultural and economic sit-
development (Sameroff & Fiese, 2000) depicted in uations (Raver, 2004). These regulatory systems
Figure 5. The developmental changes in the range from the here-and-now experiences of par-
relation between individual and context are repre- ent–child interactions to governmental concern
sented as an expanding cone within a cylinder. The with the burden of national debt that will be passed
balance between other-regulation and self-regula- on the next generation and to conservationists’ con-
tion shifts as the child is able to take on more and cerns with the fate of the planet as a viable environ-
more responsibility for his or her own well-being. ment for future generations of humans.
The infant, who at birth could not survive without Early functional physiological self-regulation of
the caregiving environment, eventually reaches sleep, crying, and attention are augmented by care-
adulthood and can become part of the other-regula- giving that provides children with regulatory expe-
tion of a new infant, beginning the next generation. riences to help them quiet down on the one hand
It is parents who keep children warm, feed them, and become more attentive on the other. Sleep is an
and cuddle them when they cry; peers who provide interesting example where biological regulation
children with knowledge about the range and becomes psychological regulation through social
limits of their social behavior; and teachers who regulation. As wakefulness begins to emerge as a
socialize children into group behavior as well as distinct state it is expanded and contracted by inter-
regulate cognition into socially constructed actions with caregivers who stimulate alertness and
domains of knowledge. Although these other-regu- facilitate sleepiness. Although it remains an essen-
lators can be considered background to the emer- tial biological process, eventually it takes on a large
gence of inherent individual differences in degree of self-regulation as the child and then adult
regulatory capacities, there has been much evidence make active decisions about waking time and sleep-
from longitudinal research among humans and ing time. But this agentic decision making remains
cross-fostering studies in other animals that ‘‘self’’- intimately connected with other-regulation in terms
regulatory capacities are heavily influenced by the of the demands of school and work for specific
experience of regulation provided by caregivers. periods of wakefulness.
The capacity for self-regulation arises through the Robert Emde and I with a group of colleagues
actions of others. This regulation by others provides (Sameroff & Emde, 1989) in an attempt to describe
the increasingly complex social, emotional, and mental health diagnoses for infants argued for a
cognitive experiences to which the child must self- position that infant diagnoses could not be sepa-
regulate and the safety net when self-regulation rated from relationship diagnoses. Our point was
fails. Children’s cognition to a large extent is not that in early development life is a ‘‘we-ness’’ rather
derived from direct experiences with the environ- than an ‘‘I-ness.’’ The developmental and clinical
ment but based on interpretations provided by oth- question in this case is when does diagnosis
ers (Gelman, 2009). Moreover, these regulations are become individualized, at what stage does a child
embedded not only in the relation between child have a self-regulation problem instead of an other-
and context but also in the additional relations regulation problem? One answer is to identify the
point in development when areas of self-regulation
become independent of initial regulatory contexts
and are carried into new relationships. Children
who have imaginary playmates provide an interest-
ing perspective on the relation between self- and
other-regulation. The more preschoolers engaged in
fantasy and pretense, the more sophisticated their
theory of mind (Taylor & Carlson, 2009).
Generally, research into self-regulation has
focused on part processes, such as emotion or
attention. Such empirical isolation obscures the
larger picture in which many interacting systems
are playing significant roles. Without regulation
provided by the social context, for example,
nutrition and temperature, the young child would
Figure 5. Transactional relations between self-regulation and not survive to engage in emotional or attentional
other-regulation. processes.
16 Sameroff

the social realm increases in social responsibility

Transactional Regulation
are paced to the success of the adjustment to previ-
The previous discussion of the need for a con- ous levels of responsibility (Rogoff, 2003).
struct of other-regulation to complete an under- In a more popular vein Gladwell (2008) describes
standing of self-regulation leads now to how the the life course of a number of eminent individuals
relation between self and other operates develop- in sports, commerce, and technology, where
mentally and for this we turn to the transactional equally competent children did not achieve similar
model (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975). Transactions greatness because of the lack of social, educational,
are omnipresent. Everything in the universe is or technological possibilities. In each case initial
affecting something else or is being affected by advantage scaffolded the child to be able to elicit
something else. In the transactional model the and make use of a series of opportunities docu-
development of the child is a product of the contin- menting the transactional progression that eventu-
uous dynamic interactions of the child and the ally led to eminence.
experience provided by his or her social settings.
What is core to the transactional model is the ana-
Representational Model
lytic emphasis placed on the interdependent effects
of the child and environment and is depicted in the Representations are encodings of experience.
bidirectional arrows between self and other in They are a more or less elaborated internal sum-
Figure 5. mary of the external world. They include the cogni-
In a recent book on the topic (Sameroff, 2009), a tive representations where the external world is
number of researchers documented transactional internalized, the social representations where rela-
processes in cognitive and social-emotional tionships become working models, the cultural
domains where agents in the family, school, and representations of different ethnicities or social clas-
cultural contexts altered the course of children’s ses, and the developmental theories discussed here.
development in both positive and negative direc- Representations are obviously not the same as what
tions. Transactional examples have been typically they represent. They have an adaptive function of
in the behavioral domain with an emphasis on par- bringing order to a variable world, producing a set
ent–child mutual exacerbations producing problem of expectations of how things should fit together.
behavior in both partners (Patterson, 1986). More We have long been familiar with such represen-
recently, transactions have been recognized in tea- tations as perceptual constancy in which objects are
cher–student relationships where the effects of the perceived as being a certain size even when the
teacher on the child in one grade will change the sensory size is manipulated. In such a summation
reaction of the teacher in the next moving the stu- certain aspects are selected and others ignored. In
dent to higher or lower levels of competence the representation of a square for example, the size,
(Morrison & Connor, 2009). Multilevel transactions color, and texture of the square object may be
have also been documented where not only the ignored. Analogously, when representations are
parent and child are transacting with each other made of a social object such as a parent, certain
but both are also transacting with cultural practices features are included in the representation and
(Bornstein, 2009). others are ignored. Research using the adult attach-
Vygotsky’s (1978) zone of proximal development ment interview (Main & Goldwyn, 1984) has found
is analogous to transactional other-regulation in that representations of parents are often idealized,
cognitive development. Successful socialization and where only positive aspects are included in the
particularly good education is based on fitting mental model. Although the links between the
experience to the developmental status of the child. quality of representations of child–parent relation-
As children create their understanding of the ships during infancy and those during adulthood
world, the world is made more complex through are far from direct, early working models of attach-
steps in a curriculum to move them along toward ment do seem to have long-term consequences for
some societal goal of mature thought. Arithmetic is adult development (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, &
an excellent example where as soon as children Collins, 2005).
learn to add, they are required to learn to subtract, Similarly, parents create representations of
following which they are taught to multiply and their children that emphasize certain aspects,
divide. Each step is a transactional regulation of the deemphasize others, and have stability over time
environment by the teacher to keep one step ahead independent of the child’s actual characteristics.
of the child’s mathematical regulation. Similarly, in We had parents rate their infants’ temperament
 Unified Theory of Development 17

during the 1st year of life following a structured nent of the personal model to capture the processes
interaction sequence (Seifer, Sameroff, Barrett, & that produce the life course and then finish the uni-
Krafchuk, 1994). We also had them rate the temper- fied theory with an overlay of the representational
ament of six unfamiliar infants engaged in the same model.
interaction sequence. The average correlation in
temperament ratings of the unfamiliar infants
Structural Formulation
between mothers and trained observers was .84
with none below .60. The average correlation in The self is composed of a set of interacting psy-
temperament ratings between mothers and trained chological and biological processes. The psychologi-
observers for their own children was .35 with a cal domains overlap in cognitive and emotional
range down to ).40. Mothers were very good raters realms of intelligence, mental health, social compe-
of other people’s children but very poor raters of tence, and identity, among others. These are
their own due to the personal representations that depicted as the set of grey, overlapping circles com-
they imposed on their observations. Documenting prising the psychological part of the self in
such differences in parent representations would be Figure 6. Each of these psychological domains is
of no more than intellectual interest, if there were subserved by and interacts with a set of interacting
not consequences for the later development of biological processes, including neurophysiology,
the child. For example, infants whose mothers neuroendocrinology, proteomics, epigenomics, and
perceived them as problematic criers during genomics that are depicted as a set of black, over-
infancy increased their crying during toddlerhood lapping circles. Together the gray and black circles
and had higher problem behavior scores when they comprise the biopsychological self system. This
were preschoolers (McKenzie & McDonough, 2009). self-regulation system interacts with the other-
Individual well-being is also a result of meaning- regulation system, depicted by the surrounding
ful cultural engagement with desirable everyday white circles, representing the many interacting
routines that have a script, goals, and values settings of the social ecology, including family,
(Weisner, 2002). Meaningfulness, a key component school, neighborhood, community, and overarching
of cultural analyses, is primarily found in coherent geopolitical influences. Taken together the
representations. Evidence of a positive effect of three sets of overlapping circles comprise the bio-
meaning systems can be found in Fiese and psychosocial aspects of the individual in context.
Winter’s (2009) descriptions of how family routines
provide a narrative representation for the rest of
Process Formulation
the family members that allows the whole to con-
tinue adaptive functioning despite the variability in The process formulation adds the personal
the behavior of the parts. Evidence of a negative change time dimension to the biopsychosocial
effect of lack of meaningfulness is in a study of model, which can be viewed as either a growth
native Canadian youth who showed much higher model, where the biopsychological aspects increase
levels of suicide and other problem behavior when quantitatively over time but there is no change in
there were large inconsistencies in cultural continu- their interrelationships as in the cone image (see
ity from one generation to another (Chandler, Lal- Figure 5) or a developmental model, where the
onde, Sokol, & Hallett, 2003). The order or disorder aspects have qualitative shifts in organization in
in a family or society’s representation of itself which there are changing relations among the bio-
affects the adaptive functioning of its members. psychosocial aspects (see Figure 7).
Evolutionary theory has provided a fruitful ana-
log for understanding the transitions that lead from
one developmental stage to another. As opposed to
Unifying the Theory of Development
the gradualist understanding of evolutionary
Now that the four models necessary for a theory of changes originally proposed by Darwin that would
development have been described, I can proceed to look like the growth model, Eldredge and Gould
integrate them into a comprehensive view that con- (1972) argued that evolution was characterized by
tains most known influences on life trajectories. continuity evidenced in long periods of stasis
I will begin with a structural depiction of the where there were only modest changes alternating
components of the personal and contextual models with discontinuity where there were short periods
containing all the pieces relevant to development. of rapid change that they labeled punctuated equilib-
I will then add the regulation and change compo- rium. The implication was that there was a balance
18 Sameroff

Figure 6. Biopsychosocial ecological system.

between species and their ecosystems until it was but also asked if there were contextual changes
interrupted by either large changes in the species during this age period. We reached the conclusion
or large changes in the environment that required a that there was a 5- to 7-year shift in the child if by 5
new equilibration. In terms of understanding devel- we meant 3 and by 7 we meant 10. This answer
opmental discontinuities in the individual, we reflects the study of what might be called ‘‘part
would need to search for such changes in the child processes.’’ If one asks whether 5-year-olds can
or the context that create pressures for a new equili- attend, remember, have emotions, engage in social
bration. These forces are represented by the up interactions, and even take charge of social interac-
and down arrows around points of inflection in tions, the answer is yes. If one asks whether 5-year-
Figure 7. olds can fully integrate their physical, cognitive,
One of the most commonly accepted transitions emotional, and social worlds, the answer is no. But
has been the 5- to 7-year shift in cognition origi- neither can 7-year-olds. So what is the punctuation
nally documented in 21 behavioral domains by between the ages of 5 and 7? On average 5- to
White (1965) and accentuated in the work of Piaget. 7-year-olds can integrate several behaviors that
Thirty years later Sameroff and Haith (1996) and a permit the beginnings of formal education in most
group of contributors reexamined this transition cultures in the world—increased cognitive ability,
the ability to sit still, and the ability to pay atten-
tion. Some children have these capacities much
earlier, but the requirements for successful partici-
pation in the school setting require all three plus a
number of others. White’s (1996) more recent con-
clusion was that, ‘‘what happens to children
between 5 and 7 is not the acquisition of an abso-
lute ability to reason; it is an ability to reason with
others and to look reasonable in the context of soci-
ety’s demands on the growing child to be coopera-
tive and responsible (p. 27).’’ In Figure 7 there are
up arrows from self to other reflecting child
advances, but there may be more powerful influ-
ences from other to self where society does the
developmental punctuation by requiring the child
to spend most of the day in school rather than at
Figure 7. Unified theory of development including the personal home. From this perspective the stages of infancy,
change, context, and regulation models. childhood, adolescence, and adulthood could be
 Unified Theory of Development 19

relabeled the home stage, the elementary school narrow focus as possible unless forced to enlarge
stage, the secondary school stage, and the work the scope by some contradictory findings. The top-
and new family stage. down theoretical stance is that researchers need to
Similar analyses can be applied to the punctua- be aware that they are examining only a part of a
tions that occur in the transition to adolescence or larger whole consisting of multiple interacting
adulthood. It is the relation between shifts in the dynamic systems.
child and shifts in the context that mark
new stages. Puberty is a biological achievement of
the child but adolescence is a socially designated Future of Nature Versus Nurture
phase between childhood and adulthood
Current Nature Ascendance
(Worthman, 1993). Puberty is universal but adoles-
cence is not, either in historical or cross-cultural The current ascendance of research using new
perspective. In many cultures adolescence is biological measures of individual differences is the
directly tied to biological changes but in modern- result of the interdisciplinary collaboration that
izing cultures it is more closely tied to age-based Parke (2004) had indicated was essential to the
transitions into middle and high schools. Depend- advance of developmental research. These advances
ing on the culture sexual participation can be in molecular genetics, endocrinology, and neurology
encouraged at an early age before biological matu- are being rapidly integrated into psychological
rity or discouraged until individuals are well into research. The good news is that the new science is
adulthood. These pressures from changes in the no longer based on the reductionist models of the
child and the context are represented by the up past where linear progressions were proposed
and down arrows around the adolescent transition between biological entities such as genes or neuro-
in Figure 7. In western societies, adolescence transmitters and psychological function. In each
is generally recognized but the quality of the ado- domain multidirectional models are replacing unidi-
lescent experience is quite variable and may be rectional ones with a growing emphasis on gene–
heavily dependent on stage–environment fit. environment interactions, epigenome–experience
Depending on the particular family or school sys- transactions, and brain plasticity. These advances
tem, desires for autonomy and intimacy can be are relationship based, requiring increasingly com-
fostered or thwarted moving the adolescent into plicated systems analyses to capture the multiple
better or worse future functioning. Negative psy- part–whole processes underlying developmental
chological changes associated with adolescent change. Nurture, for example, the environment of
development often result from a mismatch the gene, the environment of the cell, and the envi-
between the needs of developing adolescents and ronment of the organism, are incorporated into
the opportunities afforded them by their social advanced analyses of the contribution of context at
environments (Eccles et al., 1993). every level of analysis. It is striking that the nonre-
The unified theory depicted in Figure 7 combines ductionist systems thinking that those who define
the personal change, contextual, and regulation psychology as a natural science have avoided is a
model, but it would become overly complex to add now a central part of their colleague disciplines of
the representational model to the figure, as well. biology and physics. Developmental science is bene-
Suffice it to say that representation suffuses every fiting from advances in the natural sciences at the
aspect of the model in the interacting identities, theoretical as well as the empirical level.
attitudes, beliefs, and attributions of the child, the
family, the culture, and the organizational structure
Next Resurgence of Nurture
of social institutions. Moreover, the way develop-
mental science conceptualizes the child may be A renewed emphasis on the importance of nur-
only one of a number of possible cultural inven- ture is underway. Again, it is a dialectical result of
tions (Kessen, 1979). The most important represen- the inability of appeals to human nature to explain
tation for current purposes is captured in the fully developmental pathways. There remain large
depiction of a unified theory of development. amounts of unexplained variance. The nurture
Like most theories the unified view does not make resurgence is implicit in the new directions for bio-
specific predictions but does specify what will be logical sciences such as epigenomics, described
necessary for explaining any developmental above, and will become explicit with a more power-
phenomena. It is a reversal of the usual bottom-up ful appreciation of the perspectives on human
empirical stance where the researcher maintains as development provided by social sciences beyond
20 Sameroff

psychology. The core element in each interdisciplin- reframed ourselves as developmental scientists when
ary effort is that successful developmental predic- we gained a fuller appreciation of the contribution
tions from psychological measures are highly of biology and the social ecology to psychological
contingent on the social or biological context. growth. In the new millennium we again are
Two of the major ingredients needing integration changing our self description to developmental sys-
into a unified developmental science are the tems theorists as multilevel biopsychosocial dynamic
opportunity structure construct from sociology and systems are becoming the framework for under-
economics and the meaning making construct from standing human change over time and statisticians
anthropology. are providing tools that are closer approximations
The important perspective that sociology adds to to the complexity of our data.
developmental science is that individuals are With regard to what we have learned about
embedded in networks of relationships that con- nature and nurture, the future challenge is not to
strain or encourage different aspects of individual find new arguments for one or the other but to
behavior. Social institutions like families, schools, create a developmental model where advances in
and the workplace are composed of roles that chil- the study of both individual and context are
dren come to understand and fill. In this view indi- expected and hoped for. I have proposed such a
vidual differences, the core of psychological biopsychosocial unified theory of development
concern, are limited by role demands in predicting that I hope will be useful for future research in
developmental outcomes. Economists are interested human development. Over time the body changes,
in what keeps economies going and individual the brain changes, the mind changes, and the
behavior is viewed through the lens of financial environment changes along courses that may be
choices. The part of economics most relevant to somewhat independent of each other and some-
behavioral development is the availability of an what a consequence of experience with each other.
opportunity structure. Once again the predictive It should be a very exciting enterprise to fill in
power of individual differences is constrained by the details of how biological, psychological, and
the availability of such resources as educational social experiences foster and transform each other
systems, job choices, and social mobility that deter- to explain both adaptive and maladaptive func-
mines whether individuals have the option to use tioning across the life course.
their prior competencies or not. Anthropology is Coming full circle to the dialectical principles
indeed interested in cultural differences in behav- of the yin–yang model, there are continuities as
ior, but equally important for understanding devel- scientists concerned with greater differentiations
opment are differences in meaning systems, that is, within our biological and social experience con-
how different cultures think about their practices. tinue to push our understanding of both nature
The same behavior can have quite different mean- and nurture. But there are increasing discontinu-
ings and quite different behaviors can have the ities with the rhetoric of the past as many more
same meaning in different cultures. Again the pre- developmentalists realize that neither nature nor
dictive power of individual differences is con- nurture will provide ultimate truths and neither
strained by how different cultures value and can be an end in itself. Instead, each can explain
proscribe different behaviors. the influences of the other because in the end nei-
ther can exist without the other. They mutually
constitute each other through their unity and
Development of the Developmentalist
interpenetration of opposites. The schematic depic-
I began this article proposing that the study of tion of the unified theory of development provides
the development of our field would illuminate our an integrated way of looking at things, but also
study of the development of individuals. Up until for things. Although we all have a strong desire
the 1960s child psychologist was the predominant for straightforward explanations of life, develop-
label for researchers with children and the main ment is complicated and models for explaining it
focus was on identifying measures of stable intelli- need to be complicated enough to usefully inform
gence and personality traits that would be predic- our understanding.
tive of adult performance. In the 1960s and 1970s
we became developmental psychologists as organiza- Everything should be as simple as possible, but
tional principles and emergents dominated the not simpler.
rhetoric around the cognitive revolution and attach- Albert Einstein
ment theory. During the 1980s and 1990s we
 Unified Theory of Development 21

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