9 research outputs found

    A person-centered approach in developmental science:Why this is the future and how to get there

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    This paper argues for a person-centered approach in developmental science and presents theoretical and empirical techniques to help shift the focus to the individual. The need for a person-centered approach is urgent, because of widespread nonergodicity in developmental psychology: traditional between-individual, group-level statistics often cannot be used to understand individuals over time. Evidence for nonergodicity has been gathered in domains such as personality, emotions, identity, performance and intelligence. This highlights a mismatch between our typical research methods—group-level analyses—and a core aim of developmental science: understanding the development of individuals. The implications are profound. Without insights into within-individual processes, our understanding of development remains incomplete and perhaps even incorrect, which could hinder the design of effective interventions. Many of our developmental theories might need to be adjusted to accurately capture individual-level development. The theory of complex dynamic systems and person-centered simulations offer promising avenues to do this. In addition, many promising person-centered analysis techniques, that typically use long time series of data, are available to enhance our understanding of individual-level development. Together, these person-centered theoretical and empirical tools have the potential to help shift developmental science towards an understanding of development that genuinely reflects individual processes. Highlights: The problem of nonergodicity in psychological science is widespread, this highlights a need for a person-centered approach to development. Creating individual-level theoretical models is a difficult challenge, but complex dynamic systems theory and simulations can help. Person-centered analytical techniques presented in this paper can answer questions on individual development, by investigating the shape of individual trajectories, within-individual dynamics and nonlinear developments.</p

    A person-centered approach in developmental science:Why this is the future and how to get there

    Get PDF
    This paper argues for a person-centered approach in developmental science and presents theoretical and empirical techniques to help shift the focus to the individual. The need for a person-centered approach is urgent, because of widespread nonergodicity in developmental psychology: traditional between-individual, group-level statistics often cannot be used to understand individuals over time. Evidence for nonergodicity has been gathered in domains such as personality, emotions, identity, performance and intelligence. This highlights a mismatch between our typical research methods—group-level analyses—and a core aim of developmental science: understanding the development of individuals. The implications are profound. Without insights into within-individual processes, our understanding of development remains incomplete and perhaps even incorrect, which could hinder the design of effective interventions. Many of our developmental theories might need to be adjusted to accurately capture individual-level development. The theory of complex dynamic systems and person-centered simulations offer promising avenues to do this. In addition, many promising person-centered analysis techniques, that typically use long time series of data, are available to enhance our understanding of individual-level development. Together, these person-centered theoretical and empirical tools have the potential to help shift developmental science towards an understanding of development that genuinely reflects individual processes. Highlights: The problem of nonergodicity in psychological science is widespread, this highlights a need for a person-centered approach to development. Creating individual-level theoretical models is a difficult challenge, but complex dynamic systems theory and simulations can help. Person-centered analytical techniques presented in this paper can answer questions on individual development, by investigating the shape of individual trajectories, within-individual dynamics and nonlinear developments.</p

    Exploring Exploration:Identity Exploration in Real-Time Interactions among Peers

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    In this short-term longitudinal study, we examine specific examples of identity exploration in real-time interactions among peers. The participants included 12 first-year students majoring in literature, social sciences, and humanities at a national university in Japan (M age = 18.2; SD = 0.39; 83.3% female). They were divided into four triads that participated in weekly 20-minute discussions for nine successive weeks around three identity domains: learning, romantic relationships, and career. Transcripts were analyzed using a grounded theory approach. Seven characteristics of exploration were identified in real-time interactions: support, open disclosure, meta-exploration, investigating, creating an idea, conflict, and demotivating. In addition, these characteristics generated three major overarching patterns that advanced exploration: creating a safe environment for exploration, clarification and elaboration of the idea embedded in support essential for promoting exploration, and a combination of finding a keyword and repeating it on the border between exploration and discovering an aspect of identity. Overall, our results reveal that exploration in real-time interactions among peers did not involve a fixed sequence of characteristics; rather, it was vitalized by mutual affirmation, going back and forth among different characteristics of exploration while taking small steps
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