Four prominent psychologists investigate a range of human development questions.
Belsky, Caspi, Moffitt, and Poulton bring together a variety of threads in this engaging account of the results of three longitudinal studies—“nonexperimental, observational research in which children are studied over time and no efforts are made to influence their development.” In mostly accessible, occasionally jargon-y prose, the authors explain that their field is a probabilistic rather than deterministic science, a dynamic process that mingles what is going on within the child and the environment in which they are raised. Taken together, a myriad of factors allows researchers to gain insight into—even to predict—future adult functioning. The volume displays scope and curiosity, as the authors look at genetic factors, whether early circumstances can forecast certain later developmental outcomes, how and if the family experience and the environmental situation shape aspects of later life, and the role of the childhood experience in determining elements of adult health. The authors also examine developmental mechanisms at work regarding how self-control displayed in childhood can lead to particular behavior in adulthood or how a diagnosis of childhood ADHD could affect elements of adult life. There is a clear mapping of how adverse family and neighborhood environments promoted enduring anti-social behavior, and there are evident indications that long hours spent in day care fostered disobedience and impulsivity (even in sensitive day care environments). There are wide-open, preliminary chapters on the roles of genetics and the environment on anti-social behavior and depression (and your chances of becoming a smoker), and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that adverse experiences in childhood, such as bullying, can undermine future health. Amid the grim news is evidence of the salubrious roles played by resilience and intervention.
A dispassionate embrace of both theory-guided inquiry and theory-free empiricism.
(28 illustrations)