Toward a New View of Development

Developmental psychology has come a long way in recent decades. Some of this progress has been brought about by new methods — for example, the techniques that have allowed us to study the living brain and to map the human genome, the methodologies for studying infant perceptions, and for studying the moment by moment dynamics of problem solving. Some new insights have come more or less by accident — the discovery of the mirror neuron system, for example. Often reality has intruded, producing results that we couldn’t have predicted and can’t explain, forcing us to adapt our methods and theories — Patrick Rabbitt (2006) provides a fascinating example of this kind of effect in a long-term research project. But it is the steady evolution of theoretical ideas through systematic research that plays the leading part in driving the boundaries of knowledge forward.