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7 Main Developmental Theories

Child Development Theories of Freud, Erickson, and More

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Amy Morin, LCSW, is a psychotherapist and international bestselling author. Her books, including "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do," have been translated into more than 40 languages. Her TEDx talk,  "The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong," is one of the most viewed talks of all time.

Verywell / JR Bee 

• Top Theories

Child development theories focus on explaining how children change and grow over the course of childhood. These developmental theories center on various aspects of growth, including social, emotional, and cognitive development.

The study of human development is a rich and varied subject. We all have personal experience with development, but it is sometimes difficult to understand how and why people grow, learn, and act as they do.

Why do children behave in certain ways? Is their behavior related to their age, family relationships, or individual temperaments? Developmental psychologists strive to answer such questions as well as to understand, explain, and predict behaviors that occur throughout the lifespan.

In order to understand human development, a number of different theories of child development have arisen to explain various aspects of human growth.

History of Developmental Theories

Child development that occurs from birth to adulthood was largely ignored throughout much of human history. Children were often viewed simply as small versions of adults and little attention was paid to the many advances in cognitive abilities, language usage, and physical growth that occur during childhood and adolescence.

Interest in the field of child development finally began to emerge early in the 20th century, but it tended to focus on abnormal behavior. Eventually, researchers became increasingly interested in other topics including typical child development as well as the influences on development.

More recent theories outline the developmental stages of children and identify the typical ages at which these growth milestones occur.

Why Developmental Theories are Important

Developmental theories provide a framework for thinking about human growth and learning. But why do we study development? What can we learn from psychological theories of development? If you have ever wondered about what motivates human thought and behavior, understanding these theories can provide useful insight into individuals and society.

An understanding of child development is essential because it allows us to fully appreciate the cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and educational growth that children go through from birth and into early adulthood.

Why is it important to study how children grow, learn, and change? An understanding of child development is essential because it allows us to fully appreciate the cognitive, emotional, physical, social, and educational growth that children go through from birth and into early adulthood.

7 Best-Known Developmental Theories

There are many child development theories that have been proposed by theorists and researchers. Some of the major theories of child development are known as grand theories; they attempt to describe every aspect of development, often using a stage approach. Others are known as mini-theories; they instead focus only on a fairly limited aspect of development such as cognitive or social growth.

Freud's Psychosexual Developmental Theory

Psychoanalytic theory originated with the work of  Sigmund Freud . Through his clinical work with patients suffering from mental illness, Freud came to believe that childhood experiences and  unconscious  desires influenced behavior.

According to Freud, conflicts that occur during each of these stages can have a lifelong influence on personality and behavior. Freud proposed one of the best-known grand theories of child development.

According to Freud’s psychosexual theory, child development occurs in a series of stages focused on different pleasure areas of the body. During each stage, the child encounters conflicts that play a significant role in the course of development.

His theory suggested that the energy of the libido was focused on different erogenous zones at specific stages. Failure to progress through a stage can result in fixation at that point in development, which Freud believed could have an influence on adult behavior.

So what happens as children complete each stage? And what might result if a child does poorly during a particular point in development? Successfully completing each stage leads to the development of a healthy adult personality.

Failing to resolve the conflicts of a particular stage can result in fixations that can then have an influence on adult behavior.

While some other child development theories suggest that personality continues to change and grow over the entire lifetime, Freud believed that it was early experiences that played the greatest role in shaping development. According to Freud, personality is largely set in stone by the age of five.

Erikson's Psychosocial Developmental Theory

Psychoanalytic theory was an enormously influential force during the first half of the twentieth century. Those inspired and influenced by Freud went on to expand upon Freud's ideas and develop theories of their own. Of these neo-Freudians, Erik Erikson's ideas have become perhaps the best known.

Erikson's eight-stage theory of psychosocial development describes growth and change throughout life, focusing on social interaction and conflicts that arise during different stages of development.

While Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development  shared some similarities with Freud's, it is dramatically different in many ways. Rather than focusing on sexual interest as a driving force in development, Erikson believed that social interaction and experience played decisive roles.

His eight-stage theory of human development described this process from infancy through death. During each stage, people are faced with a developmental conflict that impacts later functioning and further growth.

Unlike many other developmental theories, Erik Erikson's psychosocial theory focuses on development across the entire lifespan. At each stage, children and adults face a developmental crisis that serves as a major turning point.

Successfully managing the challenges of each stage leads to the emergence of a lifelong psychological virtue.

Behavioral Child Development Theories

During the first half of the twentieth century, a new school of thought known as behaviorism rose to become a dominant force within psychology. Behaviorists believed that psychology needed to focus only on observable and quantifiable behaviors in order to become a more scientific discipline.

According to the behavioral perspective, all human behavior can be described in terms of environmental influences. Some behaviorists, such as  John B. Watson  and  B.F. Skinner , insisted that learning occurs purely through processes of association and reinforcement.

Behavioral theories of child development focus on how environmental interaction influences behavior and is based on the theories of theorists such as John B. Watson, Ivan Pavlov, and B. F. Skinner. These theories deal only with observable behaviors. Development is considered a reaction to rewards, punishments, stimuli, and reinforcement.

This theory differs considerably from other child development theories because it gives no consideration to internal thoughts or feelings. Instead, it focuses purely on how experience shapes who we are.

Two important types of learning that emerged from this approach to development are  classical conditioning  and  operant conditioning . Classical conditioning involves learning by pairing a naturally occurring stimulus with a previously neutral stimulus. Operant conditioning utilizes reinforcement and punishment to modify behaviors.

Piaget's Cognitive Developmental Theory

Cognitive theory is concerned with the development of a person's thought processes. It also looks at how these thought processes influence how we understand and interact with the world. 

Theorist  Jean Piaget  proposed one of the most influential theories of cognitive development.

Piaget proposed an idea that seems obvious now, but helped revolutionize how we think about child development:  Children think differently than adults .  

His cognitive theory seeks to describe and explain the development of thought processes and mental states. It also looks at how these thought processes influence the way we understand and interact with the world.

Piaget then proposed a theory of cognitive development to account for the steps and sequence of children's intellectual development.

• Sensorimotor Stage:  A period of time between birth and age two during which an infant's knowledge of the world is limited to his or her sensory perceptions and motor activities. Behaviors are limited to simple motor responses caused by sensory stimuli.
• Pre-Operational Stage:  A period between ages 2 and 6 during which a child learns to use language. During this stage, children do not yet understand concrete logic, cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to take the point of view of other people.
• Concrete Operational Stage:  A period between ages 7 and 11 during which children gain a better understanding of mental operations. Children begin thinking logically about concrete events but have difficulty understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts.
• Formal Operational Stage:  A period between age 12 to adulthood when people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts. Skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning, and systematic planning also emerge during this stage.

Bowlby's Attachment Theory

There is a great deal of research on the social development of children.  John Bowbly  proposed one of the earliest theories of social development. Bowlby believed that early relationships with caregivers play a major role in child development and continue to influence social relationships throughout life.

Bowlby's attachment theory suggested that children are born with an innate need to form attachments. Such attachments aid in survival by ensuring that the child receives care and protection. Not only that but these attachments are characterized by clear behavioral and motivational patterns.

In other words, both children and caregivers engage in behaviors designed to ensure proximity. Children strive to stay close and connected to their caregivers who in turn provide a safe haven and a secure base for exploration.

Researchers have also expanded upon Bowlby's original work and have suggested that a number of different attachment styles exist. Children who receive consistent support and care are more likely to develop a secure attachment style, while those who receive less reliable care may develop an ambivalent, avoidant, or disorganized style.

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Social learning theory is based on the work of psychologist  Albert Bandura . Bandura believed that the conditioning and reinforcement process could not sufficiently explain all of human learning.

For example, how can the conditioning process account for learned behaviors that have not been reinforced through classical conditioning or operant conditioning According to social learning theory, behaviors can also be learned through observation and modeling.

By observing the actions of others, including parents and peers, children develop new skills and acquire new information.

Bandura's child development theory suggests that observation plays a critical role in learning, but this observation does not necessarily need to take the form of watching a live model.  

Instead, people can also learn by listening to verbal instructions about how to perform a behavior as well as through observing either real or fictional characters displaying behaviors in books or films.

Vygotsky's Sociocultural Theory

Another psychologist named  Lev Vygotsky  proposed a seminal learning theory that has gone on to become very influential, especially in the field of education. Like Piaget, Vygotsky believed that children learn actively and through hands-on experiences.

His sociocultural theory also suggested that parents, caregivers, peers, and the culture at large were responsible for developing higher-order functions. In Vygotsky's view, learning is an inherently social process. Through interacting with others, learning becomes integrated into an individual's understanding of the world.

This child development theory also introduced the concept of the zone of proximal development, which is the gap between what a person can do with help and what they can do on their own. It is with the help of more knowledgeable others that people are able to progressively learn and increase their skills and scope of understanding.

A Word From Verywell

As you can see, some of psychology's best-known thinkers have developed theories to help explore and explain different aspects of child development. While not all of these theories are fully accepted today, they all had an important influence on our understanding of child development.

Today, contemporary psychologists often draw on a variety of theories and perspectives in order to understand how kids grow, behave, and think. These theories represent just a few of the different ways of thinking about child development.

In reality, fully understanding how children change and grow over the course of childhood requires looking at many different factors that influence physical and psychological growth. Genes, the environment, and the interactions between these two forces determine how kids grow physically as well as mentally.

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Barnes GL, Woolgar M, Beckwith H, Duschinsky R. John Bowlby and contemporary issues of clinical diagnosis . Attachment (Lond). 2018;12(1):35-47.

Fryling MJ, Johnston C, Hayes LJ. Understanding observational learning: an interbehavioral approach . Anal Verbal Behav. 2011;27(1):191-203.

Esteban-guitart M. The biosocial foundation of the early Vygotsky: Educational psychology before the zone of proximal development . Hist Psychol. 2018;21(4):384-401. doi:10.1037/hop0000092

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Shute, RH & Slee, PT. Child Development Theories and Critical Perspectives, Second Edition. New York: Routledge; 2015.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Chapter 2: Developmental Theories

Learning Objectives

At the end of this chapter, you will be able to do the following:

• Define theory
• Describe Freud’s theory of psychosexual development
• Identify the parts of the self in Freud’s model
• List five defense mechanisms
• Describe five defense mechanisms
• Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s theory
• List Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development
• Apply Erikson’s stages to examples of people in various stages of the lifespan
• Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development
• Compare and contrast Freud’s and Erikson’s theories of human development
• Describe the principles of classical conditioning
• Identify unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, and conditioned response in classical conditioning
• Describe the principles of operant conditioning
• Identify positive and negative reinforcement and primary and secondary reinforcement
• Contrast reinforcement and punishment
• Contrast classical and operant conditioning and the kinds of behaviors learned in each
• Describe social learning theory
• Describe Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
• Define schema, assimilation, accommodation, and cognitive equilibrium
• List Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
• Describe Piaget’s stages of cognitive development
• Critique Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
• Describe Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development
• Explain what is meant by the zone of proximal development
• Explain guided participation
• Describe scaffolding
• Compare Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s models of cognitive development
• Describe Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model

What Is a Theory?

Students sometimes feel intimidated by theory; even the phrase, “Now we are going to look at some theories…” is met with blank stares and other indications that the audience is now lost. But theories are valuable tools for understanding human behavior; they are proposed explanations for the “hows” and “whys” of development. Have you ever wondered, “Why is my 3-year-old so inquisitive?” or “Why do their classmates reject some fifth graders?” Theories can help explain these and other occurrences. Developmental theories explain how we develop, why we change over time, and the influences that impact development.

A theory guides and helps us interpret research findings as well. It gives the researcher a blueprint or model to help piece together various studies. Theories are guidelines, like directions with an appliance or other object requiring assembly. The instructions can help one piece together smaller parts more quickly than if trial and error are used.

Theories can be developed using induction in which several single cases are observed, and after patterns or similarities are noted, the theorist generates ideas based on these examples. Established theories are tested through research; however, not all theories are equally suited to scientific investigation.  Some theories are complex to try but are still valuable for stimulating debate or providing concepts that have practical applications. Remember that theories are not facts; they are guidelines for investigation and practice, and they gain credibility through research that fails to disprove them.

Psychodynamic Theory

We begin with the often-controversial figure, Sigmund Freud. Freud has been a very influential figure in development; his view of development and psychopathology dominated the field of psychiatry until the growth of behaviorism in the 1950s. His assumptions that personality forms during the first few years of life and that how parents or other caregivers interact with children has a long-lasting impact on children’s emotional states have guided parents, educators, clinicians, and policy-makers for many years. We have only recently begun to recognize that early childhood experiences do not always result in certain personality traits or emotional states. A growing body of literature addresses resiliency in children from harsh backgrounds yet develops without damaging emotional scars (O’Grady and Metz, 1987). Freud has stimulated an enormous amount of research and generated many ideas. Agreeing with Freud’s theory in its entirety is hardly necessary for appreciating the contribution he has made to the field of development.

Sigmund Freud (1856–1939) was a Viennese M. D. who was trained in neurology and asked to work with patients suffering from hysteria, a condition marked by uncontrollable emotional outbursts, fears, and anxiety that had puzzled physicians for centuries. He was also asked to work with women who suffered from physical symptoms and forms of paralysis that had no organic causes. During that time, many people believed that certain individuals were genetically inferior and thus more susceptible to mental illness. Women were thought to be genetically inferior and therefore prone to diseases such as hysteria (which had previously been attributed to a detached womb that was traveling around in the body).

However, after World War I, many soldiers came home with problems similar to hysteria. This called into question the idea of genetic inferiority as a cause of mental illness. Freud began working with hysterical patients and discovered that when they started to talk about some of their life experiences, particularly those that took place in early childhood, their symptoms disappeared. This led him to suggest the first purely psychological explanation for physical problems and mental illness. He proposed that unconscious motives, desires, fears, and anxieties drive our actions. When upsetting memories or thoughts find their way into our consciousness, we develop defenses to shield us from these painful realities. These defense mechanisms include denying a reality, repressing or pushing away sad thoughts, rationalizing or finding a seemingly logical explanation for circumstances, projecting or attributing our feelings to someone else, or outwardly opposing something we inwardly desire (reaction formation). Freud believed that many mental illnesses are a result of a person’s inability to accept reality. Freud emphasized the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our personality and behavior . In our natural state, we are biological beings. We are driven primarily by instincts. During childhood, however, we become social beings as we learn how to manage our instincts and transform them into socially acceptable behaviors. The parenting the child receives has a powerful impact on the child’s personality development. We will explore this idea further in our discussion of psychosexual development.

Theory of the Mind

Freud believed that most mental processes, motivations, and desires are beyond our awareness. Our consciousness, of which we are aware, represents only the tip of the iceberg that comprises our mental state. The preconscious means that which can easily be called into the conscious mind. During development, our motivations and desires are gradually pushed into the unconscious because raw desires are often unacceptable.

Theory of the Self

As adults, our personality or self consists of three main parts: the id , the ego, and the superego . The id, present at birth, consists of our instincts and drives. It is the part of us that wants immediate gratification. Later in life, it comes to house our deepest, often socially unacceptable desires, such as sex and aggression. It operates under the pleasure principle, which means that the criterion for determining whether something is good or bad is whether it feels good or bad. An infant uses the id self. The ego is the part of the self that develops as we learn that there are limits on what is acceptable and that we often must wait to satisfy our needs. This part of the self is realistic and reasonable. It knows how to make compromises. It operates under the reality principle or the recognition that sometimes gratification must be postponed for practical reasons. It acts as a mediator between the id and the superego and is viewed as the healthiest part of the self.

Defense mechanisms emerge to help a person distort reality so that the truth is less painful. Defense mechanisms include repression, which means pushing the painful thoughts out of consciousness (in other words, thinking about something else). Denial is not accepting the truth or lying to the self. Thoughts such as “It won’t happen to me,” “You’re not leaving,” or “I don’t have a problem with alcohol” are examples. Regression refers to returning to a time when the world felt safer, perhaps reverting to one’s childhood. This is less common than the first two defense mechanisms. Sublimation involves transforming unacceptable urges into more socially acceptable behaviors. For example, a teenager who experiences strong sexual urges uses exercise to redirect those urges into more socially acceptable behavior. Displacement involves taking out frustrations on a safer target. A person who is angry at a boss may take out their frustration on others when driving home or on a spouse upon arrival. Projection is a defense mechanism in which people attribute their unacceptable thoughts to others. If someone is frightened, for example, they accuse someone else of fear. Finally, reaction formation is a defense mechanism in which a person outwardly opposes something they inwardly desire, which they find unacceptable. An example of this might be homophobia or an intense hatred and fear of homosexuality.

This is a partial listing of defense mechanisms suggested by Freud. If the ego is strong, the individual is realistic and accepting of reality and remains more logical, objective, and reasonable. Building ego strength is a significant goal of psychoanalysis (Freudian psychotherapy). So, for Freud, having a big ego is a good thing because it does not refer to being arrogant; it relates to being able to accept reality.

The superego is the part of the self that develops as we learn society’s rules, standards, and values. This part of the self considers the moral guidelines that are a part of our culture. It is a rule-governed part of the self that operates under a sense of guilt (guilt is a social emotion—it is a feeling that others think less of you or believe you to be wrong). If a person violates the superego, they feel guilty. The superego is helpful but can be too strong; in this case, a person might feel overly anxious and guilty about circumstances over which they had no control. Such a person may experience high stress and inhibition levels that keep them from living well. The id is inborn, but the ego and superego develop during our early interactions with others. These interactions occur against a backdrop of learning to resolve early biological and social challenges and play a key role in our personality development.

Psychosexual Stages

Freud believed that development occurs in a series of stages. At each stage, one will either successfully move through that stage and that stage is resolved or will experience challenges and become fixated in that stage. At any of these stages, the child might become “stuck” or fixated if a caregiver either overly indulges or neglects the child’s needs. A fixated adult will continue to try and resolve this later in life. Examples of fixation are given after the presentation of each stage.

From birth through the first year of life, the infant is in the oral stage of psychosexual development. The infant’s needs are met primarily through oral gratification. A baby wishes to suck or chew on any object that comes close to the mouth. Babies explore the world through the mouth and find comfort and stimulation. Psychologically, the infant is in the id. The infant seeks immediate gratification of comfort, warmth, food, and stimulation. If the caregiver meets oral needs consistently, the child will move away from this stage and progress to the next stage. However, if the caregiver is inconsistent or neglectful, the person may stay in the oral stage. As an adult, the person might not feel good unless involved in some oral activity such as eating, drinking, smoking, nail-biting, or compulsive talking. These actions bring comfort and security when the person feels insecure, afraid, or bored.

During the anal stage, which coincides with toddlerhood (ages 1-3) or mobility and potty training, the child is taught that some urges must be contained and some actions postponed. There are rules about certain functions and when and where they will be carried out. The child is learning a sense of self-control. The ego is being developed.  If the caregiver is highly controlling about potty training (stands over the child waiting for the slightest indication that the child might need to go to the potty and immediately scoops the child up and places him on the potty chair, for example), the child may grow up fearing losing control. He may become fixated in this stage or “anal retentive”—fearful of letting go. Such a person might be extremely neat and clean, organized, reliable, and controlling of others. If the caregiver neglects to teach the child to control urges, he may grow up to be “anal expulsive” or an adult who is messy, irresponsible, and disorganized.

The phallic stage occurs during preschool (ages 3-5) when the child faces a new biological challenge. Freud believed that the child becomes sexually attracted to their opposite-sexed parent. Boys experience the “Oedipal Complex,” in which they become sexually attracted to their mothers but realize that their father is in the way. He is much more powerful. For a while, the boy fears that if he pursues his mother, his father may castrate him (castration anxiety). So rather than risk losing his penis, he gives up his affection for his mother and instead learns to become more like his father, imitating his actions and mannerisms and thereby retaining the role of males in his society. From this experience, the boy learns a sense of masculinity. He also knows what society thinks he should do and experiences guilt if he does not comply. In this way, the superego develops. If he does not resolve this successfully, he may become a “phallic male” or a man who constantly tries to prove his masculinity (about which he is insecure) by seducing women and beating up men! A little girl experiences the “Electra Complex,” in which she develops an attraction for her father but realizes that she cannot compete with her mother, so she gives up that affection and learns to become more like her mother. This is not without some regret, however. Freud believed that the girl feels inferior because she does not have a penis (experiences “penis envy”). But she must resign herself to the fact that she is female and will have to learn her inferior role in society as a female.  However, if she does not resolve this conflict successfully, she may have a weak sense of femininity and grow up to be a “castrating female” who tries to compete with men in the workplace or other areas of life.

During middle childhood (6-12), the child enters the latent stage, focusing their attention outside the family and toward friendships. The biological drives are temporarily quieted (latent), and the child can direct attention to a larger world of friends. If the child can make friends, they will gain confidence. If not, the child may remain a loner or shy away from others, even as an adult.

The final stage of psychosexual development is referred to as the genital stage . From adolescence through adulthood, a person is preoccupied with sex and reproduction. The adolescent experiences rising hormone levels, and the sex drive and hunger drives become very strong. Ideally, the adolescent will rely on the ego to help think logically through these urges without taking actions that might be damaging. An adolescent might learn to redirect their sexual urges into safer activities such as running, for example. Quieting the id with the superego can lead to feeling overly self-conscious and guilty about these urges. Hopefully, the ego is strengthened during this stage, and the adolescent uses reason to manage urges.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Freud’s Theory

Freud’s theory has been heavily criticized for several reasons. One is that it is tough to test scientifically. How can parenting in infancy be traced to personality in adulthood? Are there other variables that might better explain development? The theory is also considered to be sexist in suggesting that women who do not accept an inferior position in society are somehow psychologically flawed. Freud focuses on the darker side of human nature, meaning that much of what determines our actions is unknown. So why do we study Freud? As mentioned above, despite the criticisms, Freud’s assumptions about the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our psychological selves have found their way into child development, education, and parenting practices. Freud’s theory has heuristic value in providing a framework to elaborate and modify subsequent development theories. Many later theories, particularly behaviorism and humanism, challenged Freud’s views.

Psychosocial Theory

The ego rules.

Erik Erikson (1902–1994) was a student of Freud who believed that relationships, not sex and aggression, were the motivators of development. Erikson’s psychosocial theory of development emphasizes that we are aware of what motivates us throughout life, and the ego has greater importance in guiding our actions than the id (Erikson, 1950; 1968). We make conscious choices, focusing on meeting specific social and cultural needs rather than purely biological ones. Humans are motivated, for instance, by the need to feel that the world is a trustworthy place, that we are capable individuals, that we can contribute to society, and that we have lived meaningful lives. These are all psychosocial problems. Erikson divided the lifespaninto eight stages. In each phase, we have a significant psychosocial task to address.  Erikson believed that our personality continues to take shape throughout our lifespanas we face these challenges in living.  We will discuss each of these stages in length as we explore each period of the life span, but here is a brief overview:

Psychosocial Stages

• Trust vs. mistrust (0-1): the infant must have basic needs met consistently to feel that the world is a trustworthy place.
• Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (1-2): mobile toddlers have newfound freedom. They like to exercise, and by being allowed to do so, they learn some essential independence.
• Initiative vs. guilt (3-5): preschoolers like to initiate activities and emphasize doing things “all by myself.”
• Industry vs. inferiority (6-11): school-aged children focus on accomplishments and begin making comparisons between themselves and their classmates.
• Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence): teenagers are trying to gain a sense of identity as they experiment with various roles, beliefs, and ideas.
• Intimacy vs. isolation (young adulthood): in our 20s and 30s, we are making some of our first long-term commitments in intimate relationships.
• Generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood): from the 40s through the early 60s, we focus on being productive at work and home and are motivated by wanting to feel that we’ve contributed to society.
• Integrity vs. despair (late adulthood): we look back on our lives and hope to like what we see—that we have lived well and have a sense of integrity because we lived according to our beliefs.

These eight stages form a foundation for discussions on emotional and social development during the life span. However, remember that these stages or crises can occur more than once. For instance, a person may struggle with a lack of trust beyond infancy under certain circumstances. Erikson’s theory has been criticized for focusing so heavily on stages and assuming that completing one stage is a prerequisite for the subsequent development crisis. His theory also focuses on the social expectations in certain cultures, but not in all. For instance, the idea that adolescence is a time of searching for identity might translate well in the middle-class culture of the United States but not as well in cultures where adulthood coincides with puberty through rites of passage and where adult roles offer fewer choices.

Exploring Behavior

Why do we do what we do.

Learning theories focus on how we respond to events or stimuli rather than emphasizing what motivates our actions. These theories explain how experience can change what we can do or feel.

Classical Conditioning and Emotional Responses

Classical conditioning theory helps us to understand how our responses to one situation become attached to new situations. For example, a smell might remind us of when we were kids (elementary school cafeterias smell like milk and mildew!). Going to a new cafeteria with the same smell might evoke feelings you had when you were in school. Or a song on the radio might remind you of a memorable evening you spent with your first true love. Or, if you hear your entire name (John Wilmington Brewer, for instance) called as you walk across the stage to get your diploma, it makes you tense because it reminds you of how your father used to use your full name when he was mad at you, you’ve been classically conditioned!

Classical conditioning explains how we develop many emotional responses to people or events or our “gut-level” reactions to situations. New situations may bring an old response because the two have become connected. Attachments form in this way. Addictions are affected by classical conditioning, as anyone who’s tried to quit smoking can tell you. When you try to stop, everything that is associated with smoking makes you crave a cigarette.

Ivan Pavlov (1880–1937) was a Russian physiologist interested in studying digestion. As he recorded the salivation his laboratory dogs produced as they ate, he noticed that they began to salivate before the food arrived as the researcher walked down the hall and toward the cage. “This,” he thought, “is not natural!” One would expect a dog to salivate when the food hits their palate automatically, but BEFORE the food comes? Of course, what had happened was . . . you tell me. That’s right! The dogs knew the food was coming because they had learned to associate the footsteps with the food. The key word here is “learned.” A learned response is called a “conditioned” response. Pavlov began to experiment with this “psychic” reflex. For instance, he began to ring a bell before introducing the food. Sure enough, after making this connection several times, the dogs could be made to salivate to the sound of a bell.

Once the bell had become an event to which the dogs had learned to salivate, it was called a conditioned stimulus. The act of salivating to a bell was a response that had also been learned, now termed in Pavlov’s jargon, a conditioned response. Notice that the response, salivation, is the same whether it is conditioned or unconditioned (unlearned or natural). What changed is the stimulus to which the dog salivates. One is natural (unconditioned) and learned (conditioned). Well, enough of Pavlov’s dogs. Who cares? Let’s think about how classical conditioning is used on us. One of the most widespread applications of classical conditioning principles was brought to us by the psychologist John B. Watson.

Watson and Behaviorism

John B. Watson believed most fears and other emotional responses are classically conditioned. He had gained popularity in the 1920s with his expert parenting advice offered to the public. He believed that parents could be taught to help shape their children’s behavior. He tried to demonstrate the power of classical conditioning with his famous experiment with an 18-month-old boy named “Little Albert.” Watson sat Albert down and introduced a variety of seemingly scary objects to him: a burning piece of newspaper, a white rat, etc. But Albert remained curious and reached for all of these things. Watson knew that one of our only inborn fears was the fear of loud noises, so he made a loud noise each time he introduced one of Albert’s favorites, a white rat. After hearing the loud noise paired with the rat several times, Albert soon came to fear it and began to cry when it was introduced. Watson filmed this experiment for posterity and used it to demonstrate that he could help parents achieve any desired outcomes if they would only follow his advice. Watson wrote columns in newspapers and magazines, gaining popularity among parents eager to apply science to household order. Parenting advice was not the legacy Watson left us, however. He made his impact in advertising. After Watson left academia, he went into the business world and showed companies how to tie something that brings a natural positive feeling to their products to enhance sales. Thus, the union of sex and advertising! So, let’s use a much more interesting example than Pavlov’s dogs to check and see if you understand the difference between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli and responses. In the experiment with Little Albert, identify the unconditioned stimulus, the unconditioned response, and, after conditioning, the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response.

Operant Conditioning and Repeating Actions

Operant conditioning is another learning theory emphasizing a more conscious type of learning than classical conditioning. A person (or animal) does something (operates something) to see what effect it might bring. Simply said, operant conditioning describes how we repeat behaviors because they pay off for us. It is based on a principle authored by a psychologist named Thorndike (1874–1949) called the law of effect. The law of effect suggests that we will repeat an action if a sound effect follows it.

Skinner and Reinforcement

Watch how a pigeon learns through reinforcement:

B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) expanded on Thorndike’s principle and outlined the principles of operant conditioning. Skinner believed that we know best when our actions are reinforced. For example, a child who cleans his room and is supported (rewarded) with a big hug and words of praise is more likely to clean it again than a child whose deed goes unnoticed. Skinner believed that almost anything could be reinforcing. A reinforcer is anything following a behavior that makes it more likely to occur again. It can be something intrinsically rewarding (intrinsic or primary reinforcers), such as food or praise, or rewarding because it can be exchanged for what one wants (such as using money to buy a cookie). Such reinforcers are referred to as secondary reinforcers or extrinsic reinforcers.

Positive and Negative Reinforcement

Sometimes, adding something to the situation reinforces, as in the cases we described above, with cookies, praise, and money. Positive reinforcement involves adding something to the situation to encourage a behavior. Other times, taking something away from a problem can be reinforcing. For example, the loud, annoying buzzer on your alarm clock enables you to get up to turn it off and eliminate the noise. Children whine to get their parents to do something, and often, parents give in to stop the whining. In these instances, negative reinforcement has been used.

Operant conditioning tends to work best if you focus on encouraging a behavior or moving a person in the direction you want them to rather than telling them what not to do. Reinforcers are used to promote a behavior; punishers are used to stop the behavior. A punisher is anything that follows an act and decreases the chance it will reoccur. But often, a punished behavior doesn’t go away. It is suppressed and may reoccur whenever the threat of punishment is removed. For example, a child may not cuss around you because you’ve washed his mouth out with soap, but he may curse around his friends. Or a motorist may only slow down when the trooper is on the side of the freeway. Another problem with punishment is that when a person focuses on punishment, they may find it hard to see what the other does right or well. Punishment is stigmatizing; when punished, some start to see themselves as bad and give up trying to change.

Reinforcement can occur predictably, such as after every desired action is performed, intermittently after the behavior is performed several times, or the first time after a certain amount of time. The schedule of reinforcement has an impact on how long a behavior continues after reinforcement is discontinued. So, a parent who has rewarded a child’s actions each time may find that the child gives up very quickly if a reward is not immediately forthcoming. A lover warmly regarded now and then may continue seeking their partner’s attention long after the partner has tried to break up. Think about the behaviors you may have learned through classical and operant conditioning. You may have learned many things in this way. But sometimes, we learn very complex behaviors quickly and without direct reinforcement. Bandura explains how.

Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura is a leading contributor to social learning theory. He calls our attention to how many of our actions are not learned through conditioning but learned by watching others (1977). Young children frequently learn behaviors through imitation. Sometimes, particularly when we do not know what else to do, we learn by modeling or copying the behavior of others. On their first day of a new job, an employee might eagerly look at how others are acting and try to act the same way to fit in more quickly. Adolescents struggling with their identity rely heavily on their peers to serve as role models. Newly married couples often rely on roles they may have learned from their parents and begin to act in ways they did not while dating and then wonder why their relationship has changed. Sometimes, we do things because we’ve seen it pay off for someone else. They were operantly conditioned, but we engage in the behavior because we hope it will also pay off for us. This is vicarious reinforcement (Bandura, Ross, and Ross, 1963).

Do Parents Socialize Children, or Do Children Socialize Parents?

Bandura (1986) suggests an interplay between the environment and the individual. We are not just the product of our surroundings; we influence our surroundings. There is an interplay between our personality, how we interpret events, and how they influence us. This concept is called reciprocal determinism. An example of this might be the interplay between parents and children. Parents not only influence their child’s environment, perhaps intentionally through reinforcement, etc., but children influence parents as well. Parents may respond differently with their first child than with their fourth. Perhaps they try to be the perfect parents with their firstborn, but by the time their last child comes along, they have very different expectations of themselves and their child. Our environment creates us, and we make our environment. Other social influences: TV or not TV? Bandura (et al. 1963) began a series of studies examining the impact of television, particularly commercials, on children’s behavior.

Are children more likely to act aggressively when this behavior is modeled? What if they see it being reinforced? Bandura began with an experiment showing children a film of a woman hitting an inflatable clown or “Bobo” doll. Then, the children were allowed into the room where they found the doll and immediately began to hit it. This was without any reinforcement whatsoever. Later, they viewed a woman hitting a real clown, and sure enough, when allowed in the room, they too began to hit the clown! Not only that, but they found new ways to behave aggressively. It’s as if they learned an aggressive role.

Watch Bandura’s Bobo-doll experiment:

Children view far more television today than in the 1960s, so much so that they have been referred to as Generation M (media). Based on a study of a nationally representative sample of over 7,000 8-18-year-olds, the Kaiser Foundation reports that children spend just over 8 hours a day involved with media outside of schoolwork. This includes almost 4 hours of television viewing and over an hour on the computer. Two-thirds have television in their room, and those children watch an average of 1.27 hours more per day than those who do not have television in their bedroom (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). The prevalence of violence, sexual content, and messages promoting foods high in fat and sugar in the media are certainly cause for concern and the subjects of ongoing research and policy review. Many children spend even more time on the computer viewing content from the Internet. And the amount of time spent connected to the Internet continues to increase with smartphones that essentially serve as mini-computers. What are the implications of this?

Exploring Cognition

What do we think.

Cognitive theories focus on how our mental processes or cognitions change over time. We will examine the ideas of two cognitive theorists: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.

Piaget: Changes in Thought with Maturation

Jean Piaget (1896–1980) is one of the most influential cognitive theorists in development. He was inspired to explore children’s ability to think and reason by watching his own children’s development. He was one of the first to recognize and map out how children’s intelligence differs from that of adults. When asked to test children’s IQ, he became interested in this area and began noticing a pattern in their wrong answers! He believed that children’s intellectual skills change over time and that maturation rather than training brings about that change. Children of differing ages interpret the world differently.

Making Sense of the World

Piaget believed we continuously try to maintain cognitive equilibrium, balance, or cohesiveness in what we see and know. Children are more challenged in maintaining this balance because they are constantly confronted with new situations, words, objects, etc. When faced with something new, a child may either fit it into an existing framework ( schema ) and match it with something known ( assimilation ), such as calling all animals with four legs “doggies” because they see the word doggie, or expand the framework of knowledge to accommodate the new situation ( accommodation ) by learning a new word to name the animal more accurately. This is the underlying dynamic in our cognition. Even as adults, we try to “make sense” of new situations by determining whether they fit into our old thinking or need to modify our thoughts.

Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget outlined four significant stages of cognitive development. Let me briefly mention them here. We will discuss them in detail throughout the course. For about the first two years of life, the child experiences the world primarily through their senses and motor skills. Piaget referred to this type of intelligence as sensorimotor intelligence. During preschool, the child begins to master symbols or words and can think of the world symbolically but not logically. This stage is the preoperational stage of development. The concrete operational stage in middle childhood is marked by an ability to use logic to understand the physical world. In the final formal operational stage, the adolescent learns to think abstractly and use logic in concrete and abstract ways.

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

Piaget has been criticized for overemphasizing physical maturation’s role in cognitive development and underestimating the role of culture and interaction (or experience) in cognitive development. Looking across cultures reveals considerable variation in what children can do at various ages. Piaget may have underestimated what children are capable of given the right circumstances.

Vygotsky: Changes in Thought with Guidance

Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a Russian psychologist who wrote in the early 1900s but whose work was discovered in the United States in the 1960s but became more widely known in the 1980s. Vygotsky differed from Piaget in that he believed that a person not only has a set of abilities but also a set of potential abilities that can be realized if given the proper guidance from others. His sociocultural theory emphasizes the importance of culture and interaction in developing cognitive skills. He believed that through guided participation, known as scaffolding, with a teacher or capable peer, a child can learn cognitive skills within a specific range, known as the zone of proximal development. Have you ever taught a child to perform a task? Maybe it was brushing their teeth or preparing food. Chances are you spoke to them and described what you were doing while you demonstrated the skill and let them work with you all through the process. You assisted them when they seemed to need it, but once they knew what to do, you stood back and let them go. This is scaffolding and can be seen demonstrated throughout the world. Educators have also adopted this approach to teaching. Rather than assessing students on what they are doing, they should be understood in terms of what they can do with the proper guidance. You can see how Vygotsky would be very popular with modern-day educators. We will discuss Vygotsky in greater depth in upcoming lessons.

Putting It All Together: Ecological Systems Model

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) provides a model of human development that addresses its many influences. Bronfenbrenner recognized that larger social forces influence human interaction and that understanding those forces is essential for understanding an individual. The individual is impacted by microsystems such as parents or siblings who have direct, significant contact with the person. The cognitive and biological state of the individual also modifies the input of those. These influence the person’s actions, which affect systems operating on them. The mesosystem includes larger organizational structures such as school, family, or religion. These institutions impact the microsystems just described. For example, religious teachings and traditions may guide the child’s family’s actions or create a climate that makes the family feel stigmatized, indirectly impacting the child’s view of self and others. The philosophy of the school system, daily routine, assessment methods, and other characteristics can affect the child’s self-image, growth, sense of accomplishment, and schedule, impacting the child physically, cognitively, and emotionally. These mesosystems both influence and are influenced by the larger contexts of community referred to as the ecosystem . A community’s values, history, and economy can impact its organizational structures. The community is influenced by macrosystems and cultural elements such as global economic conditions, war, technological trends, values, philosophies, and a society’s responses to the worldwide community. In sum, a child’s experiences are shaped by larger forces such as the family, schools, religion, and culture. All of this occurs in a historical context or chronosystem. Bronfenbrenner’s model helps us combine each of the other theories described above and gives us a perspective that brings it all together.

Research Designs

Observational studies involve watching and recording the actions of participants. This may occur in a natural setting, such as observing children playing at a park or behind a one-way glass while children play in a laboratory playroom. The researcher may follow a checklist and record the frequency and duration of events (perhaps how many conflicts occur among 2-year-olds) or may observe and register as much as possible about an event as a participant (such as attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and recording the slogans on the walls, the structure of the meeting, the expressions commonly used, etc.). The researcher may be a participant or a non-participant. What would be the strengths of being a participant? What would be the weaknesses? Consider the strengths and weaknesses of not participating. In general, observational studies have the strength of allowing the researcher to see how people behave rather than relying on self-reporting. What people do and what they say they do are often very different. A significant weakness of observational studies is that they do not allow the researcher to explain causal relationships. Yet, observational studies are helpful and widely used when studying children. Children tend to change their behavior when they know they are being watched (the Hawthorne effect ) and may not survey well.

Experiments  are designed to test  hypotheses  (or specific statements about the relationship between  variables ) in a controlled setting to explain how certain factors or events produce outcomes. A variable is anything that changes in value. Concepts are operationalized or transformed into variables in research, meaning that the researcher must specify precisely what will be measured in the study. For example, suppose we are interested in studying marital satisfaction. In that case, we have to specify what marital satisfaction means or what we will use as an indicator of marital satisfaction. What is something measurable that would indicate some level of marital satisfaction? Would it be the amount of time couples spend together each day? Or eye contact during a discussion about money? Or maybe a subject’s score on a marital satisfaction scale? Each of these is measurable but may not be equally valid or accurate indicators of marital satisfaction. What do you think? These are the kinds of considerations researchers must make when working through the design.

Three conditions must be met to establish cause and effect. Experimental designs help meet these conditions.

The independent and dependent variables must be related. In other words, the other changes in response when one is altered. (The independent variable is something altered or introduced by the researcher. The dependent variable is the outcome or the factor affected by the introduction of the independent variable. For example, if we are looking at the impact of exercise on stress levels, the independent variable would be exercise; the dependent variable would be stress.)

The cause must come before the effect. Experiments involve measuring subjects on the dependent variable before exposing them to the independent variable (establishing a baseline). So, we would measure the subjects’ stress levels before introducing the exercise and then again after the exercise to see if there was a change in stress levels. (Observational and survey research does not always allow us to look at the timing of these events, making understanding causality problematic with these designs.)

The cause must be isolated.  The researcher must ensure that no outside, perhaps unknown, variables are causing the effect we see. The experimental design helps make this possible. In an experiment, we would ensure that our subjects’ diets were constant throughout the exercise program. Otherwise, diet rather than exercise might create a change in stress levels.

A basic experimental design involves beginning with a sample (or population subset) and randomly assigning subjects to one of two experimental or control groups . The experimental group will be exposed to an independent variable or condition the researcher introduces as a potential cause of an event. The control group is going to be used for comparison. It will have the same experience as the experimental group but will not be exposed to the independent variable. After exposing the experimental group to the independent variable, the two groups are measured again to see if a change has occurred. If so, we are better positioned to suggest that the independent variable caused the shift in the dependent variable . The basic experimental model looks like this:

The experimental design’s primary advantage is that it helps establish cause-and-effect relationships. A disadvantage of this design is the difficulty translating much of what concerns us about human behavior into a laboratory setting. I hope this brief description of experimental design helps you appreciate the difficulty and the rigor of experimenting.

Case studies  involve exploring a single case or situation in great detail. Information may be gathered using observation, interviews, testing, or other methods to uncover as much as possible about a person or situation. Case studies are helpful when investigating unusual situations such as brain trauma or children reared in isolation. They are often used by clinicians who conduct case studies as part of their regular practice when gathering information about a client or patient coming in for treatment. Case studies can be used to explore areas about which little is known and can provide rich detail about situations or conditions. However, the findings from case studies cannot be generalized or applied to larger populations because cases are not randomly selected, and no control group is used for comparison. (Read “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat” by Dr. Oliver Sacks as an excellent example of the case study approach.)

Surveys are familiar to most people because they are so widely used. Surveys enhance accessibility to subjects because they can be conducted in person, over the phone, through the mail, or online. A survey involves asking a standard set of questions to subjects. In a highly structured survey, subjects must choose from a response set such as “strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree” or “0, 1-5, 6-10, etc.” Surveys are commonly used by sociologists, marketing researchers, political scientists, therapists, and others to gather information on many independent and dependent variables in a relatively short period. Surveys typically yield surface information on various factors but may not allow for an in-depth understanding of human behavior. Of course, surveys can be designed in several ways. They may include forced choice and  semi-structured questions in which the researcher allows the respondent to describe or give details about specific events. One of the most challenging aspects of designing a good survey is wording questions unbiasedly and asking the right questions so that respondents can give a clear response rather than choosing “undecided” each time. Knowing that 30% of respondents are undecided is of little use! So, much time and effort should be spent constructing survey items. One of the benefits of having forced-choice items is that each response is coded so that the results can be quickly entered and analyzed using statistical software. Analysis takes much longer when respondents give lengthy responses that must be interpreted differently. Surveys help examine stated values, attitudes, and opinions and report on practices. However, they are based on self-report or what people say they do rather than on observation, which can limit accuracy.

Secondary/content analysis involves analyzing information that has already been collected or examining documents or media to uncover attitudes, practices, or preferences. Several data sets are available to those who wish to conduct this type of research. For example, the U.S. Census Data is known and widely used to look at trends and changes taking place in the United States (go to the US Census and check it out). Several other agencies collect data on family life, sexuality, and many other areas of interest in human development (for example, go to the KFF Foundation and see what you find on healthcare, insurance, statistics, and policy). The researcher conducting secondary analysis does not have to recruit subjects but does need to know the quality of the information collected in the original study.

Content analysis involves looking at media such as old texts, pictures, commercials, lyrics, or other materials to explore cultural patterns or themes. An example of content analysis is Aries’s classic history of childhood (1962) called “Centuries of Childhood,” or the analysis of television commercials for sexual or violent content. Passages in text or programs that air can also be randomly selected for analysis. Again, one advantage of analyzing such work is that the researcher does not have to go through the time and expense of finding respondents. Still, the researcher cannot know how accurately the media reflects the actions and sentiments of the population.

Developmental designs are techniques used in lifespan research (and other areas). These techniques examine how age, cohort, gender, and social class impact development. Cross-sectional research begins with a sample representing a cross-section of the population. Respondents who vary in age, gender, ethnicity, and social class might be asked to complete a survey about television program preferences or attitudes toward Internet use. The attitudes of males and females could then be compared to attitudes based on age. In cross-sectional research, respondents are measured only once. This method is much less expensive than longitudinal research but does not allow the researcher to distinguish between the impact of age and the cohort effect. Different attitudes about the Internet, for example, might not be altered by a person’s biological age as much as their life experiences as cohort members.

Longitudinal research involves beginning with a group of people who may be of the same age and background and measuring them repeatedly over a long period. One of the benefits of this type of research is that people can be followed through time and be compared with them when they were younger. A problem with this type of research is that it is costly, and subjects may drop out over time. (The film 49 Up is an example of following individuals over time. You see how people change physically, emotionally, and socially through time.) What would be the drawbacks of being in a longitudinal study? What about 49 Up? Would you want to be filmed every seven years? What would be the advantages and disadvantages? Can you imagine why some would continue and others would drop out of the project?

Cross-sequential research combines aspects of the previous two techniques, beginning with a cross-sectional sample and measuring them over time. This is the perfect model for looking at age, gender, social class, and ethnicity. However, the drawbacks of high costs and attrition are here as well.

Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. New York: General Learning Press.

Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action; A social-cognitive theory. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Bandura, A, Ross, D. &. Ross S. (1963). Imitation of film-mediated aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 66:3-11.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity, youth, and crisis. New York: Norton.

O’Grady, D. & Metz, J. (1987). Resilience in children at high risk for psychological disorder. Journal of Pediatric Psychology 12(1):3-23.

Piaget, J. (1929). The child’s conception of the world. NY: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich.

Attribution

From Developmental Psychology by Bill Pelz, CC-BY.  Materials adapted from the course PSYC 200–Lifespan Psychology. Authored by : Laura Overstreet.  Located at :  http://opencourselibrary.org/econ-201/ .  License :  CC BY: Attribution. 

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2 Chapter 2: Developmental Theories

Objectives:  At the end of this lesson, you will be able to…

• Define theory.
• Describe Freud’s theory of psychosexual development.
• Describe the parts of the self in Freud’s model (id, ego, superego).
• Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of Freud’s theory.
• List and apply Erikson’s eight stages of psychosocial development to examples of people in various stages of the lifespan.
• Appraise the strengths and weaknesses of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development.
• Describe the principles of classical conditioning including unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response.
• Describe the principles of operant conditioning including punishment and reinforcement.
• Describe social learning theory.
• Describe Piaget’s theory of cognitive development including schema, assimilation, and accommodation.
• Describe Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.
• Describe Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development including the zone of proximal development, guided participation, and scaffolding.
• Describe the information processing model of cognitive development.
• Describe Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model.

The objectives are indicated by the reading sections below.

Introduction

In this chapter, we will start to examine theories of human development. As discussed in chapter one, human development describes the growth throughout their lifespan, from conception to death. Psychologists strive to understand and explain how and why people change throughout life. We will see that different theories cover different aspects of growth — like how we think, process and remember information changes across the lifespan. Much of what is covered in developmental theory is what expected, typical growth is. Some of the theories presented in this chapter are considered classic theories that have now been debated. They are still taught for historical purposes, and each holds important underlying concepts to understanding others. We will first cover the basics of what a theory is and then review several major theories in human development.

What is a theory?  (Ob 1)

Students sometimes feel intimidated by theory; even the phrase, “Now we are going to look at some theories . . .” is met with blank stares and other indications that the audience is now lost. However, theories are valuable tools for understanding human behavior; in fact, they are proposed explanations for the “how” and “whys” of development. Have you ever wondered, “Why is my 3-year-old so inquisitive?” or “Why are some fifth graders rejected by their classmates?” Theories can help explain these and other occurrences. Developmental theories offer explanations about how we develop, why we change over time and the kinds of influences that impact development.

A theory guides and helps us interpret research findings as well. It provides the researcher with a blueprint or model to be used to help piece together various studies. Think of theories as guidelines much like directions that come with an appliance or other objects that required assembly. The instructions can help one piece together smaller parts more quickly than if trial and error are used.

Theories can be developed using induction in which several single cases are observed, and after patterns or similarities are noted, the theorist develops ideas based on these examples. Established theories are then tested through research; however, not all theories are equally suited to scientific investigation. Some theories are difficult to test but are still useful in stimulating debate or providing concepts that have practical application. Keep in mind that theories are not facts; they are guidelines for investigation and practice, and they gain credibility through research that fails to disprove them.

Theoretical Considerations for Lifespan Development Theories

At the heart of all of these developmental theories are two main questions: (1) How do nature and nurture interact in development? (2) Does development progress through qualitatively distinct stages? In the remainder of this chapter, we examine the answers that are emerging regarding these questions

Nature and Nurture: Why are you the way you are? As you consider some of your features (height, weight, personality, being diabetic, etc.), ask yourself whether these features are a result of heredity or environmental factors, or both. Chances are, you can see how both heredity and environmental factors (such as lifestyle, diet, and so on) have contributed to these features. Nature refers to our biological endowment, the genes we receive from our parents. Nurture refers to the environments, social, as well as physical that influence our development, everything from the womb in which we develop before birth to the homes in which we grow up, the schools we attend, and the many people with whom we interact. Most scholars agree that there is a constant interplay between the two forces. It is difficult to isolate the root of any single behavior as a result solely of nature or nurture.

Continuity versus Discontinuity: Is human development best characterized as a slow, gradual process, or is it best viewed as one of more abrupt change? The answer to that question often depends on which developmental theorist you ask and what topic is being studied. The classical theories of Freud, Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg are called stage theories (a term from chapter 1). Stage theories, which emphasize discontinuous development , assume that developmental change often occurs in distinct stages that are qualitatively different from each other, and in a set, universal sequence. An example of this is in the figure below with the different stages of development for a ladybug or consider the lifecycle of a butterfly. At each stage of development, children and adults have different qualities and characteristics. Thus, stage theorists assume that development is more discontinuous. Others, such as the behaviorists, Vygotsky, and information processing theorists, assume development is a more slow and gradual process known as continuous development (non-stage theories see development as continuous). For instance, they would see the adult as not possessing new skills, but more advanced skills that were already present in some form in the child. Brain development and environmental experiences contribute to the acquisition of more advanced skills.

Figure Caption: Development can be viewed as a continuous gradual process, much like a maple tree growing steadily in height and cross-sectional area. Development can also be seen as a progression of discontinuous stages, involving rapid, discontinuous changes, such as those in the life cycle of a ladybug, separated by more extended periods of slow, gradual change. Photos Courtesy of Robert Siegler.

Active versus Passive: How much do you play a role in your developmental path? Are you at the whim of your genetic inheritance or the environment that surrounds you? Some theorists see humans as playing a much more active role in their development. For example, Piaget, the classical stage theorist for cognitive development, believed that children actively explore their world and construct new ways of thinking to explain the things they experience. If you have an active view of development you would see the individual as more in control with surroundings (choosing toy, activity, extra curricular activities, and friends to play with). In contrast, many behaviorists view humans as being more passive in the developmental process. A passive view sees individuals as having less control with behaviors. One might see development as more a product of the environment or social influences or due to biological changes.

Why do we do what we do?  Exploring Motivation

Freud’s psychodynamic theory (ob 2).

We begin with the often-controversial figure, Sigmund Freud. Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was a Viennese M. D. who was trained in neurology and asked to work with patients suffering from hysteria, a condition marked by uncontrollable emotional outbursts, fears, and anxiety that had puzzled physicians for centuries. Freud began working with hysterical patients and discovered that when they began to talk about some of their life experiences, particularly those that took place in early childhood, their symptoms disappeared. This led him to suggest the first purely psychological explanation for physical problems and mental illness. What he proposed was that unconscious motives and desires, fears and anxieties drive our actions.

Freud has been a very influential figure in the area of development; his view of development and psychopathology dominated the field of psychiatry until the growth of behaviorism in the 1950s. His assumptions that personality forms during the first few years of life and that how parents or other caregivers interact with children have a long-lasting impact on children’s emotional states have guided parents, educators, clinicians, and policy-makers for many years. We have only recently begun to recognize that early childhood experiences do not always result in certain personality traits or emotional states. There is a growing body of literature addressing resiliency in children who come from harsh backgrounds and yet develop without damaging emotional scars (O’Grady & Metz, 1987). Freud has stimulated an enormous amount of research and generated many ideas. Agreeing with Freud’s theory in its entirety is hardly necessary for appreciating the contribution he has made to the field of development. At the conclusion of this section on Freud we will identify the worthwhile contributions of his work.

Theory of the mind

Freud believed that most of our mental processes, motivations, and desires are outside of our awareness. Our consciousness , that of which we are aware, represents only the tip of the iceberg that comprises our mental state. The preconscious represents that which can easily be called into the conscious mind. During development, our motivations and desires are gradually pushed into the unconscious because raw desires are often unacceptable in society.

Theory of the self (Ob 3)

As adults, our personality or self consists of three main parts: the id, the ego, and the superego. The Id is the part of the self with which we are born. It consists of the biologically-driven self and includes our instincts and drives. It is the part of us that wants immediate gratification. Later in life, it comes to house our deepest, often unacceptable desires such as sex and aggression. It operates under the pleasure principle which means that the criteria for determining whether something is good or bad is whether it feels good or bad. According to Freud, an infant is all Id. The ego is the part of the self that develops as we learn that there are limits on what is acceptable to do and that often, we must wait to have our needs satisfied. This part of the self is realistic and reasonable. It knows how to make compromises. It operates under the reality principle or the recognition that sometimes need gratification must be postponed for practical reasons. It acts as a mediator between the Id and the Superego and is viewed as the healthiest part of the self.

If the ego is strong, the individual is realistic and accepting of reality and remains more logical, objective, and reasonable. Building ego strength is an important goal of psychoanalysis (Freudian psychotherapy). So, for Freud, having a big ego is a good thing because it does not refer to being arrogant; it refers to being able to accept reality.

The superego is the part of the self that develops as we learn the rules, standards, and values of society. This part of the self considers the ethical guidelines that are a part of our culture. It is a rule-governed part of the self that operates under a sense of guilt (guilt is a social emotion-it is a feeling that others think less of you or believe you to be wrong). If a person violates the superego, he or she feels guilty. The superego is useful but can be too strong; in this case, a person might feel overly anxious and guilty about circumstances over which they had no control. Such a person may experience high levels of stress and inhibition that keeps them from living well. The id is inborn, but the ego and superego develop during our first interactions with others. These interactions occur against a backdrop of learning to resolve new biological and social challenges and play a key role in our personality development.

Freud is also known for explaining defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms emerge to help a person distort reality so that the truth is less painful because we feel threatened, or because our id or superego becomes too demanding. Defense mechanisms include repression which means to push the painful thoughts out of consciousness (in other words, think about something else). Denial is not accepting the truth or lying to the self. Thoughts such as “it won’t happen to me” or “you’re not leaving” or “I don’t have a problem with alcohol” are examples. Sublimation involves transforming unacceptable urges into more socially acceptable behaviors. For example, a teenager who experiences strong sexual urges uses exercise to redirect those urges into more socially acceptable behavior. Displacement involves taking out frustrations onto a safer target. A person who is angry at a boss may take out their frustration at others when driving home or at a spouse upon arrival. Projection is a defense mechanism in which a person attributes their unacceptable thoughts onto others. If someone is frightened, for example, he or she accuses someone else of being afraid. This is a partial listing of defense mechanisms suggested by Freud.

Psychosexual stages (Ob 2)

Freud’s psychosexual stages of development are presented below. At any of these stages, the child might become “stuck” or fixated if a caregiver either overly indulges or neglects the child’s needs. A fixated adult will continue to try and resolve this later in life. Freud connected the stages to errongenous parts of the body and explained the development of the id, ego, and superego. For about the first year of life, the infant is in the oral stage of psychosexual development. The infant meets needs primarily through oral gratification. Babies explore the world through the mouth and find comfort and stimulation as well. Psychologically, the infant is all Id. During the anal stage which coincides with toddlerhood or mobility and potty-training, the child is taught that some urges must be contained and some actions postponed. There are rules about certain functions and when and where they are to be carried out. The child is learning a sense of self-control. The ego is being developed. The Phallic stage occurs during the preschool years (ages 3-5) when the child has new biological challenge to face. Freud believed that the child becomes sexually attracted to his or her opposite-sexed parent. During middle childhood (6-11), the child enters the latent stage focusing his or her attention outside the family and toward friendships. The biological drives are temporarily quieted (latent), and the child can direct attention to a larger world of friends. If the child can make friends, he or she will gain a sense of confidence. If not, the child may continue to be a loner or shy away from others, even as an adult. The final stage of psychosexual development is referred to as the genital stage. From adolescence through adulthood a person is preoccupied with sex and reproduction. The adolescent experiences rising hormone levels and the sex drive and hunger drives become very strong. Ideally, the adolescent will rely on the ego to help think logically through these urges without taking actions that might be damaging. An adolescent might learn to redirect their sexual urges into a safer activity such as running, for example. Quieting the Id with the Superego can lead to feeling overly self-conscious and guilty about these urges. Hopefully, it is the ego that is strengthened during this stage, and the adolescent uses reason to manage urges.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Freud’s Theory (Ob 4)

Freud’s theory has been heavily criticized for several reasons. One is that it is challenging to test scientifically. How can parenting in infancy be traced to personality in adulthood? Are there other variables that might better explain development? The theory is also considered to be sexist in suggesting that women who do not accept an inferior position in society are somehow psychologically flawed. Freud focuses on the darker side of human nature and suggests that much of what determines our actions is unknown to us. So why do we study Freud? As mentioned above, despite the criticisms, Freud’s assumptions about the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our psychological selves have found their way into child development, education, and parenting practices. Freud’s theory has heuristic value in providing a framework from which elaborates and modifies subsequent theories of development. Many later theories, particularly behaviorism and humanism, were challenges to Freud’s views.

Erikson and Psychosocial Theory (Ob 5)

Now, let’s turn to a less controversial psychodynamic theorist, the father of developmental psychology, Erik Erikson.

The Ego Rules (Ob 5, Ob 6)

Erik Erikson (1902-1994) was a student of Freud’s and expanded on his theory of psychosexual development by emphasizing the importance of culture in parenting practices and motivations and adding three stages of adult development (Erikson, 1950; 1968). He believed that we are aware of what motivates us throughout life and the ego has greater importance in guiding our actions than does the Id. We make conscious choices in life, and these choices focus on meeting specific social and cultural needs rather than purely biological ones. Humans are motivated, for instance, by the need to feel that the world is a trustworthy place, that we are capable individuals, that we can make a contribution to society, and that we have lived a meaningful life. These are all psychosocial problems. Erikson divided the lifespan into eight stages. In each stage, we have a primary psychosocial task to accomplish or crisis to overcome. Erikson believed that our personality continues to take shape throughout our lifespan as we face these challenges in living.

Psychosocial Stages

We will discuss each of these stages in length as we explore each period of the life span, but here is a brief overview:

• Trust vs. mistrust (0-1 years old/infancy): the infant must have basic needs met consistently in order to feel that the world is a trustworthy place
• Autonomy vs. shame and doubt (1-2 years old/toddlerhood): mobile toddlers have newfound freedom they like to exercise, and by being allowed to do so, they learn some basic independence
• Initiative vs. Guilt (3-5 years old/early childhood): preschoolers like to initiate activities and emphasize doing things “all by myself”
• Industry vs. inferiority (6-11 years old/middle childhood): school-aged children focus on accomplishments and begin making comparisons between themselves and their classmates
• Identity vs. role confusion (adolescence): teenagers are trying to gain a sense of identity as they experiment with various roles, beliefs, and ideas
• Intimacy vs. Isolation (young/early adulthood): in our 20s and 30s we are making some of our first long-term commitments in intimate relationships
• Generativity vs. stagnation (middle adulthood): the 40s through the early 60s we focus on being productive at work and home and are motivated by wanting to feel that we’ve contributed to society
• Integrity vs. Despair (late adulthood): we look back on our lives and hope to like what we see, that we have lived well and have a sense of integrity because we lived according to our beliefs.

These eight stages form a foundation for discussions on emotional and social development during the life span. Keep in mind, however, that these stages or crises can occur more than once. For instance, a person may struggle with a lack of trust beyond infancy under certain circumstances. Erikson’s theory has been criticized for focusing so heavily on stages and assuming that the completion of one stage is prerequisite for the next crisis of development. His theory also focuses on the social expectations that are found in certain cultures, but not in all. For instance, the idea that adolescence is a time of searching for identity might translate well in the middle-class culture of the United States, but not as well in cultures where the transition into adulthood coincides with puberty through rites of passage and where adult roles offer fewer choices.

How Do We Act?  Exploring Behavior

Learning theories focus on how we respond to events or stimuli rather than emphasizing what motivates our actions. These theories explain how experience can change what we are capable of doing or feeling.

Classical Conditioning and Emotional Responses (Ob 7)

Classical Conditioning theory helps us to understand how our responses to one situation become attached to new situations. For example, a smell might remind us of a time when we were a kid (elementary school cafeterias smell like milk and mildew!). If you went to a new cafeteria with the same smell, it might evoke feelings you had when you were in school. Or a song on the radio might remind you of a memorable evening you spent with your first true love. Or, if you hear your entire name (John Wilmington Brewer, for instance) called as you walk across the stage to get your diploma and it makes you tense because it reminds you of how your father used to use your full name when he was mad at you, you’ve been classically conditioned!

Classical conditioning explains how we develop many of our emotional responses to people or events or our “gut level” reactions to situations. New situations may bring about an old response because the two have become connected. Attachments form in this way. Addictions are affected by classical conditioning, as anyone who has tried to quit smoking can tell you. When you try to quit, everything that was associated with smoking makes you crave a cigarette.

Pavlov (Ob 7, Ob 8)

Ivan Pavlov (1880-1937) first studied classical conditioning . He was a Russian physiologist interested in studying digestion. As he recorded the amount of salivation his laboratory dogs produced as they ate, he noticed that they began to salivate before the food arrived as the researcher walked down the hall and toward the cage. “This,” he thought, “is not natural!” One would expect a dog to salivate when the food hit their palate automatically, but BEFORE the food comes? Of course, what had happened was . . . you tell me. That’s right! The dogs knew that the food was coming because they had learned to associate the footsteps with the food. The key word here is “learned.” A learned response is called a conditioned response . Pavlov began to experiment with this “psychic” reflex. He began to ring a bell, for instance, before introducing the food. Sure enough, after making this connection several times, the dogs could be made to salivate to the sound of a bell. Once the bell had become an event to which the dogs had learned to salivate, it was called a conditioned stimulus. The act of salivating to a bell was a response that had also been learned, now termed in Pavlov’s jargon (conditioned response). Notice that the response, salivation, is the same whether it is conditioned or unconditioned (unlearned or natural). What changed is the stimulus to which the dog salivates. One is natural ( unconditioned stimulus ), and one is learned ( conditioned stimulus ).

Pavlov’s classical conditioning

Let’s think about how classical conditioning is used on us. Another example you are probably very familiar with involves your alarm clock. If you are like most people, waking up early usually makes you unhappy. In this case, waking up early (US) produces a natural sensation of grumpiness (UR). Rather than waking up early on your own, though, you likely have an alarm clock that plays a tone to wake you. Before setting your alarm to that particular tone, let’s imagine you had neutral feelings about it (i.e., the tone had no prior meaning for you). However, now that you use it to wake up every morning, you psychologically “pair” that tone (CS) with your feelings of grumpiness in the morning (UR). After enough pairings, this tone (CS) will automatically produce your natural response of grumpiness (CR). Thus, this linkage between the unconditioned stimulus (US; waking up early) and the conditioned stimulus (CS; the tone) is so strong that the unconditioned response (UR; being grumpy) will become a conditioned response (CR; e.g., hearing the tone at any point in the day—whether waking up or walking down the street—will make you grumpy). Modern studies of classical conditioning use a vast range of CS’s and US’s and measure a wide range of conditioned responses.

Watson and Behaviorism (Ob 7)

Watson believed that most of our fears and other emotional responses are classically conditioned. He had gained a good deal of popularity in the 1920s with his expert advice on parenting offered to the public. He believed that parents could be taught to help shape their children’s behavior and tried to demonstrate the power of classical conditioning with his famous experiment with an 18-month-old boy named “Little Albert.” Watson sat Albert down and introduced a variety of seemingly scary objects to him: a burning piece of newspaper, a white rat, etc. However, Albert remained curious and reached for all of these things. Watson knew that one of our only inborn fears is the fear of loud noises, so he proceeded to make a loud noise each time he introduced one of Albert’s favorites, a white rat. After hearing the loud noise several times paired with the rat, Albert soon came to fear the rat and began to cry when it was introduced. Watson filmed this experiment for posterity and used it to demonstrate that he could help parents achieve any outcomes they desired if they would only follow his advice. Watson wrote columns in newspapers and magazines and gained much popularity among parents eager to apply science to household order. Parenting advice was not the legacy Watson left us, however. Where he made his impact was in advertising. After Watson left academia, he went into the world of business and showed companies how to tie something that brings about a natural positive feeling to their products to enhance sales. Thus, the union of sex and advertising!

Operant Conditioning and Repeating Actions (Ob 8)

Operant Conditioning is another learning theory that emphasizes a more conscious type of learning than that of classical conditioning. A person (or animal) does something (operates something) to see what effect it might bring. Simply said, operant conditioning describes how we repeat behaviors because they pay off for us. It is based on a principle authored by a psychologist named Thorndike (1874-1949) called the law of effect . The law of effect suggests that we will repeat an action if a good effect follows it. However, when a behavior has a negative (painful/annoying) consequence, it is less likely to be repeated in the future. Effects that increase behaviors are referred to as reinforcers, and effects that decrease them are referred to as punishers. Operant conditioning occurs when a behavior (as opposed to a stimulus) is associated with the occurrence of a significant event. This voluntary behavior is called an operant behavior, because it “operates” on the environment (i.e., it is an action that the animal itself makes).

Figure caption: When a dog does a trick, the dog receives a treat. This is operant conditioning – the action/operation gets a stimulus response. Photo Courtesy of Pixabay

Let’s think about how operant conditioning is used on us. Have you ever done something to get a reward or not done something to avoid punishment? This is operant conditioning!

Skinner and Reinforcement (Ob 8)

B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) continued the expand on Thorndike’s principle and outlined the principles of operant conditioning .  Skinner believed that we learn best when our actions are reinforced.  For example, a child who cleans his room and is reinforced (rewarded) with a big hug and words of praise is more likely to clean it again than a child whose deed goes unnoticed.  Skinner believed that almost anything could be reinforcing.  A reinforcer is anything following a behavior that makes it more likely to occur again.  It can be something intrinsically rewarding (called intrinsic or primary reinforcers), such as food or praise, or it can be something rewarding because it can be exchanged for what one wants (such as using money to buy a cookie).  Such reinforcers are referred to as secondary reinforcers or extrinsic reinforcers.

Positive and negative reinforcement (Ob 8)

Sometimes, adding something to the situation is reinforcing as in the cases we described above with cookies, praise, and money.  Positive reinforcement involves adding something to the situation in order to encourage a behavior.  Other times, taking something away from a situation can be reinforcing.  For example, the loud, annoying buzzer on your alarm clock encourages you to get up so that you can turn it off and get rid of the noise.  Children whine in order to get their parents to do something and often, parents give in to stop the whining.  In these instances, negative reinforcement has been used.

Operant conditioning tends to work best if you focus on trying to encourage a behavior or move a person into the direction you want them to go rather than telling them what not to do. Reinforcers are used to encourage behavior; punishers are used to stop a behavior. A punisher is anything that follows an act and decreases the chance it will reoccur. However, often a punished behavior does not go away. It is just suppressed and may reoccur whenever the threat of punishment is removed. For example, a child may not cuss around you because you have washed his mouth out with soap, but he may cuss around his friends. Alternatively, a motorist may only slow down when the trooper is on the side of the freeway. Another problem with punishment is that when a person focuses on punishment, they may find it hard to see what the other does right or well. Moreover, the punishment is stigmatizing; when punished, some start to see themselves as bad and give up trying to change.

Table. Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Punishment

Reinforcement can occur in a predictable way, such as after every desired action is performed, or intermittently after the behavior is performed a number of times or the first time it is performed after a certain amount of time. The schedule of reinforcement has an impact on how long a behavior continues after reinforcement is discontinued. So, a parent who has rewarded a child’s actions each time may find that the child gives up very quickly if a reward is not immediately forthcoming. A lover who is warmly regarded now and then may continue to seek out his or her partner’s attention long after the partner has tried to break up. Think about the kinds of behaviors you may have learned through classical and operant conditioning. You may have learned many things in this way. However, sometimes we learn very complex behaviors quickly and without direct reinforcement. Bandura explains how.

Social Learning Theory (Ob 9)

Albert Bandura is a leading contributor to social learning theory . He calls our attention to how many of our actions are not learned through conditioning; instead, they are learned by watching others (1977). Young children frequently learn behaviors through imitation. Sometimes, particularly when we do not know what else to do, we learn by modeling or copying the behavior of others. An employee on his or her first day of a new job might eagerly look at how others are acting and try to act the same way to fit in more quickly. Adolescents struggling with their identity rely heavily on their peers to act as role-models. Newly married couples often rely on roles they may have learned from their parents and begin to act in ways they did not while dating and then wonder why their relationship has changed. Sometimes we do things because we have seen it pay off for someone else. They were operantly conditioned, but we engage in the behavior because we hope it will pay off for us as well. This is referred to as vicarious reinforcement (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1963).

Bandura (1986) suggests that there is an interplay between the environment and the individual. We are not just the product of our surroundings; rather we influence our surroundings. There is interplay between our personality and the way we interpret events and how they influence us. This concept is called reciprocal determinism.

In reciprocal determinism, there are bi-directional influences between how a person thinks and feels with the environment, his/her actions. Image courtesy of Wikimedia

An example of this might be the interplay between parents and children. Parents not only influence their child’s environment, perhaps intentionally through the use of reinforcement, etc., but children influence parents as well. Parents may respond differently to their first child than with their fourth. Perhaps they try to be the perfect parents with their firstborn, but by the time their last child comes along they have very different expectations both of themselves and their child. Our environment creates us, and we create our environment. Other social influences: TV or not TV? (Bandura et al., 1963) began a series of studies to look at the impact of television, particularly commercials, have on the behavior of children. Are children more likely to act out aggressively when they see this behavior modeled? What if they see it being reinforced? Bandura began by conducting an experiment in which he showed children a film of a woman hitting an inflatable clown or “Bobo” doll. Then the children were allowed in the room where they found the doll and immediately began to hit it. This was without any reinforcement whatsoever. Later they viewed a woman hitting a real clown, and sure enough, when allowed in the room, they too began to hit the clown! Not only that, but they found new ways to behave aggressively. It is as if they learned an aggressive role.

Children view far more television today than in the 1960s; so much, in fact, that they have been referred to as Generation M (media). Based on a study of a national representative sample of over 7,000 8 to 18-year-olds, the Kaiser Foundation (2010) reports that children spend just over 7 hours a day involved with media outside of schoolwork. This includes almost 4 hours of television viewing and over an hour on the computer. Two-thirds have a television in their room, and those children watch an average of 1.27 hours more of television per day than those that do not have a television in their bedroom (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2005). The prevalence of violence, sexual content, and messages promoting foods high in fat and sugar in the media are certainly cause for concern and the subjects of ongoing research and policy review. Many children spend even more time on the computer viewing content from the internet. Moreover, the amount of time spent connected to the internet continues to increase with the use of smartphones that primarily serve as mini-computers. What are the implications of this?

What do we think?  Exploring Cognition

Cognitive theories focus on how our mental processes or cognitions change over time. We will examine the ideas of two cognitive theorists: Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.

Piaget: Changes in thought with maturation (Ob 10)

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is one of the most influential cognitive theorists in development inspired to explore children’s ability to think and reason by watching his own children’s development. He was one of the first to recognize and map out how children’s intelligence differs from that of adults. He became interested in this area when he was asked to test the IQ of children and began to notice that there was a pattern in their wrong answers! He believed that children’s intellectual skills change over time and that maturation rather than training brings about that change. Children of differing ages interpret the world differently.

Making sense of the world (Ob 10)

Piaget believed that we are continuously trying to maintain cognitive equilibrium or a balance or cohesiveness in what we see and what we know.  Children have much more of a challenge in maintaining this balance because they are continually being confronted with new situations, new words, new objects, etc.  When faced with something new, a child may either fit it into an existing framework ( schema ) and match it with something known ( assimilation ) such as calling all animals with four legs “doggies” because he or she knows the word doggie, or expand the framework of knowledge to accommodate the new situation ( accommodation ) by learning a new word to more accurately name the animal.  This is the underlying dynamic in our cognition.  Even as adults we continue to try and “make sense” of new situations by determining whether they fit into our old way of thinking or whether we need to modify our thoughts.

Figure caption: An individual can be in a state of disequilibrium when new information does not match the knowledgebase. In order to equalize, the new information is either accommodated (change to knowledge base) or assimilated (fits within knowledgebase). Image courtesy of Pixabay.

Stages of Cognitive Development (Ob 11) 

Piaget outlined four major stages of cognitive development. Let me briefly mention them here, but we will discuss them in detail throughout the course. For about the first two years of life, the child experiences the world primarily through their senses and motor skills. Piaget referred to this type of intelligence as sensorimotor intelligence. During the preschool years, the child begins to master the use of symbols or words and can think of the world symbolically but not yet logically. This stage is the preoperational stage of development. The concrete operational stage in middle childhood is marked by an ability to use logic in understanding the physical world. In the final stage, the formal operational stage the adolescent learns to think abstractly and to use logic in both concrete and abstract ways.

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory (Ob 11)

Piaget has been criticized for overemphasizing the role that physical maturation plays in cognitive development and in underestimating the role that culture and interaction (or experience) plays in cognitive development. Looking across cultures reveals considerable variation in what children can do at various ages. Piaget may have underestimated what children are capable of given the right circumstances. For example, we will learn more about more current research examining infant cognition and babies’ understanding of the world in chapter 3.

Vygotsky: Changes in thought with guidance (Ob 12) 

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian psychologist who wrote in the early 1900s but whose work was discovered in the United States in the 1960s but became more widely known in the 1980s. Vygotsky differed with Piaget in that he believed that a person has not only a set of abilities but also a set of inherent abilities that can be realized if given the proper guidance from others. His sociocultural theory emphasizes the importance of culture and interaction in the development of cognitive abilities. He believed that through guided participation , also known as scaffolding , with a teacher or capable peer, a child could learn cognitive skills within a certain range known as the zone of proximal development. Have you ever taught a child to perform a task? Maybe it was brushing their teeth or preparing food. Chances are you spoke to them and described what you were doing while you demonstrated the skill and let them work along with you all through the process. You assisted them when they seemed to need it, but once they knew what to do-you stood back and let them go. This is scaffolding and can be seen demonstrated throughout the world. The individual learning that needs more guidance or scaffolding has a larger zone of proximal development (more room for growth in learning the task or skill independently). Someone who already can do the task or skill with little help is said to have a smaller zone of proximal development (needs less scaffolding). This approach to teaching has also been adopted by educators. Rather than assessing students on what they are doing, they should be understood in terms of what they are capable of doing with the proper guidance. You can see how Vygotsky would be very popular with modern day educators. We will discuss Vygotsky in greater depth in upcoming lessons.

Figure caption: Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development. The individual learning that needs more guidance or scaffolding has a larger zone of proximal development (more room for growth in learning the task or skill independently). Someone who already can do the task or skill with little help is said to have a smaller zone of proximal development (needs less scaffolding).

Information Processing Model (Ob 13)

Information Processing is not the work of a single theorist, but based on the ideas and research of several cognitive scientists studying how individuals perceive, analyze, manipulate, use, and remember information. The information processing model theorizes that information made available by the environment is processed by a series of processing systems (e.g. attention, perception, aspects of memory). This approach assumes that humans gradually improve in their processing skills; that is, development is continuous rather than stage-like. The information processing model is analogous to computer functioning in that we combine information presented with stored information like you are able to as you edit and resave files on a computer. However, humans do have limitations in how well we process information and we may not recall or restore information as efficiently as a computer. Additionally, humans are not serial processors and are more complex than computers (for example, consider our emotional and motivational factors).

The image below shows a version of the information processing model. The processors that are shown (sensory memory, working (short-term) memory, long term memory) are used as we attend, store, and retrieve information. We first notice stimuli through our senses and then we begin to process information in our working (short-term) memory. Once memory has been stored, it is in our long-term memories. Working (short-term) memory has a limited capacity. We first notice stimuli through our senses and then we begin to process information in our working (short-term) memory. Once memory has been stored, it is in our long-term memories.

Figure: This is an example of the information processing model based from Attkinson and Shiffrin (1968). Image courtesy of Wikipedia

Information processing theories see the more complex mental skills of adults being built from the primitive abilities of children in a continuously developing process. We are born with the ability to notice stimuli, store, and retrieve information. Brain maturation enables advancements in our information processing system. At the same time, interactions with the environment also aid in our development of more effective strategies for processing information.

Putting it all together: Ecological Systems Model (Ob 14)

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) provides a model of human development that addresses its many influences. Bronfenbrenner recognized that larger social forces influence human interaction and that an understanding of those forces is essential for understanding an individual.

• Microsystem includes the individual’s setting and those who have direct, significant contact with the person, such as parents or siblings.  The input of those is modified by the cognitive and biological state of the individual as well.  These influence the person’s actions, which in turn influence systems operating on him or her.
• Mesosystem consists of the interactions between the different parts of microsystem of person.  These could include interactions between the microsystems, such as the interaction between different family members and individual’s within organizational structures, such as school, the family, or religion (e.g., parent and teacher, .
• Exosystem includes the broader contexts of the community.  A community’s values, history, and economy can impact the organizational structures it houses.  Mesosystems both influence and are influenced by the exosystem.
• Macrosystem includes cultural elements, such as global economic conditions, war, technological trends, values, philosophies, and society’s responses to the global community.
• Chronosystem is the historical context in which these experiences occur.  This relates to the different generational periods previously discussed such as the baby boomers and millennials.

In sum, a child’s experiences are shaped by larger forces such as the family, schools, and religion, and culture. All of this occurs in a historical context or chronosystem. Bronfenbrenner’s model helps us combine each of the other theories described above and gives us a perspective that brings it all together. Despite its comprehensiveness, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system’s theory is not easy to use. Taking into consideration all the different influences makes it difficult to research and determine the impact of all the different variables (Dixon, 2003). Consequently, psychologists have not fully adopted this approach, although they recognize the importance of the ecology of the individual. The figure below is an expanded version of Brofenbrenner’s model including examples for each system.

Each psychological theory presented in the chapter expands our understanding of human development. Some of the theories focus on different periods of development while others expand on how changes occur across the lifespan. The theories presented cover core aspects of psychology – including cognitive, behavioral, psychoanalytical, and social development. As we cover human development chronologically, you will identify sections of the chapter are divided up by different concepts of development, including biological and physical changes. While these different areas are discussed separately, these are interactive processes. Human development is an interaction between biological and environmental factors.

Chapter 2 Key Terms

Psychology Through the Lifespan Copyright © 2020 by Alisa Beyer and Julie Lazzara is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Developmental Psychology

• Reference work entry
• First Online: 17 December 2022
• Cite this reference work entry

• Moritz M. Daum 5 , 6 &
• Mirella Manfredi 5  

Part of the book series: Springer International Handbooks of Education ((SIHE))

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Developmental Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior from the perspective of change across the entire lifespan. In the present chapter, we provide a comprehensive and modern view on current topics particularly relevant when teaching Developmental Psychology. We start with the attempt to derive a contemporary definition of development and Developmental Psychology. Over historical time, perspectives on development changed. These different perspectives were regularly challenged, and we discuss some of the questions of scientific dispute such as the influence of nature and nurture on the development of an individual from a contemporary perspective. The perspectives often resulted in larger theoretical constructs. We will not describe individual theories comprehensively but rather focus on general issues of theoretical approaches and highlight one recent approach, the dynamic systems theories. Theories need to be supported by empirical evidence. Accordingly, we will briefly describe the major research designs used to measure developmental change. We will conclude the chapter with a focus on one topic particularly relevant when teaching Developmental Psychology, the development of communication, and discuss further topics that can potentially be included in a Developmental Psychology curriculum and describe some ideas on how to teach them. In all, we intend to provide a contemporary overview of the scientific study of developmental change.

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Developmental Psychology: Moving Beyond the East–West Divide

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Daum, M.M., Manfredi, M. (2023). Developmental Psychology. In: Zumbach, J., Bernstein, D.A., Narciss, S., Marsico, G. (eds) International Handbook of Psychology Learning and Teaching. Springer International Handbooks of Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28745-0_13

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Developmental Psychology ® publishes articles that significantly advance knowledge and theory about development across the life span. The journal focuses on seminal empirical contributions. The journal occasionally publishes exceptionally strong scholarly reviews and theoretical or methodological articles. Studies of any aspect of psychological development are appropriate, as are studies of the biological, social, and cultural factors that affect development.

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In a subsection titled “Transparency and Openness” at the end of the method section, specify whether and where the data and material will be available or note the legal or ethical reasons for not doing so. For submissions with quantitative or simulation analytic methods, state whether the study analysis code is posted to a trusted repository, and, if so, how to access it (or the legal or ethical reason why it is not available).

• All data have been made publicly available at the [trusted repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].
• Materials and analysis code for this study are not available because [legal or ethical reason].
• The code behind this analysis/simulation has been made publicly available at the [trusted repository name] and can be accessed at [persistent URL or DOI].

Preregistration of studies and analysis plans

Preregistration of studies and specific hypotheses can be a useful tool for making strong theoretical claims. Likewise, preregistration of analysis plans can be useful for distinguishing confirmatory and exploratory analyses. Investigators are encouraged to preregister their studies and analysis plans prior to conducting the research via a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF , ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network). There are many available templates; for example, APA, the British Psychological Society, and the German Psychological Society partnered with the Leibniz Institute for Psychology and Center for Open Science to create Preregistration Standards for Quantitative Research in Psychology (Bosnjak et al., 2022).

Articles must state whether or not any work was preregistered and, if so, where to access the preregistration. If any aspect of the study is preregistered, include the registry link in the method section. Preregistrations must be available to reviewers; authors may submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material. Links in the method section should be replaced with an identifiable copy on acceptance.

• This study’s design was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s design and hypotheses were preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study’s analysis plan was preregistered; see [STABLE LINK OR DOI].
• This study was not preregistered.

Replications and Registered Reports

Developmental Psychology publishes direct replications. Submissions should include “A Replication of XX Study” in the subtitle of the manuscript as well as in the abstract.

Developmental Psychology also publishes Registered Reports. Registered Reports require a two-step review process. The first step is the submission of the registration manuscript. This is a partial manuscript that includes hypotheses, rationale for the study, experimental design, and methods. The partial manuscript will be reviewed for rigor and methodological approach.

If the partial manuscript is accepted, this amounts to provisional acceptance of the full report regardless of the outcome of the study. The full manuscript will be reviewed for adherence to the preregistered design (deviations should be reported in the manuscript).

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Prepare manuscripts according to the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association using the 7th edition. Manuscripts may be copyedited for bias-free language (see Chapter 5 of the Publication Manual ).

Review APA's Journal Manuscript Preparation Guidelines before submitting your article.

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Journal article

McCauley, S. M., & Christiansen, M. H. (2019). Language learning as language use: A cross-linguistic model of child language development. Psychological Review , 126 (1), 1–51. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000126

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Brown, L. S. (2018). Feminist therapy (2nd ed.). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000092-000

Chapter in an edited book

Balsam, K. F., Martell, C. R., Jones. K. P., & Safren, S. A. (2019). Affirmative cognitive behavior therapy with sexual and gender minority people. In G. Y. Iwamasa & P. A. Hays (Eds.), Culturally responsive cognitive behavior therapy: Practice and supervision (2nd ed., pp. 287–314). American Psychological Association. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000119-012

Software/Code citation

Viechtbauer, W. (2010). Conducting meta-analyses in R with the metafor package.  Journal of Statistical Software , 36(3), 1–48. https://www.jstatsoft.org/v36/i03/

Wickham, H. et al., (2019). Welcome to the tidyverse. Journal of Open Source Software, 4 (43), 1686, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.01686

All data, program code, and other methods must be cited in the text and listed in the references section.

Data set citation

Alegria, M., Jackson, J. S., Kessler, R. C., & Takeuchi, D. (2016). Collaborative Psychiatric Epidemiology Surveys (CPES), 2001–2003 [Data set]. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR20240.v8

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Koraly Pérez-Edgar, PhD The Pennsylvania State University, United States

Associate editors

Irma Arteaga, PhD University of Missouri, United States

Sheretta T. Butler-Barnes, PhD Washington University in St. Louis, United States

Christopher Beam, PhD University of Southern California, United States

Peter Bos, PhD University of Leiden, The Netherlands 

Natalie Brito, PhD New York University, United States 

Lucas Butler, PhD University of Maryland, United States

Gustavo Carlo, PhD University of California, Irvine, United States

Elisabeth Conradt, PhD University of Utah, United States

Timothy Curby, PhD George Mason University, United States

Judith Danovitch, PhD University of Louisville, United States

John Franchak, PhD University of California, Riverside, United States

Emily Fyfe, PhD Indiana University, United States

Melinda Gonzales Backen, PhD Florida State University, United States

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Elizabeth Gunderson, PhD Indiana University, United States

Amanda Guyer, PhD University of California, Davis, United States

Larisa Solomon, PhD Columbia University, United States

Lana Karasik, PhD City University of New York, United States

Melissa Kibbe, PhD Boston University, United States

Elizabeth Kiel, PhD Miami University of Ohio, United States

Su Yeong Kim, PhD University of Texas, Austin, United States

Diana Leyva, PhD University of Pittsburgh, United States

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Kristine Marceau, PhD Purdue University, United States

Julie Markant, PhD Tulane University, United States

Kalina Michalska, PhD University of California, Riverside, United States

Francisco Palermo, PhD University of Missouri, United States

Carlomagno Panlilio, PhD The Pennsylvania State University, United States

Mikko Peltola, PhD Tampere University, Finland

Gavin Price, PhD Exeter University, United Kingdom

Joanna Williams, PhD Rutgers University, United States

Qing Zhou, PhD University of California, Berkeley, United States

Consulting editors

Melissa Barnett, PhD University of Arizona, United States

Martha Ann Bell, PhD Virginia Tech, United States

Deon Benton, PhD Vanderbilt University, United States

Tashauna Blankenship, PhD University of Massachusetts, Boston, United States

David Bridgett, PhD Northern Illinois University, United States

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Samantha Brown, PhD Colorado State University, United States

Claire Cameron, PhD University at Buffalo, United States

Carlos Cardenas-Iniguez, PhD University of Southern California, United States

Rona Carter, PhD, LLP, RYT University of Michigan, United States

Stephen Chen, PhD Wellesley College, United States

Elizabeth Davis, PhD University of California, Riverside, United States

Leah Doane, PhD Arizona State University, United States

Jessica Dollar, PhD University of North Carolina, Greensboro, United States

Robert Duncan, PhD Purdue University, United States

Ari Eason, PhD University of California, Berkeley, United States

Katie Ehrlich, PhD University of Georgia, United States

Paola Escudero, PhD Western Sydney University, Australia

Caitlin Fausey, PhD University of Oregon, United States

Gregory M. Fosco, PhD The Pennsylvania State University, United States

Nicole Gardner-Neblett, PhD University of Michigan, United States

Erica Glasper, PhD Ohio State University, United States

Selin Gulgoz, PhD Fordham University, United States

Ernest Hodges, PhD St. John’s University, United States

Adam Hoffman, PhD Cornell University, United States

Stefanie Höhl, PhD University of Vienna, Austria

Caroline Hornburg, PhD Virginia Tech, United States

Yang Hou, PhD University of Kentucky, United States

Marina Kalashnikova, PhD Basque Center on Cognition, Brain, and Language, Spain

Heather Kirkorian, PhD University of Wisconsin, Madison, United States

Olga Kornienko, PhD George Mason University, United States

Deborah Laible, PhD Lehigh University, United States

Jonathan Lane, PhD Vanderbilt University, United States

Tessa Lansu, PhD Radboud University, Netherlands

Kathryn Leech, PhD University of North Carolina, United States

Ryan Lei, PhD Haverford College, United States

Jeffrey Liew, PhD Texas A&M University, United States

Betty Lin, PhD University at Albany, United States

Eric Lindsey, PhD Penn State Berks, United States

Jessica Lougheed, PhD University of British Columbia, Okanagan, Canada

Alexandra Main, PhD University of California, Merced, United States

Henrike Moll, PhD University of Southern California, United States

Santiago Morales, PhD University of Southern California, United States

Dianna Murray-Close, PhD University of Vermont, United States

Shaylene Nancekivell, PhD University of North Carolina, Greensboro, United States

Justin Parent, PhD Brown University, United States

Livio Provenzi, PhD IRCCS Mondino Foundation, Italy

Laura Quiñones-Camacho, PhD University of Texas, Austin, United States

Rachel Romeo, PhD, CCC-SLP University of Maryland, United States

Samuel Ronfard, EdD University of Toronto, Canada

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Adena Schachner, PhD University of California, San Diego, United States

Yishan Shen, PhD Texas State University, United States

Cara Streit, PhD University of New Mexico, United States

Cin Cin Tan, PhD University of Toledo, United States

Rachel Thibodeau-Nielson, PhD University of Missouri, United States

Sho Tsuji, PhD University of Tokyo, Japan

Yuuko Uchikoshi, EdD University of California, Davis, United States

Carlos Valiente, PhD Arizona State University, United States

Nicholas Wagner, PhD Boston University, United States

Jinjing Wang, PhD Rutgers University, United States

Jun Wang, PhD Texas A&M University, United States

Christina Weiland, EdD University of Michigan, United States

Eric Wilkey, PhD Louisiana State University, United States

Peer review coordinator

Emily Densmore American Psychological Association

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Special issue of the APA journal Developmental Psychology, Vol. 56, No. 3, March 2020. Articles discuss the impact of emotion-related socialization behaviors on children’s emotion, self-regulation, and developmental outcomes.

Special issue of the APA journal Developmental Psychology, Vol. 55, No. 9, September 2019. The issue is intended to present and highlight examples of innovative recent approaches and thinking to a range of questions about emotional development and to inspire new directions for future research.

Special issue of the APA journal Developmental Psychology, Vol. 53, No. 11, November 2017. The articles examine identity in developmental stages ranging from early childhood to young adulthood, and represent samples from 5 different countries.

Special issue of the APA journal Developmental Psychology, Vol. 49, No. 3, March 2013. The articles pose important questions concerning how children learn from others, what the characteristic signatures of social learning might be, and how this learning changes over time.

Transparency and Openness Promotion

APA endorses the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines by a community working group in conjunction with the Center for Open Science ( Nosek et al. 2015 ). The TOP Guidelines cover eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting that can be followed by journals and authors at three levels of compliance.

• Level 1: Disclosure—The article must disclose whether or not the materials are posted to a trusted repository.
• Level 2: Requirement—The article must share materials via a trusted repository when legally and ethically permitted (or disclose the legal and/or ethical restriction when not permitted).
• Level 3: Verification—A third party must verify that the standard is met.

At a minimum, empirical research, including meta-analyses, submitted to Developmental Psychology must, at a minimum, meet Level 2 (Requirement) for all aspects of research planning and reporting. Authors should include a subsection in their methods description titled “Transparency and Openness.” This subsection should detail the efforts the authors have made to comply with the TOP Guidelines.

The list below summarizes the minimal TOP requirements of the journal. Please refer to the TOP guidelines for details, and contact the editor (Koraly Pérez-Edgar, PhD) with any further questions. Authors must share data, materials, and code via trusted repositories (e.g., APA’s repository on the Open Science Framework (OSF)). Trusted repositories adhere to policies that make data discoverable, accessible, usable, and preserved for the long term. Trusted repositories also assign unique and persistent identifiers.

We encourage investigators to preregister their studies and to share protocols and analysis plans prior to conducting their research. Clinical trials are studies that prospectively evaluate the effects of interventions on health outcomes, including psychological health. Clinical trials must be registered before enrolling participants on ClinicalTrials.gov or another primary register of the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) . There are many available preregistration forms (e.g., the APA Preregistration for Quantitative Research in Psychology template, ClininalTrials.gov , or other preregistration templates available via OSF ). Completed preregistration forms should be posted on a publicly accessible registry system (e.g., OSF , ClinicalTrials.gov, or other trial registries in the WHO Registry Network).

The following list presents the eight fundamental aspects of research planning and reporting, the TOP level required by  Developmental Psychology , and a brief description of the journal's policy.

• Citation: Level 2, Requirement—All data, program code, and other methods developed by others must be cited in the text and listed in the references section.
• Data Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether the raw and/or processed data on which study conclusions are based are available and either where to access them or the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available.
• Analytic Methods (Code) Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether computer code or syntax needed to reproduce analyses in an article is posted to a trusted repository and either how to access it or the legal or ethical reasons why it is not available
• Research Materials Transparency: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether materials described in the method section are posted to a trusted repository and either how to access them or the legal or ethical reasons why they are not available.
• Design and Analysis Transparency (Reporting Standards): Level 2, Requirement—Article must comply with APA Style Journal Article Reporting Standards (JARS-Quant, JARS-Qual, and/or MARS).
• Study Preregistration: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether the study design and (if applicable) hypotheses of any of the work reported was preregistered and, if so, how to access it. Authors must submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material.
• Analysis Plan Preregistration: Level 2, Requirement—Article states whether any of the work reported preregistered an analysis plan and, if so, how to access it. Authors must submit a masked copy via stable link or supplemental material.
• Replication: Level 3, Verification—The journal publishes replications and Registered Reports.

Other open science initiatives

• Open Science badges: Not offered
• Public significance statements: Offered
• Author contribution statements using CRediT: Required
• Registered Reports: Published
• Replications: Published
• Detailed sample descriptions: Required

Explore open science at APA .

Inclusive study designs

• Registered Reports

Definitions and further details on inclusive study designs are available on the Journals EDI homepage .

Inclusive reporting standards

• Bias-free language and community-driven language guidelines (required)
• Author contribution roles using CRediT (required)
• Data sharing and data availability statements (required)
• Impact statements (required)
• Participant sample descriptions (required)

More information on this journal’s reporting standards is listed under the submission guidelines tab .

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Editorial fellowships.

Editorial fellowships for this journal will begin in 2023.

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This journal offers masked peer review (where both the authors’ and reviewers’ identities are not known to the other). Research has shown that masked peer review can help reduce implicit bias against traditionally female names or early-career scientists with smaller publication records (Budden et al., 2008; Darling, 2015).

Editor Spotlight

• Read the January 2023 editorial by Editor Koraly Pérez-Edgar
• Read an interview with Editor Koraly Pérez-Edgar, PhD

From APA Journals Article Spotlight ®

• Does children's biological functioning predict parenting behavior?
• New directions in the study of human emotional development

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Developmental Origins of Health and Disease: the relevance to developing nations

Mirembe mandy.

1 Medical Research Council/Uganda Virus Research Institute Uganda Research Unit on AIDS, P Box 49, Entebbe, Uganda

Moffat Nyirenda

2 London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London WC1E 7HT, UK

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, are experiencing rapid increases in the prevalence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), which may not be fully explained by urbanization and associated traditional risk factors such as tobacco smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, poor diet or physical inactivity. In this commentary, we draw attention to the concept of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD), where environmental insults in early life can contribute to long-term risk of NCDs, the impact of which would be particularly important in LMICs where poverty, malnutrition, poor sanitation and infections are still prevalent.

The concept

The ‘Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DOHaD)’ hypothesis, a rather more recent term for the concept initially proposed and called ‘Fetal Origins of Adult Disease’ in the 1990s, 1 postulates that exposure to certain environmental influences during critical periods of development and growth may have significant consequences on an individual’s short- and long-term health. 2 In this concept, the developing fetus, if exposed to a hostile uterine environment (caused by insults such as poor nutrition, infections, chemicals, metabolite or hormonal perturbations), 3 responds by developing adaptations (predictive adaptive responses—PARs), that not only foster its immediate viability, but also its survival if a similar environment is encountered later in life. 4 , 5 Some examples of short-term adaptations the fetus may make in these scenarios include down-regulation of endocrine or metabolic function, and/or specific organ function to slow down its growth rate to match the nutrient supply in the deprived uterine environment. 6 Long-term, subtle, irreversible changes in the development, structure and function of some tissues and vital organs (thymus, skeletal muscle, lungs, pancreas, kidney) may occur 7 as a result of disruptions in gene expression, cell differentiation and proliferation. However, if the individual then grows up in an extra-uterine environment the reverse of that experienced in utero, the ‘mismatch’ and poorer fit, therefore, would predispose them to a higher risk of certain non-communicable diseases (NCDs). 3 This risk is further exacerbated by excessive weight gain in postnatal/adult life, and by the aging process itself. 5 , 8

Manifestation of DOHaD

Much of the evidence underpinning DOHaD science has been obtained from animal models and observational human studies. It shows that the period from conception to early childhood, i.e. prenatal development to child growth—when organogenesis and rapid growth are occurring 9 —is critical to the immediate and future health of the infant. Studies that looked at undernutrition acting in this early life period (as a result of either maternal undernutrition or protein/calorie restriction), 4 showed that it not only retarded growth, 10 but also induced lifelong changes in hormonal concentrations, and the sensitivity of various tissues to these fetal and placental hormones—alterations that lead to abnormal organ development 11 , 12 and to diseases such as type-2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), cardiovascular disease (CVD), kidney disease, obesity, hypertension, osteoporosis and metabolic syndrome in later life. 13 , 14 These irreversible changes to tissue structure and physiology made to survive the harsh environment encountered in utero have also been called ‘programming’, and they are dependent on the nature and point at which exposure to the insult occurs, since tissues mature at different rates and time points. 11 , 15 This differential effect is well illustrated with undernutrition, to which exposure too soon after conception, for example, slows down fetal growth and leads to low birthweight of the infant. In contrast, if undernutrition occurs during mid-pregnancy, it may alter placental development and lead to fetal wasting during the remainder of the pregnancy—disturbances that can result in distinct metabolic phenotypes in adulthood. 13 Exposure to various other environmental factors including maternal stress, infections, hypertension, obesity, teratogens, alcohol, drugs, cigarette smoke, over nutrition and paternal malnutrition, within these critical windows of growth and development, have also been associated with an increased risk of adult disease. 16 , 17

Underlying mechanisms

The mechanisms that mediate the programming effects of diverse environmental insults, or how this memory is stored are unclear, but a few have been postulated. These include the following.

A theory of glucocorticoids as a potential common mechanism through which various environmental factors exert their programming effects.

• Dysregulation in the development of the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis: A number of environmental exposures during early life (such as maternal stress, infections, undernutrition or GC treatment) have been shown to permanently increase activity of the HPA axis. This may result from differential expression of the GC receptors, with reduced expression in the hypothalamus attenuating negative feedback and increasing GC production from the adrenal glands. Changes in the activity of this neuroendocrine system influence development and regulation of various organs, and homeostatic systems, such as the central nervous, cardiovascular and metabolic systems, pancreas, kidney and adipose tissue. This aberrant activity can ultimately lead to increased risk of cardiovascular disease and cardio-metabolic disorders in adulthood
• Irreversible changes in organ structure: Early life insults might also lead to permanent dysfunction and disease through irreversible changes in organ structure. For example, several insults such as undernutrition and hypoxia 20 in utero have been associated with reduced nephron numbers (as a result of decreased nephrogenesis or renal progenitor cells), 21 fewer pancreatic β-cell numbers/islet vascularization 22 and liver lobules. The reduction in nephron numbers/function would increase risk of hypertension and renal disease, while reduced β-cell mass (as well as defective insulin signaling in skeletal muscle and adipose tissue), 23 would dispose the individual to impaired glucose control in older age.
• Alterations in gene expression: A more recently suggested mechanism through which early exposures might mediate their long-term effects, involves epigenetics. 3 Epigenetic modifications, which include DNA methylation, histone marks and non-coding RNAs, regulate gene expression independent of changes in the DNA sequence, and are important to normal development and differentiation. 23 DNA methylation, for example, is vital to cell differentiation, carcinogenesis and genomic imprinting. 24 A number of studies in animal models and humans have shown that prenatal insults such as undernutrition or GCs can influence epigenetic marks. For example, in utero exposure to famine during the Dutch Hunger Winter of 1944–45, showed that these individuals in adulthood, 4 had reduced methylation at regulatory regions for the insulin-like growth factor II, a hormone critical to growth and development. 25 Other studies also found undernutrition in utero to alter methylation rates of the key enzyme (11β-HSD2) and hormonal receptor sites (GC receptors), changes that perturb hormone homeostasis and can lead to adult disease. 26 Changes in non-coding RNA and histone modifications at genes of key transcription factors, such as the PPARs , Hnf4α and Pdx1 , critical to normal tissue and organ development (adipose tissue, the pancreas, liver), cellular differentiation and metabolism, have also been associated with aberrance and susceptibility to T2DM. 27

Other proposed mechanisms include genetics, 28 cellular aging 29 and intergenerational effects (exposures experienced by one generation that influence the health of the next, because they persist across generations or are genetic, or occur in utero and are self-perpetuating such as those that affect the HPA axis). 30

The impact on risk of NCDs: could DOHaD have a role?

It is known now that NCDs can be caused by a number of factors including genetics, environmental, physiological and behavioral patterns, and that they can occur in all age groups even though they are primarily diseases of old age. 31 NCDs are the current leading cause of death globally, accounting for about 40 million (70%) deaths annually. 31 They are generally attributed to four main risk factors: tobacco smoke, harmful alcohol consumption, poor diet and physical inactivity. 31 However, these factors do not seem to fully explain the pattern of NCDs emerging in developing countries with the fast pace of urbanization, and consequent epidemiological and nutrition transitions. 32 , 33 The epidemics in these regions seem to differ in some characteristics—with presentation occurring at a seemingly earlier age and disease progression at a faster rate than has been reported in developed countries; 34 , 35 more than four-fifths of the estimated 15 million premature worldwide deaths from NCDs occur in these low- and middle income settings. 31 These differences raise the question as to whether there are other drivers of chronic disease in these regions and the argument that there may well be. 36 A proportion of NCDs in less developed resource-constrained countries could probably be explained by other factors, particularly, 4 the encounter of adverse experiences during critical periods of growth (prenatal, childhood and in adolescence). 32

Evidence from the numerous studies cited above would strongly support this notion, highlighting the need to further understand the role DOHaD may have in driving the NCD epidemic, and how it could contribute to the design of appropriate interventions, to address this growing public health problem, 32 especially given that it is in these same regions that poverty, malnutrition, infections, low birth weight and poor sanitation are still prevalent. DOHaD science would be particularly useful for informing ways to improve nutrition and not just in early life, where fetal malnutrition, largely a consequence of poor maternal nutrition, has been shown to alter normal patterns of growth and development, 37 but throughout the life course. 38 Presently, about one-third of the world’s population, mostly in developing countries, suffers from some form of malnutrition; 815 million from calorie deficiency and nearly 2 billion from being overweight or obese. 39 This year alone, maternal and child undernutrition accounted for 10% of the global burden of disease 40 and obesity for about 2.8 million deaths. 41 Together with other, often related NCDs, these represent a significant burden of ill health and put enormous strain not just on individuals and their families, but also on the health systems, societies and economies of these nations. 42 Knowing this, it is imperative to step up the momentum to tackle these problems where effort is already being made, an even more importantly, to garner attention, as well as begin to utilize what knowledge of DOHaD we have, in regions where little is understood or being done. 34

In conclusion, we now know that it is possible to reduce the burden of NCDs and to have an impact on long-term health outcomes by using approaches that address the influence of environmental factors on growth and development. Because these, unlike genetics or aging (important causes of NCDs), can be modified, they provide an opportunity, using the knowledge there is of developmental plasticity, to design interventions that could prevent many of these chronic diseases. 16 However, like all previous successes, HIV-AIDs the classic one, progress addressing NCDs will require the political will, and NCDs getting on the national agendas, especially those of countries in the developing regions.

As for the next steps and interventions, it is critical that these take a life-course as well as a multi-disciplinary approach to be able to affect multiple generations. 31 , 34 , 43 , 44 A few to consider include:

• Reducing poverty : which would improve living standards and health outcomes because it would reduce the risk of malnutrition, 3 , 44 infections 32 and disease.
• Investing in nutrition : to improve access, availability and affordability of nutritious foods. 45
• Education : on the importance of nutrition and physical activity—using mass media for the general public and by integrating the subjects into science syllabi for primary and secondary school.
• Promoting breast feeding, and healthy infant and young child feeding practices . 44
• Improving practices/access to water, sanitation and hygiene .
• Supporting strategies to reduce tobacco smoking and alcohol consumption . 42
• Addressing gender inequity so that females are empowered to make better decisions for themselves and their families, the children particularly. 44

Acknowledgments

Author’s contributions: MN conceived the idea for the paper; MM drafted it; MN critically revised the paper for intellectual content and presentation.

Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank Professor Robert Newton for his insightful input reviewing the paper.

Funding: None.

Competing interests: None declared.

Ethical approval: Not required.

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Genetic hypothesis for the developmental origins of health and disease theory

Zhao, Xinzhi ∗

a International Peace Maternity & Child Health Hospital of China Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University

b Shanghai Key Laboratory of Embryo Original Diseases, Shanghai, China.

∗Corresponding author: Xinzhi Zhao, International Peace Maternity & Child Health Hospital of China Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200030, China. E-mail: [email protected] .

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License 4.0 (CCBY-NC-ND), where it is permissible to download and share the work provided it is properly cited. The work cannot be changed in any way or used commercially without permission from the journal. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

The developmental origins of health and disease theory states that environmental stresses during the early stages of life influence health and risk of developing non-communicable diseases throughout the lifespan of an individual. Developmental plasticity is thought to be a possible underlying mechanism. Here, I discuss a contrasting but complementary genetic hypothesis regarding the developmental origins of health and disease theory: crosstalk between the genomes of the parents and offspring is responsible for shaping and adapting responses to environmental stresses, regulating early growth and predisposition to non-communicable diseases. Genetic variants that are beneficial in terms of responses to early life stresses may have pleiotropic detrimental effects on health later in life, which may change the allele frequencies driven by selection on a population level. Genetic studies on the cohort of children born after assisted reproduction could provide insight regarding the genetic mechanisms of the developmental origins of health and disease theory.

Introduction

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs), also known as chronic diseases, are characterized by slow progression and long duration. Prominent NCDs include cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and major psychiatric diseases. Over the past two centuries, dramatic improvements in healthcare have increased the global life expectancy and changed the patterns of disease. NCDs account for a substantial proportion of the global disease burden and are currently responsible for over 63% of the world's deaths. [1]

The etiologies of NCDs are generally complex and consist of multiple genetic and environmental factors. The discovery that disorders of intrauterine development were associated with risk of NCDs in adult life was an important finding of the late 20th century. David Baker and colleagues reported an increased rate of death from ischemic heart disease in individuals with low birth weight in an English cohort, [2] and later this association was replicated in several different populations. [3,4] Low birth weight was also found to be associated with disorders characterized by insulin resistance, such as type 2 diabetes (T2D), hypertension, and dyslipidaemia. [5] Based on these observations, Barker formulated the hypothesis of the developmental origins of health and disease (DOHaD), which proposes that exposure to environmental factors during specific sensitive periods of development might predispose an organism to diseases in adult life. [6] An increasing number of studies have connected exposure to stresses during early life after conception, or even during preconceptional gametogenesis, with increased risks for chronic conditions.

Although the association has been well established by many epidemiology studies, the underlying mechanisms of the DOHaD theory are not fully understood. Some important hypotheses are based on developmental plasticity. [7] Many organisms have been found to express adaptive responses to their environments and to form specific characteristics. However, if the environment changes, these characteristics could result in maladaptation, and could increase the risk of contracting disease. Hales and Baker [8] put forward the thrifty phenotype hypothesis to explain the associations between poor fetal and infant growth and an increased risk of developing impaired glucose tolerance or metabolic syndrome in adult life. The hypothesis states that poor nutrition in fetal and early infant life induces specific programming of development and function of pancreatic β-cells, as well as kidney, muscle, liver, vascular, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, and sympathetic systems. The programming leads to a thrifty phenotype with reduced fetal growth and poor organic function. These individuals would be well adapted to living in a continuously poorly nourished state, but would be maladapted to overnutrition in adult life, putting them at risk of developing a metabolic syndrome.

An alternative explanation to the DOHaD theory is genetic pleiotropy, the phenomenon in genetics whereby a DNA variant influences multiple traits. Given the limited number of genes in the human genome, and the enormous dimensionality of the phenome, it is reasonable to expect that many functional variants have pleiotropic effects. [9] Those genetic variants that affect development and influence adaptive responses to environmental stresses at an early age may also contribute to the genetic risk of NCD later on in life. The association between changes early in development and the onset of NCDs later in life may be a coupled phenomenon caused by a common mechanism.

In this review, I focus on the following potential genetic factors in the DOHaD theory, 1) the genetic variants linking early life development, mainly during intrauterine growth, and the risk of NCDs, 2) possible antagonistic pleiotropy and positive/negative selection for these genetic variants, and 3) the interaction between genetic and environmental factors. I also discuss how the growing population of individuals born as a result of assisted reproduction provides a unique opportunity to investigate the genetic mechanisms of DOHaD theory.

Database search strategy

In this review, the author performed a search for original and review articles published in English between January 1989 and June 2019 focusing on genetic hypothesis of DOHaD theory in PubMed database. The following search terms were used alone or in combination: “genetics in developmental origins of health and disease”, “genetic pleiotropy”, “genetics of intrauterine growth”, “genetics of birth weight”, “positive selection”, “assisted reproduction”. The bibliographies of pertinent articles were also examined to identify further relevant papers.

The “thrifty genotype” hypothesis

As early as 1962, the American geneticist James Neel [10] put forth the “thrifty genotype” hypothesis. He proposed that genetic variants that reduce glucose uptake and limit body growth facilitated survival during periods of famine, and therefore these thrifty alleles would be positively selected in preindustrialized societies, in which famine is frequent. When individuals who have the thrifty genotype encounter a modern industrialized environment with plentiful food/low energy expenditure, they are at risk of developing metabolic syndromes. This hypothesis was initially used to explain the increasing prevalence of T2D among many indigenous populations, and was modified in the following years in conjunction with new information regarding the complexity of metabolic disease. [11]

The thrifty genotype hypothesis was applied to the mechanism of DOHaD by Hattersley and Tooke. [12] They proposed the fetal insulin hypothesis, which states that genetic factors are important both as determinants of birth weight and in evaluating the risk of adult metabolic syndromes. In other words, they proposed that the “thrifty phenotype” is the result of a “thrifty genotype”. Insulin pathways are considered to be excellent candidates for a common link because insulin plays a key role in both metabolism syndrome and fetal growth.

The thrifty genotype hypothesis employed an evolutionary framework to explain the growing burden of NCDs in contemporary populations. Nevertheless, many critiques of the hypothesis [13] arose due to the general lack of genetic evidence until recently. However, in the past 15 years, high throughput genomic platforms have generated huge amounts of genetic data enabling numerous genome-wide association studies (GWAS). A number of genetic variants that increase NCDs risk in old age have been found to be associated with increases in survival, fertility or lifetime reproductive success (LRS).

The genetic variants linking early development and adult diseases

Low birth weight has been identified as an important risk factor for many NCDs, and the association is primarily the result of growth retardation, rather than preterm birth. [14] Birth weight is a complex multifactorial trait, and genetic factors play an important role that is independent of the intra-uterine environment. [15] This trait is extremely polygenic, and is controlled by large numbers of loci of small effect. As a result, it is quite difficult to identify the genetic loci that influence birth weight. Fortunately, birth weight is an easy-accessible demographic trait. Meta-analyses of GWAS data from multiple large-scale studies have yielded sufficient power to detect the genetic variants associated with birth weight, and many loci have been identified. A complex correlation between birth weight and adult disease risk has been demonstrated.

Using the GWAS data from a cohort of 5465 Caucasian children with recorded birth weights, Zhao et al [16] investigated the association between birth weight and previously reported T2D-associated variations at 20 loci. They found that the minor allele of a single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) rs7756992 at the CDKAL1 locus was associated with lower birth weight, although the association did not reach genome-wide significance. [16] Later, this finding was replicated in a Danish cohort consisting of 4744 individuals. [17] The researchers also reported that birth weight was inversely associated with the T2D risk alleles of rs11708067 in ADCY5 . Freathy et al [18] searched for common genetic variants associated with birth weight in 38,214 individuals of European descent. They identified that rs900400, located near CCNL1 , and rs9883204, located in ADCY5 , were robustly associated with birth weight. The SNP rs9883204 showed a relatively strong linkage disequilibrium with rs11708067, which implied that it is involved in the regulation of glucose levels and thus T2D susceptibility. [19] The inverse genetic correlations between birth weight and T2D at the ADCY5 and CDKAL1 loci were confirmed in an expanded GWAS (with 69,308 individuals of European descent). [20] These results provided direct support for the fetal insulin hypothesis. [12]

The birth weight loci are not all associated with NCDs. For example, rs900400, which is located near the CCNL1 locus, is not known to be associated with any other traits. [20] Moreover, some alleles associated with higher birth weight may confer risk of NCDs. rs1801253 in ADRB1 has been strongly associated with birth weight, as well as systolic and diastolic blood pressure. [19,21] However, the birth weight-lowering allele at rs1801253 is associated with lower blood pressure in later life. [20] Importantly, birth weight may be influenced by both fetal and maternal genotype, and through the cellular mechanisms of gametogenesis and fertilization, fetal genotype is correlated with maternal genotype ( r ≈ 0.5). In some cases, functional alleles may exert different effects on birth weight depending on whether they are carried by the mother or fetus. For instance, rare heterozygous mutations in the glucokinase gene of a fetus may result in a reduction of approximately 530 g in birth weight, while mothers who carry a glucokinase mutation may have offspring that weigh 600 g more than average due to maternal hyperglycemia. [22]

In a recent multi-ancestry GWAS meta-analysis of birth weight in 153,781 individuals, [23] the authors identified 7 previously reported and 53 novel loci that were associated with birth weight at a genome-wide significance level for populations with either European ancestry or trans-ancestry. Further, three of the loci harbored multiple distinct association signals attaining genome-wide significance. The lead SNPs in these loci were almost common variants and they individually had modest effects on birth weight (10–26 g per allele). Using a linkage disequilibrium score regression method for the data from samples with European ancestry, the researchers found that birth weight was inversely correlated with genetic indicators of adverse metabolic and cardiovascular health, reflecting the impact of shared genetic variants that influence both sets of phenotypes. However, they also observed locus-specific heterogeneity in the genetic relationships between birth weight and health-related traits, including the replication of rs1801253 in ADRB1 that the birth weight-lowing allele is associated with lower blood pressure. [20] Meanwhile, the researchers found that both maternal and fetal genetic effects connect birth weight to later T2D risk, albeit acting in opposing directions, by analyzing the loci associated with both traits in mother-child pairs.

These studies provide compelling evidence that fetal genotype plays an important role in early growth, as measured by birth weight. Further, the loci that impact birth weight may contribute to the adult risk of metabolic diseases, providing some support for the idea of the “thrifty genotype”. However, these findings can only explain a small part of the variance in birth weight, and the effect of any individual loci is very small. For example, 62 distinct and significant genome-wide signals that were identified in more than 150,000 individuals account for approximately 2% of the variance. [23] Moreover, the genetic correlation between birth weight and other adult health-related traits is complex, and is likely to be indirectly influenced by the maternal genome.

Positive selection for the risk alleles of susceptibility to NCDs

While NCDs have very clear negative impacts, they also have a large genetic component. The cost to fitness for the individuals carrying risk alleles of susceptibility to NCDs may be relatively small because they would have transmitted the alleles to the next generation before the onset of age-related NCDs. A key point of the “thrifty genotype” hypothesis is that the risk alleles of susceptibility to NCDs may confer advantages during early life in a severe environment, and therefore contribute to a net fitness benefit. These risk alleles may even be positively selected. Natural selection is the principal underlying force molding life via traits associated with survival and reproduction. [24] Therefore, it is possible that the thrifty genes may contribute to sustaining fecundity besides survival during famine, as mentioned by Prentice. [25]

Considering that the quantitative traits associated with early development and NCSs are extremely polygenic, positive selection of the loci may occur via polygenic adaptation, and the selection signals may go largely undetected by conventional methods. [26] An allele that is positively selected may rise in prevalence rapidly such that recombination does not substantially break down the association with alleles at nearby loci on the ancestral chromosome, and so a long haplotype is formed. Based on this theory, an integrated Haplotype Score method has been developed to estimate positive selection for genetic polymophisms. [27] This method is typically used to detect candidate adaptive SNPs where the selected alleles may not have reached fixation, as it is well suited for detecting recent selection signals. Another haplotype-based method for computing nS L scores (the number of segregation sites by length) is more robust than the integrated Haplotype Score and does not depend on a genetic map. [28] Most selected regions have been found to be limited to a specific population, [27] suggesting adaption to local environments. Moreover, LRS, the number of children per parent per lifetime, is a prerequisite for responses to selection, and provides a measure of fitness that combines survival and reproduction.

Although several early studies failed to detect the selection signatures in metabolic genes, [29,30] compelling evidence was found in a Samoan population. Samoan people represent a unique founder population with a high prevalence of obesity. A recent GWAS identified a functional variant, rs373863828, with a large effect size (p.Arg457Gln, meta P = 1.4 × 10 −20 , 1.36–1.45 kg/m 2 per copy of the risk allele) in CREBRF that strongly influences body mass index in Samoan population. [31] Interestingly, while the variant is common in Samoan people, it is extremely rare in other populations. The body mass index-raising allele of rs373863828 showed decreased energy use and increased fat storage in an adipocyte cell model, and therefore was considered to be a thrifty variant. Positive selection of this thrifty variant was observed according to the integrated Haplotype Score and nSL score.

The positive selection of risk alleles associated with NCDs is not limited to obesity or specific populations. Evidence of positive selection was found in 40 of the 76 genes known to be associated with the risk of coronary artery disease in a GWAS of 12 human populations. [32] The coronary artery disease genes under positive selection were enriched in a number of traits associated with reproduction and pregnancy outcomes, including twinning, reproductive timing, lactation capacity, pregnancy loss, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), and preeclampsia. Meanwhile, the authors found antagonistic relationships between coronary artery disease and reproductive success in women in the Framingham Heart Study.

Human reproductive behavior including age at first birth and the number of children ever born (same as LRS) is strongly related to fitness. A GWAS that combined genome data from more than 300,000 individuals identified 12 independent loci that were significantly associated with age at first birth and/or number of children ever born. [33] Genetic correlation estimates found that the alleles linked to lower age at first birth in both men and women were associated with a higher genetic risk of smoking and T2D, while the number of children ever born was negatively genetically correlated with years of education and age at first sexual intercourse. No significantly enriched genes, tissue sets, or biological functions were found to be enriched for the genes associated with reproductive behavior. These results indicate that human reproductive behavior is influenced by a mixture of biological, psychological, and socio-environmental factors in contemporary populations.

Although limited in number, some reliable studies have identified specific genes associated with the risk of NCDs that are under positive selection, and may contribute to LRS. The positive signals of selection or association with LRS are generally very weak for a single locus. Large databases that contain information on genomics, fertility, mortality, and health status from hundreds of thousands of individuals are required to identify these genes.

Antagonistic pleiotropy in the maternal and fetal genome

Recent studies have suggested a substantial role of genetics in the association between early development and adult NCDs. However, the effect sizes of the candidate loci are so small that they can only be identified in very large cohort studies, and some locus-specific heterogeneity has also been observed. As mentioned above, the quantitative traits related to early development and NCDs are extremely polygenic and have complex gene-environment interactions. Moreover, evidence of substantial crosstalk between the genomes of parents and offspring has been observed during pre-implantation and development. Here, as an example of how crosstalk between the mother and fetus shapes the intrauterine growth environment and impacts early development, I describe the antagonistic responses between the mother and fetus during adaptation to defective deep placentation.

Human pregnancy is characterized by deep placentation, in which placental trophoblasts invade up to a depth of one-third of the thickness of the myometrium. This process is accompanied by transformation of the uterine spiral arteries from a low-velocity to a high-flow chamber. Transformation of the spiral arteries facilitates increases in uterine blood flow to enable perfusion of the intervillous space of the placenta and support fetal growth. Defective deep placentation, which is defined as a significantly increased number of spiral arteries with absent or partial transformation, results in placental ischemia, and is associated with a spectrum of obstetric disorders including preeclampsia, IUGR, preterm labor, preterm premature rupture of membranes, late spontaneous abortion, and abruptio placentae. [34]

Clinical outcomes of defective deep placentation are determined by two major factors. The first is the degree to which physiological transformation of the spiral arteries is restricted. For example, 90% of the myometrial spiral arteries are fully transformed in normal pregnancy. However, in cases of severe early-onset preeclampsia, which is a pregnancy-induced hypertension syndrome associated with IUGR, only a few spiral arteries may be fully transformed. In late-onset preeclampsia (LOPE) without IUGR, IUGR without hypertension, and preterm labor, defective deep placentation may only partially affect the spiral arteries. [34] The trophoblast invasion plays a key role in the transformation of the spiral arteries. Importantly, the placenta is genetically identical to the fetus, and is semi-allogeneic to the mother. Thus, the trophoblast invasion challenges the maternal immune system. [35] Complete failure of immunoregulatory mechanisms could lead to spontaneous abortion, whereas partial failure could lead to a continued pregnancy with a small, insufficient placenta. Thus, there exists a continuum between abortion, pre-eclampsia, and other disorders associated with deep placentation. HLA-C expressed by trophoblasts can be recognized by decidual killer immunoglobulin-like receptors, in a process involved in maternal-fetal tolerance. Combinations in which the mother carries two killer immunoglobulin-like receptor AA haplotypes and the fetus inherits paternal HLA-C2 haplotypes are the most susceptible to preeclampsia and recurrent miscarriages. [36]

A second factor in determining the clinical outcome in cases of defective deep placentation is the maternal and fetal adaptive responses to the compromised placental blood supply. Unlike diseases in the non-pregnant state, obstetric disorders develop in a unique biological situation in which a mother and fetus with different genomes coexist. [37] Compromised placental blood supply restricts the transportation of oxygen and nutrients, which can lead to ischemia–reperfusion injury and retarded fetal growth. Meanwhile, a series of adaptive responses may occur in placental trophoblast cells: hypoxia-inducible factors may increase as a response to cellular oxygen deprivation; antiangiogenic factors including soluble vascular endothelial growth factor receptor1 (sVEGFR-1) and soluble endoglin may be up-regulated; endoplasmic reticulum stress induced by ischemia–reperfusion injury may suspend protein folding, leading to trophoblast apoptosis; and the production of reactive oxygen species may increase, inducing the release of proinflammatory cytokines and chemokines, as well as trophoblast debris. These placental responses release soluble components into the maternal circulatory system and may trigger a non-specific, systemic (vascular), inflammatory response leading to clinical symptoms in the mother. [38]

Among clinical measures of maternal health status, hypertension may be the most important because it can reflect an important fetal adaptive response – increased placental perfusion. In a meta-analysis examining the relationship between fetoplacental growth and the use of oral antihypertensive medication to treat mild-to-moderate hypertension during pregnancy in 45 randomized controlled trials, treatment-induced decreases in maternal blood pressure appeared to adversely affect fetal growth. Specifically, greater decreases in mean arterial pressure from study enrolment to delivery were associated with a higher risk of IUGR ( P = 0.006, 14 trials) and lower mean birthweight ( P = 0.049, 27 trials). [39] This suggests that fetal growth benefits from maternal hypertension. In a GWAS on preeclampsia, genetic variants in the fetal genome near the FLT1 gene were significantly associated with the syndrome in 4380 cases and 310,238 controls. Interestingly, the association was strongest in offspring of LOPE patients without IUGR. FLT1 encodes antiangiogenic sVEGFR-1 in trophoblasts. The risk C allele of the lead SNP rs4769613 ( P = 5.4 × 10 −11 ) was associated with high concentrations of sVEGFR-1 in maternal blood in control pregnancies ( P = 0.04). [40] Maternal plasma levels of sVEGFR-1 are higher in cases of severe preeclampsia compared with cases without severe features, and are also higher in cases of early-onset preeclampsia compared with cases of LOPE. [41] There are several possible explanations for the stronger genetic association in cases of LOPE without IUGR. First, while placental sVEGFR-1 is shed in normal pregnancy, levels are significantly increased in cases of preeclampsia. Thus, sVEGFR-1 may be a physiological regulator of maternal blood pressure that is released by the fetus (placenta) during normal pregnancy. In cases of partially defective deep placentation, placental ischemia tends to be mild. Fetuses that carry preeclampsia-risk alleles at the FLT locus tend to secrete more sVEGFR-1 to elevate maternal blood pressure, which leads to increased placental perfusion and fetal growth. Therefore, these alleles may simultaneously increase the risk of preeclampsia and decrease the risk of IUGR.

Although maternal hypertension may benefit fetal growth, it is likely to be detrimental to the mother. In severe cases, hypertensive crisis could lead to cerebrovascular accident and maternal death. Thus, there might be a maternal response to fetal adaption to placental ischemia. It has been suggested that a maternal inflammatory response may counteract the fetus. A recent study using transcriptome profiling of unsupervised cluster placentas identified 3 clinically probable etiologies of preeclampsia. A subgroup of preeclampsia patients showed severe fetal growth restriction and evidence of maternal antifetal rejection, while the maternal parameters of disease severity, such as blood pressure and proteinuria levels, were less severe in these cases compared with canonical patients. [42] One possible explanation is that the maternal condition is relieved by restricting fetus growth. This view is supported by the observation that resolution of maternal hypertension follows fetal death in some patients with preeclampsia. [43] Our recent study identified a number of consistently hypomethylated probes that were associated with early-onset preeclampsia in different populations. The methylation levels of the validated probes were associated with clinical severity, and the samples with intermediate changes in methylation showed antagonistic fetal/maternal outcomes. [44]

Successful reproduction is the common interest of the mother and fetus. However, conflict between the mother and her fetus takes place when their interests diverge, resulting in antagonistic responses. Variations in these adaptive responses impact pregnancy outcomes. Meanwhile, common phenotypes of pregnancy outcome may represent the manifestation of different adaptive responses. For example, IUGR may be caused by severely defective deep placentation, the insensitivity of the fetus to ischemia, or the tolerance of the mother to placental releasing factors. Thus, individuals born with IUGR may have different genotypes that influence fetal growth and future predisposition to NCDs. This complexity represents a major challenge in identifying the genetic correlation between early development and NCD risk.

Epigenetic modifications link both genetic and environmental factors to long-term health

Epigenetics refers to “the study of molecules and mechanisms that can perpetuate alternative gene activity states in the context of the same DNA sequence.” [45] Epigenetic modifications, including DNA methylation, histone modifications, and noncoding RNAs, modify DNA bases and chromatin. This enables the establishment and maintenance of chromatin states that regulate gene expression transmitted across cell divisions.

For most differentiated somatic cells, epigenetic modifications buffer environmental variations and act as barriers to prevent changes in gene expression and cell identity. However, adaption responses to extreme environmental conditions during specific sensitive periods in early development can induce epigenetic programming, which can lead to long-lasting changes in the epigenome and predispose an organism to disease in adult life. [46]

Epigenetic modifications are thought to be reversible and are governed by a series of writers (that deposit them), readers (that interpret them), and erasers (that remove them). Both genetic and environmental factors are involved in epigenetic variations. Variations in the DNA sequence can influence epigenetic modifications in two ways: 1) changing the target sequences of modifications or 2) altering the genes encoding the epigenetic writers, readers, or erasers. Rare genetic mutations of implicated regions can also cause epigenetic disorders. For example, DNA methylation is one of the best-characterized epigenetic modifications. DNA methylation in the human genome predominantly occurs at the C5 position of cytosine in CpG dinucleotides. [47] Fragile X syndrome is a mental condition caused by the excessive expansion of a CGG repeat in the 5’ untranslated region of the FMR1 gene. [48] More than 200 repeats of the trinucleotide induce mRNA-mediated DNA methylation in the CGG repeat, resulting in gene silencing. [49] DNA methylation is catalyzed by the DNA methyltransferase family, which includes DNMT1, DNMT3A, and DNMT3B (the writers). Rare de novo heterozygous mutations in the DNMT3A gene cause Tatton-Brown-Rahman syndrome, a overgrowth disorder characterized by a distinctive facial phenotype and intellectual disability. [50] Further, somatic mutations of the same gene are frequent in cases of acute myeloid leukemia. [51] Interestingly, two other genes that encode epigenetic writers, EZH2 and NSD1 , are both associated with developmental growth disorders and hematological malignancies. [52] MECP2, which binds methylated CpGs, is a reader of DNA methylation that can both activate and repress transcription. [53] Mutations in the MECP2 gene are the main genetic causes of Rett syndrome, a progressive neurologic developmental disorder with X-linked dominant inheritance. [54] The ten-eleven translocation (TET) enzymes, which are encoded by TET1 , TET2, and TET3 , oxidize the C5 position of cytosines and are important erasers of DNA methylation. Somatic mutations in TET genes are frequent in several kinds of hematological cancer. [55] In contrast, transposable elements are frequent targets of epigenetic silencing. Abnormal epigenetic modifications may activate transposable elements, and therefore influence genome integrity and induce de novo mutations. For instance, human neuronal progenitor cells carrying MeCP2 mutations have been found to have heightened susceptibility to LINE-1 retrotransposition. [56]

Environmental factors can have direct influences on the cellular epigenome. Most epigenetic writers and erasers are enzymes for which activity is mediated by the availability of substrates, cofactors, and allosteric regulators. A number of metabolites derived from diverse metabolic pathways, including the one-carbon metabolism, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, β-oxidation, glycolysis, and hexosamine biosynthesis, are used as substrates and cofactors in epigenetic modifications. [57] Therefore, environmental factors, such as diet, microbiome, temperature, malnutrition, and chemical exposure can affect cellular metabolism and change the activity of chromatin-modifying enzymes, leading to changes in the epigenome. For example, epigenetic changes have been found to persist for periods longer than 60 years in individuals prenatally exposed to the Dutch Hunger Winter. [58]

Among epigenetic modifications, DNA methylation is more stable and more suitable for high-resolution assay platforms than histone modifications or non-coding RNA expression. High throughput platforms based on bisulfite conversion are highly quantitative and reproducible, offering high sensitivity to detect small changes from limited amounts of DNA. [59] Epigenome-wide association studies have found many loci with small (<10%) changes in intermediate methylation levels that are associated with complex phenotypes of NCDs. [60] This paradigm is in stark contrast to the observation of imprinted genes or malignant cells that have large differences in methylation level in genomic regulatory regions and clear gene expression changes. Although some changes in DNA methylation may reflect fetal genetic predisposition to disease, [61] others have been found to be reproducibly associated with specific environmental factors. [62] The presence of differential methylated cytosines in NCDs reflects the comprehensive effect of genetic and environmental factors. Therefore, the DNA methylome in peripheral, easy-to-access tissues in early stages of life, such as the placenta, umbilical cords, and fetal membranes, may be ideal for identifying the biomarkers for both genetic risk and early developmental stress associated with NCDs.

Genetic studies of children born after assisted reproduction

The use of assisted reproductive technologies (ART) has grown dramatically, contributing to millions of successful birth worldwide and accounting for more than 4% of all newborns in some European countries. [63] Assisted reproduction is redefining human society and biology, as many infertile couples may transmit their genes to subsequent generations. The long-term health of children born via ART is still unclear because they are too young to evaluate their incidence of age-related NCDs. However, ART children have a specific genetic background, and they tend to be exposed to some environmental stressors. ART children may be a promising cohort for studying the genetic basis of DOHaD theory.

ART procedures are generally used by couples who are infertile, which is defined as “failure to achieve clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse”’. [64] The infertile population is known to have an increased prevalence of NCDs. For example, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects 5% to 20% of women of reproductive age worldwide, is the most common cause of anovulatory infertility. [65] Patients with PCOS are at risk of many other NCDs such as coronary heart disease, stroke, and obesity. [66] Genetic studies have indicated causal roles in PCOS etiology for elevations in body mass index and insulin resistance. However, PCOS susceptibility is associated with alleles that raise the menopausal age and genes involved in DNA repair, suggesting a mechanism resulting in the retardation of ovarian ageing. [67] ART children are likely to inherit genes associated with susceptibility to infertility and other NCDs, or quantitative traits associated with infertility. Meanwhile, the population of parents using ART tends to be older, which is associated with an increased number of de novo mutations in offspring. [68] Moreover, social-economical factors affect the accessibility of ART treatments. ART clinic remains absent, inaccessible or unaffordable for many infertile couples in the world. [69] Those healthy subfertile couples with higher socioeconomic status have more opportunities to transmit their genes. Although the genetic background of ART children is a confounding factor in many epidemiological studies, but it can be overcomed in genetic studies using family-based genetic data. For example, live birth is a key phenotype for ART children. The classic transmission/disequilibrium test can be used to identify the genetic loci associated with live birth in nuclear families and investigate changes of gene pool between parents and offspring.

Compared with naturally-conceived children, ART children are exposed to many environmental stressors associated with the assisted reproductive procedure. For example, a pivotal step in most in vitro fertilization protocols is controlled ovarian stimulation (COS), in which exogenous gonadotrophins are used to retrieve multiple oocytes. COS may be implicated in adverse perinatal outcomes because it involves altering the embryonic genome and epigenome. [70] The oocyte yield after COS is highly variable, and in some cases, more than twenty mature oocytes are acquired in one cycle. However, in a natural menstrual cycle, only one or two oocytes from dominant follicles would undergo ovulation simultaneously. The number of oocytes retrieved after COS, which is influenced by genetic factors, [71] is positively associated with the live birth rate up to 20 oocytes. [72] However, the incidence of severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, which is associated with adverse developmental outcomes in offspring, increases significantly with the number of oocytes, particularly if more than 18 oocytes are retrieved. [72] Children born to ovarian-hyperstimulated women display cardiovascular dysfunctions and reduced intellectual ability. [73,74] Therefore, the genetic factors associated with oocyte number in COS have pleiotropic effects: although women who carry the genes associated with a higher number of oocytes retrieved have a greater chance of giving birth to a child after assisted reproduction, their children may have a greater risk of NCDs later in life. Besides COS, other steps in ART, including in vitro maturation of oocytes, intracytoplasmic sperm injection, in vitro culture of the embryo, cryopreservation and thawing of the gamete and embryo, and preimplantation genetic testing, may also negatively impact the early development of ART children. [75] Population-level changes in the genetic responses to these environmental factors would be very informative with respect to the mechanisms of development.

Although it is quite difficult to conduct detailed investigations regarding implantation failure events before initiation of pregnancy in naturally-conceiving women, such medical records often exist for individuals in the ART cohort. Thus, it is possible to investigate the genetic factors influencing success of embryo implantation leading to pregnancy in ART-treated women. A genetic association study found that a common functional p53 Pro allele was associated with increased rates of blastocyst implantation failure in in vitro fertilization patients. Selected alleles in SNPs in the LIF , Mdm2 , Mdm4 , and Hausp genes, each of which regulates p53 levels in cells, were also enriched in in vitro fertilization patients. [76] Despite these costs, the p53 Pro allele is associated with an increased lifespan, and previous positive selection for alleles in the p53 pathway has been identified in contemporary white and Asian populations. ART itself may also influence human evolution, as has been previously discussed. [77] There are several steps of natural and artificial selection during ART treatment and favored traits may differ between natural reproduction and ART. As a result, only approximately 5% of fresh oocytes produce a baby in ART cycles. [78] Identifying the genetic factors that confer benefits to reproductive success during ART and their potential pleiotropic effects on NCDs will be helpful in predicting the long-term health of ART children. Additionally, such information may also provide insight regarding the genetic mechanisms of DOHaD theory.

The DOHaD theory was formulated based on the well-established association between adverse early environmental events and the increased risk of adult NCDs. In this article, I have reviewed the genetic hypothesis of the DOHaD theory, namely, that genetic variants associated with early development have pleiotropic effects that contribute to the risk of NCDs. This hypothesis is not incompatible with the emphasis on environmental factors in the DOHaD theory, as evidence suggests that the environment of early human development is shaped by crosstalk between the fetal and the maternal genome. Moreover, the interplay between DNA sequence variations and environmental stresses programs the epigenome, resulting in long-term effects on phenotypes. Interestingly, some risk alleles of NCDs are under positive selection, suggesting that they play beneficial roles in reproduction and early development.

Until now, few genetic loci linking early development and adult NCDs had been identified. Both kinds of phenotypes are highly polygenic and any associated genetic loci have very small effect sizes. Importantly, the genetic correlation between early development and adult NCDs will be caused directly by the genome of the child, or indirectly by the genomes of the parents. New methods are needed to improve the power of screening for genetic correlations between pleiotropic effects. Meanwhile, certain intermediate phenotypes during reproduction may help to identify subclasses of cohorts.

Acknowledgments

Author contributions.

XZ drafted and revised this manuscript and approved the final submission.

Financial support

This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2018YFC1005001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81871180) and the Innovative Research Team of High-Level Local Universities in Shanghai, China; all to XZ.

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

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Two-Source Hypothesis

Mark was a source for Matthew and Luke, both of whom also independently used a now lost sayings source called Q.

The Two-Source Hypothesis (2SH) has been the predominant source theory for the synoptic problem for almost a century and half. Originally conceived in Germany by Ch. H. Weisse in 1838, the 2SH came to dominate German protestant scholarship after the fall of the Tübingen school with H. J. Holtzmann 's endorsement of a related variant in 1863. In the latter part of the 19th century, the Oxford School brought the 2SH to English scholarship, culminating in B. H. Streeter 's 1924 treatment of the synoptic problem. Now, the 2SH commands the support of most biblical critics from all continents and denominations.

Any viable solution to the synoptic problem has to account, at a minimum, for the two main textual features of the synoptic gospels, called the triple tradition and the double tradition. The triple tradition refers to the subject matter jointly related by Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Generally, the triple tradition is characterized by substantial agreements in arrangement and wording among all three gospels with frequent agreements between Mark and Matthew against Luke and between Mark and Luke against Matthew, but a near absence of agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark. The double tradition , on the other hand, consists of the material that Matthew and Luke share outside of Mark and exhibits some of the most striking verbatim agreements in some passages and quite divergent versions in other passages.

The 2SH derives its name (and most of its plausibility) from its postulation of two distinct sources for the synoptic gospels: a narrative source (Mark) for the triple tradition and a saying source (Q) for the double tradition. Sometimes, the 2SH is more precisely called the two-document hypothesis to emphasize that the two sources are distinct documents or the Mark-Q hypothesis to identify those two documentary sources.

After a few false starts, the modern argument for the 2SH has settled into a two-step analysis. First, an explanation for the triple tradition, Markan priority, is is established and then arguments for the relative independence of Matthew and Luke are made, which result in hypothesizing a common source, Q. Among the best-argued cases for the 2SH in contemporary scholarship include Stein 1987 and Tuckett 1992 .

H. J. Holtzmann , Die Synoptischen Evangelien (Leipzig, 1863); R. H. Stein , The Synoptic Problem: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books, 1987). B. H. Streeter , The Four Gospels (London: Macmillan, 1924) [ web ]; C. M. Tuckett , "Synoptic Problem" in D. N. Freedman , ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary (New York: Doubleday, 1992): 6:263-70; Ch. H. Weisse , Die evangelische Geschichte kritisch und philosopisch bearbeitet (Leipzig, 1838).

The Priority of Mark

Under Markan priority, the triple tradition is derived from a narrative source that resembles Mark and that both Matthew and Luke used. In the present form of the 2SH, that source is Mark 1:1-16:8. Variations of this source include the supposition of an early form of Mark called Uk-Markus or proto-Mark , a revised form of Mark, deutero-Mark , or both, but these possibilities are only supported by a handful of active scholars.

Arguments from Content

It is argued that it is easier to understand certain material (infancy accounts, Sermon on the Mount) being added to Mark by Matthew and Luke than the reverse of Mark's omitting them from Matthew and Luke. It is also argued that it is easier to view Matthew's and Luke's relative brevity in the account all three share as both Matthew's and Luke's compressing the text of Mark to add their own material rather than Mark's abridging the content and expanding the words of one or both of the others. Furthermore, critics have argued put forth reasons for the specific divergences of Matthew's and Luke's order of their material from that of Mark's as more plausible than the reverse. ( Stein 1987 : 48-51; Tuckett 1992 : 264-265)

Arguments from Wording

At a general level, proponents of Markan priority find Mark's less literary diction, grammar, redundancy, difficulty of expression, Christology, and use of Aramaic to more likely be intentional improvements by Matthew and Luke rather than Mark's "dumbing down" of one or both of the others ( Stein 1987 :52-67; Tuckett 1992 : 265-267). On a more specific level, Markan priority is also found to in instances where Matthew and Luke seem to occasionally refer to omitted explanatory material in Mark, in Matthew's adding his own theological emphases rather in than Mark's removing them, and an uneven distribution of Mark's stylistic features in Matthew. ( Stein 1987 : 70-83).

The Existence of Q

The distinctive aspect of the 2SH is not Markan priority, which is shared by other theories (mostly notably, Farrer), but the supposition of a lost collection of Jesus's sayings that served as a source to the double tradition in Matthew and Luke. This source used to be called the Logia , based on a once-popular interpretation of Papias , but is now called Q , from the German word for "source," Quelle . Differences of opinion about the exact nature of Q are more common than about Markan priority. Though some view Q as a collection of oral and written sources employed Matthew and Luke, most scholars see Q as a discrete document in its own right.

The existence of Q follows from the conclusion that Luke and Matthew are independent in the double tradition. Therefore, the liteary connection in the double tradition must be explained by an indirect relationship, namely, through use of a common source or sources.

Arguments from Content and Argument

Proponents of Q argue that neither Matthew nor Luke used the other due to the large degree of disuse of the other's non-Markan material in triple tradition and of the other's non-Markan, non-sayings material. (The use of non-Markan sayings material is from Q, of course). It is also argued that the different contexts and presence of doublets for the double tradition material in Matthew and Luke in view of great similiarity in contexts for the triple tradition indicate that neither knew the other's arrangement of the non-Markan material with respect to the Markan outline.

The Q hypothesis is used to explain why the form of the material sometimes appears more primitive in Matthew but other times more primitive in Luke in the face of very impressive exactness in wording in other parts of the double tradition (e.g. Matt 6:24 = Luke 16:13 for 27 of 28 Greek words and Matt 7:7-8 = Luke 11:9-10 for 24 of 24 Greek words).

Cutting Edge Q Studies

Much recent work has gone in studying the theology, community, and the compositional history of Q. For example, some scholars have concluded that Q was composed in stages. (e.g., Kloppenborg 1987 ; but see also a partial critique by Tuckett 1996 : 69-74). A thorough exposition of the state of the Q art is Excavating Q ( Kloppenborg 2000 ).

The Weak Points of the Two-Source Hypothesis

The so-called "minor agreements".

The minor agreements are probably the weakest point for the 2SH, although each of the central theses of the 2SH, pure Markan priority and the existence of Q, can be attacked separately. The minor agreements are those agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark (or anti-Markan agreements , which I prefer to avoid the inherent value judgment in "minor") that occur in triple tradition. Some of them agreements are quite striking; for example, both Matt 26:68 and Luke 22:64 but not Mark 14:65 include the question "Who is it that struck you" in the beating of Jesus.

The minor agreements pose a special dilemma for the 2SH, because they are suggestive of a literary connection between Matthew and Luke outside of either Mark or Q, calling into question the relative independence of Matthew and Luke.

For example, a few scholars explain the minor agreements by Luke's use of Matthew in addition to Q and Mark (3SH). The problem is that the modern argument for Q requires Matthew and Luke to be independent, so the 3SH raises more questions than it solves, namely, how to establish Q is Luke is dependent on Matthew. Other scholars keep Q while acknowledging the force of the minor agreements to attribute the minor agreements to a proto-Mark, such as the Ur-Markus in the Markan Hypothesis (MkH) that was adapted by Mark independently from its use by Matthew and Luke. Stlle other scholars feel that the character of the minor agreements suggest that they are due to a revision of our Mark, called deutero-Mark. In this case, both Matthew and Luke are dependent on deutero-Mark, which did not survive the ages.

Therefore, the minor agreements, if taken seriously, force a choice between accepting pure Markan priority on one hand or the existence of Q on the other hand, but not both simultaneously as the 2SH requires.

The 2SH's response to the issue of the minor agreement is to weaken their significance by attributing various causes for them. B. H. Streeter devoted a chapter on this issue in his magnum opus on the synoptic problem with an analysis that is largely maintained today. ( Streeter 1924 : 293-331; see also Neirynck 1974 for a modern exhaustive treatment) The minor argreements are handled by one of several different reasons how Matthew and Luke could have independently arrived at their anti-Markan agreements:

Coincidence

Most of the minor agreements are attributed to the independent, coincidental redaction of Mark by Matthew and Luke. Streeter stated that "the majority of these agreements do not require any explanation at all" because they are the natural result of Matthew's and Luke's production of their own gospels. In this category, Streeter noted Matthew and Luke compression of Mark's diffuse style and their improvements of Mark's rough Greek, which is the most colloquial in the New Testament and influenced by an Aramaic coloring.

Overlaps with Q or Oral Tradition

Streeter attributed some agreements of Matthew and Luke against Mark to their common of use of Q in those passages that Mark and Q overlapped. Stein suggested that. in minor agreements that appear "primitive," Matthew and Luke preferred their form of oral tradition over Mark. ( Stein 1987 : 126-27)

Textual Corruption

Streeter argued that, in a few cases, the best manuscript copies of the gospels do not reflect the original text in a manner that produces with Matthew and Luke agree against Mark.

External Evidence

To the limited extent that the early Christians have discussed the origins of the gospels, none of them has clearly indicated the existence of Q or the priority of Mark. Rather, the priority of Matthew is the most consistent testimony in the first few centuries of Christianity.

Problems with Q

While many of those who do not subscribe to Q also subscribe to Matthean priority, there is also an increasing group of scholars who would dispense with Q within the framework of Markan priority under the Farrer Theory. Their argument, mainly involving the minor agreements, may be found at Mark Goodacre's Case Against Q .

Precursors (before 1838)

Serious study of the synoptic problem began in the late eighteenth century during the Enlightenment. The most prominent source critic in the early period was J. J. Griesbach who argued for a theory that now bears his name in that Mark was a conflation of Matthew and Luke ( Griesbach 1789 ). Around this time, early critics began to formulate the separate theses that would later join to form the 2SH.

For example, G. Ch. Storr, one of Griesbach's contemporary challengers, arguing that Mark, not Matthew, was the earliest, and that both Matthew and Luke used Mark ( Storr 1786 ; see generally Farmer 1964 : 7, Reicke 1978a : 51). For the double tradition, however, Storr was undecided about whether Luke used Matthew, virtually anticipating the Farrer Hypothesis, or whether Matthew's translator used Luke.

The synoptic theory propounded by Hebert Marsh ( 1802 ) was very mechanical, proposing three main hypothetical Hebrew documents, denominated with Hebrew letters. These documents comprised the Matthew-Mark agreements against Luke (Aleph1, labeled "pMt"), the Mark-Luke agreements against Matthew (Aleph2, labeled "pLk"), and the Matthew-Luke agreements against Mark (Beth, labeled "Q"), respectively. The first two of these documents themselves were derived from a fourth hypothetical document Aleph (labeled "G"), which contained the Matthew-Mark-Luke triple agreements. The other source, Beth, was a sayings collection that was similar to Q.

Marsh's theory has an important contact with the 2SH, namely, the postulation of a Q-like hypothetical sayings source, Beth, that is largely responsible for the double tradition. Since Marsh offered a Griesbach-like explanation for the origin of Mark as a conflation of Aleph 1 (proto-Matthew) and Aleph 2 (proto-Luke), however, Marsh should not deserve credit as the originator of the 2SH. A modern variant of Marsh's theory is P. Rolland's Hypothesis.

Storr's and Marsh's views passed out of favor and left no direct effect on the course of the synoptic problem. By the 1830s, when the consensus was coalescing around the Griesbach hypothesis, especially in the work of the Tübingen school, two scholars, F. E. D. Schleiermacher and Karl Lachmann, laid the groundwork for what would become the two fundamental tenets of the 2SH.

Schleiermacher operated within the perimeters of the Fragmentary Hypothesis, which held that the synoptic gospels were composed from a multiplicity of shorter documents. Interpreting the term logia (logia) as referring to a sayings collection in the testimony of Papias (c. 125), Schleiermacher argued that the "logia" was one of the documents that were available to the evangelists ( Schleiermacher 1832 ; see generally Farmer 1964: 15 ). In fact, "logia" was how scholars originally called Q until the turn of the 20th century, when doubts about the identification with Papias's reference began to surface.

Lachmann, also a proponent of the Fragmentary Hypothesis, subdivided the narrative portions of the synoptics into roughly nine separate sections and investigating how these sections were eventually arranged in the individual gospels. Lachmann concluded that the Mark's order best reflected a relatively fixed oral sequence for these sections and found reasons for Matthew and Luke to depart from this fixed oral sequence ( Lachmann 1835 , ET Palmer 1966 : 376-378 = Palmer 1985 : 119-131).

J. J. Griesbach , Commentatio qua Marci Evangelium totum e Matthaei et Lucae commentariis decerptum esse monstratur , I-II (Jena, 1789-90), enl. ed., in J. C. Velsthusen et al., eds., Commentationes theologicae (Leipzig, 1794): 1:360-434, repr. in Griesbach , Opsuscula academica , J. Ph. Gabler , ed., (Jena, 1825) 2:358-425, repr. in B. Orchard & T. R. W. Longstaff , eds., J. J. Griesbach (SNTSMS 34; Cambridge: UP, 1978), 74-102, English trans. B. Orchard , "A Demonstration that Mark was Written after Matthew and Luke" at 103-135; Karl Lachmann , "De ordine narrationum in evangeliis synopticis" in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1835): 570-90, esp. 573-84; English trans. by N. H. Palmer , "Lachmann's Argument," NTS 13 (1966-67): 368-378 = idem in The Two-Source Hypothesis: A Critical Appraisal (ed. Arthur J. Bellinzoni , Jr.; Macon, Ga.: Mercer UP, 1985), 119-131; H. Marsh , "Dissertation on the Origin of our Three First Canonical Gospels" in Introduction to the New Testament by John David Michaelis , vol. 3, pt. 2 (2d ed., London: F. & C. Rivington, 1802) 167-409; F. E. D. Schleiermacher , "Über die Zeugnisse des Papias von unsern beiden ersten Evangelien" in Theologische Studien und Kritiken (1832); G. Ch. Storr , Über den Zweck der evangelischen Geschichte und der Briefe Johannis (Tübingen: 1786).

Conception (1838-1863)

Shortly thereafter, Ch. H. Weisse put these two pieces of the puzzle together, in which he argued that Mark and the logia were the sources of both Matthew and Luke. Although some of his comporaries expounded similar ideas ( Wilke , Credner ), Weisse was the first to identify this and only these sources as a sufficient solution to the synoptic problem and therefore deserves the father of the 2SH. Weisse did have a problem, though; he was not sure where to place such material as the preaching of John the Baptist and the Temptation of Jesus into this framework. First (1838), he placed them in the logia (Q), but later changed mind and put them in an Ur-Markus (1854) to preserve the integrity of Q's genre.

Weisse's views did not immediately establish a following. He was a lone voice during a period that was dominated by the Tübingen school, who found the Griesbach hypothesis amenable to their rigid conception of the development of history in accordance with the Hegelian dialectic. Specifically, they saw Matthew as the Jewish thesis, Luke as the Gentile antithesis, and Mark as the mediating synthesis. However, the excesses of the school led a questioning of all their positions created a favorable climate for other approaches the synoptic problem. Holtzmann (1863) investigated his predecessors and organized his theory around a narrative source he called Alpha (A). Noticing that Matthew and Luke rarely agreed against Mark, Alpha's nature so closely resembled Mark that Holtzmann called it an Ur-Markus. With a Mark-like source, there needs to be a saying source. which Holtzmann termed Lambda (L) for the logia. Holtzmann's work came out when members of the Tübingen school were retiring, and the new generation of scholars quickly and enthusiastically adopted Holtzmann's Markan hypothesis.

Establishment (1863-1924)

Meanwhile, in England the scholars there generally agreed with Westcott in an oral (i.e. non-literary) origin to the gospels. William Sanday, however, brought Holtzmann's ideas on the synoptic problem to Oxford where it was studied in great detail, leading to a modification of Holtzmann's theory that recalled Weisse's solution back in 1838. Specifically, the Oxford School produced a series of proofs that led to the abandonment of Holtzmann's Ur-Markus in favor of pure Markan priority.

The key step was made by J. C. Hawkins (1899), who decided to analyze the nature of Ur-Markus by looking at the agreements between Matthew and Luke against Mark, which should belong to Ur-Markus. However, Hawkins discovered that many of these agreements (which we now call the "minor agreement") were smoother than the corresponding text of Mark, which made it very difficult to envision Mark as a debasing revision of Ur-Markus. Nevertheless, Hawkins listed about 20 anti-Markan agreements that he felt made it unlikely for Mark to be the direct source of Matthew and Luke.

The next step in this direction was F. C. Burkitt (1907), who found explanations for most of Hawkins troublesome passages, and the process was completed by Streeter (1924) who appealed to textual corruption as the answer to the most difficult of these minor agreements.

The hypothesis of a deutero-Mark within the framework of a four-source hypothesis (Mark, Q, L and M) is extremely sensible. It is the most economic theory that explains all we know. Why has it not been accepted more widely?

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What Is Developmental Psychology?

Conditions treated, training and certifications.

Developmental psychology is the study of how humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Developmental psychologists research the stages of physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development from the prenatal stage through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

This article covers developmental psychology, including the definition, types, life stages, and how to seek treatment when necessary.

seksan Mongkhonkhamsao / Getty Images

Defining Developmental Psychology

According to the American Psychological Association (APA), developmental psychology is a branch of psychology that focuses on how human beings grow, change, adapt, and mature across various life stages. Developmental psychology is also known as human development or lifespan psychology.

In each of the life stages of developmental psychology, people generally meet certain physical, emotional, and social milestones. These are the major life stages, according to developmental psychologists:

• Prenatal development: Developmental psychologists are interested in diagnoses, such as Down syndrome, that might be noticed during the prenatal (before birth) stage. They also investigate how maternal behaviors (behaviors of the pregnant parent), such as nutrition and drug use, could affect the developing fetus.
• Early childhood: Developmental psychologists are interested in whether young children are meeting key milestones, such as walking, talking, and developing fine motor skills (coordination in the hands, fingers, and wrists). They might also be interested in a child’s attachment to their parents and other caregivers.
• Middle childhood: In this stage, children learn about the world and acquire knowledge through experimentation, questioning, and observation. They begin to develop logical and moral reasoning skills.
• Adolescence: Adolescence is a time of major strides in terms of personal development and identity formation. Teens and young adults might experiment with various identities, career choices, or areas of interest.
• Early adulthood: During early adulthood, most people are focused on preparing for the rest of their lives through a focus on education, career, and financial independence. Romantic relationships, marriage, family-building, setting down “roots,” and child-rearing are often a focus of this life stage.
• Middle adulthood: Middle-aged adults are often focused on helping the next generation, whether in their own family or their community. They are also often interested in the legacy they’ll leave behind.
• Older adulthood: In addition to physical health challenges, older people might face issues like dementia or cognitive decline (decline in thinking, remembering, and reasoning). Older adults also often need to reflect on their lives, tell their stories, and find meaning and peace within the aging process.

The Origins of Developmental Psychology

During its early development as a branch of psychology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, developmental psychology focused on infant and child development. As the field grew, so did its focus. Today, developmental psychologists focus on all stages of the human lifespan.  

Theories of Developmental Psychology

As developmental psychology grew over time, various researchers proposed theories about how to understand the process of human development. Depending on their training, a developmental psychologist might focus on a specific theory or approach within the field. 

These are a few of the major branches of developmental psychology.

Psychosocial Developmental Theory

Building on Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud’s theory of psychosexual development , psychologist Erik Erikson proposed a lifespan theory that included eight stages of psychosocial development .

Each of the stages corresponds to both an age range and a core “crisis” (such as trust vs. mistrust in infancy) that must be resolved before someone can move on to the next.

Cognitive Developmental Theory

Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development focuses on how children and youth gradually become able to think logically and scientifically. Piaget proposed that cognition develops through four distinct stages of intellectual development, beginning at birth and ending at age 12.

Attachment Theory

Attachment theory , originally developed by psychoanalyst John Bowlby, establishes the importance of a supportive, steady, and loving caregiver in infant and child development. If a child doesn’t establish such a connection, or if they experience parental separation or loss, they might continue to struggle with healthy attachments as they get older.

Sociocultural Developmental Theory

While Bowlby considered the importance of the immediate family in child development, psychologist Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural developmental theory looks at the role of society. Cultural influences and beliefs can have a profound impact on how a person views their own identity and relates to others.

Developmental psychologists can help people address developmental issues in order to reach their full potential. 

Some of the conditions a developmental psychologist might treat include:

• Learning disabilities
• Intellectual disabilities
• Developmental delays
• Motor skill delays
• Issues with social and emotional development
• Auditory processing (hearing) disorder
• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
• Speech and language delays
• Mental health conditions like anxiety and depression, especially related to life stages

The training required to become a developmental psychologist is similar to that in other subfields of psychology. Most developmental psychologists start with an undergraduate degree in psychology or a related field, followed by a master’s degree and a doctoral degree (PhD). 

There are many master’s, graduate certificate, and PhD programs in developmental psychology in the United States. Some focus on a certain part of a person's lifespan, such as child and adolescent development. In addition to research and teaching, graduates may participate in a practicum or internship to pursue licensing as a therapist. 

When to Seek Treatment

If you're concerned that your child is facing a developmental delay, a developmental psychologist can assess them to ensure that they are meeting their milestones. It's best to seek an assessment, diagnosis, and treatment early, so intervention can begin as soon as possible.

Examples of when to see a developmental psychologist may include:

• An infant is struggling to bond with their parents.
• A toddler is missing milestones, such as walking or developing speech.
• A school-aged child is not progressing appropriately in reading or writing.
• An adolescent is facing challenges related to social and/or emotional development.

A developmental psychologist might perform physical and/or cognitive testing to diagnose your child or refer them to another specialist, including the following:

• Physical therapist (helps people improve movement and manage pain)
• Occupational therapist (helps people adjust to everyday activities after injury, illness, or disability)
• Speech-language pathologist (treats speech, language, and social and cognitive communication)
• Psychotherapist (uses talk therapy to treat mental health conditions)
• Neurologist (medical doctor who treats disorders of the brain, spinal cord, and nerves)
• Psychiatrist (medical doctor specializing in mental health conditions)

A developmental psychologist will also likely ask you and your child questions about issues in areas of their life such as friends, behavior, or school performance.

In addition to working with infants and children, developmental psychologists can also help people at any stage of life. In particular, many older adults benefit from working with a developmental psychologist if they're experiencing symptoms of dementia, ill health, or cognitive decline.

Developmental psychology is the study of how human beings grow and change throughout their lives. Many developmental psychologists focus on the intellectual, social, emotional, and physical development of infants, children, and adolescents. Others treat and assess people of all ages. 

Developmental psychologists can treat issues such as developmental delays, intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, speech and language delays, motor skill delays, dementia, anxiety, depression, auditory processing disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and more. They also make referrals to other specialists, such as physical therapists, psychiatrists, and speech-language pathologists. 

American Psychological Association. Developmental psychology .

Maryville University. What is human development and why is it important ?

American Psychological Association. Developmental psychology studies human development across the lifespan .

Liberty University. Theories of psychosocial development .

Oklahoma State University Library. Cognitive development: the theory of Jean Piaget .

University of Illinois Psychology Department Labs. Adult attachment theory and research .

Massey University. Vygotsky .

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Child development - developmental monitoring and screening .

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC's developmental milestones .

By Laura Dorwart Dr. Dorwart has a Ph.D. from UC San Diego and is a health journalist interested in mental health, pregnancy, and disability rights.

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• Developmental Origins of Health and Disease
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• Agile, DevOps and software development methodologies

MoSCoW method

What is the MoSCoW method?

The MoSCoW method is a four-step approach to prioritizing which project requirements provide the best return on investment (ROI). MoSCoW stands for must have, should have, could have and will not have -- the o's make the acronym more pronounceable.

A variety of business disciplines use the MoSCoW method. It enables everyone involved in a project to know what work to complete first and how that work helps increase revenue, decrease operational costs, improve productivity or boost customer satisfaction. On the business side, it can help stakeholders frame discussions about the importance of specific product features when choosing a software vendor. On the IT side, the MoSCoW method plays an important role in Agile project management by helping project teams prioritize story points.

Furthermore, prioritizing requirements enables project teams to understand the amount of effort and resources each project element requires. This knowledge improves the team's time management, makes the project more manageable, increases the likelihood of completion by deadline and optimizes ROI .

The MoSCoW method is also known as MoSCoW analysis , MoSCoW prioritization , MoSCoW technique and MoSCoW rules .

Prioritization of requirements

Before implementing the MoSCoW method, businesses must ensure the teams involved in the project and other stakeholders agree on the project objectives and the factors they use for prioritization. They should also establish plans for settling disagreements.

Next, teams should decide what percentage of resources they assign to each category. For example, they could allocate 20% of the resources to the could-have requirements, while giving 40% to must-haves and 30% to should-haves.

Once the teams and stakeholders gather requirements and reach agreements, then the teams can start assigning requirements to each of the following four categories.

1. M: Must have

This first category includes all the requirements that are necessary for the successful completion of the project. These are non-negotiable elements that provide the minimum usable subset of requirements.

Statements that are true for must-haves include the following:

• There is no point completing the project by its target deadline without this requirement.
• The final product or software would not be compliant or legal without this requirement.
• The final product or software would not be safe without this requirement.
• The final product or software does not deliver an effective solution without this requirement.

If there is any way to work around a particular requirement, teams should consider it a should-have or could-have element. Assigning requirements to the should-have and could-have categories does not mean the team won't deliver the element; it just reveals that it is not necessary for completion and, therefore, is not guaranteed.

2. S: Should have

This second category of requirements is one step below must have. It can prep requirements for future release without impacting the current project. Should-have elements are important to project completion, but they are not necessary. In other words, if the final product doesn't include should-have requirements, then the product still functions. However, if it does include should-have elements, they greatly increase the value of the product. Minor bug fixes, performance improvements and new functionality are all examples of requirements that could fall into this category.

Teams can distinguish a should-have element from a could-have element by assessing the amount of pain caused by leaving the requirement out. This is often measured in terms of the business value or the number of people affected by its absence.

3. C: Could have

This category includes requirements that have a much smaller impact when left out of the project. As a result, could-have requirements are often the first ones teams deprioritize -- must-have and should-have requirements always take precedence as they impact the product more. An example of a could-have is a desirable but unimportant element.

4. W: Will not have

This final category includes all the requirements the team recognizes as not a priority for the project's time frame. Assigning elements to the will-not-have category helps strengthen the focus on requirements in the other three categories, while also setting realistic expectations for what the final product does not include. Furthermore, this category is beneficial in preventing scope creep -- or the tendency for product or project requirements to increase during development beyond what the team anticipated.

The team can eventually reprioritize some requirements in the will-not-have group and work them into future projects; others are never used. To differentiate between these types of elements, teams can create subcategories within the will-not-have group to identify which requirements they should still implement and which they can ignore.

MoSCoW method for Agile

The Agile project management methodology breaks projects into small sections called iterations. Each iteration focuses on completing specific project elements in work sessions called sprints -- typically lasting two to four weeks. The MoSCoW method is frequently used within Agile project management to determine which elements -- including tasks, requirements, products and user stories -- the team should prioritize and which can be put on hold. These decisions make an Agile project schedule that enables teams to rapidly deploy solutions, more efficiently use resources, increase their flexibility and adaptability to changes, and more quickly detect issues.

Advantages of the MoSCoW method

The MoSCoW method is easy to use and understand. It can help individuals with prioritization, but it more greatly benefits project teams. Other advantages include the following:

• Resolves disputes and form agreements with stakeholders.
• Ensures a minimum viable product is produced.
• Sets priorities at different levels of the development pipeline.
• Enables categorizing requirements to rely on the expertise of the team.
• Can be used for both existing and new projects.

In addition, the MoSCoW method enables users to assign specific percentages of resources to each of the four categories. This action ensures resources are effectively managed ,and it optimizes productivity analysis.

Criticism of the MoSCoW method

However, there are some drawbacks with the MoSCow method, including the following:

• There is uncertainty surrounding will-not-have requirements and whether they are left out of the release or the entire project.
• There's no clear way to prioritize requirements within the same category.
• There is no reasoning for why one requirement is a must-have and the other is a should-have.
• If an organization's decision-making process excludes collective leadership, prioritization may become subjective and inefficient.

History of the MoSCoW method

The MoSCoW method has its roots in the dynamic systems development method -- an Agile project delivery framework that aimed to improve rapid application development processes.

Software development expert Dai Clegg created the MoSCoW method while working at Oracle , the multinational computer technology corporation. Clegg initially designed the prioritization technique for timeboxed projects and initiatives within releases.

Editor's note: This article was reformatted in 2023 to improve the reader experience.

Continue Reading About MoSCoW method

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MoSCoW Prioritization

What is moscow prioritization.

MoSCoW prioritization, also known as the MoSCoW method or MoSCoW analysis, is a popular prioritization technique for managing requirements. 

  The acronym MoSCoW represents four categories of initiatives: must-have, should-have, could-have, and won’t-have, or will not have right now. Some companies also use the “W” in MoSCoW to mean “wish.”

What is the History of the MoSCoW Method?

Software development expert Dai Clegg created the MoSCoW method while working at Oracle. He designed the framework to help his team prioritize tasks during development work on product releases.

You can find a detailed account of using MoSCoW prioritization in the Dynamic System Development Method (DSDM) handbook . But because MoSCoW can prioritize tasks within any time-boxed project, teams have adapted the method for a broad range of uses.

How Does MoSCoW Prioritization Work?

Before running a MoSCoW analysis, a few things need to happen. First, key stakeholders and the product team need to get aligned on objectives and prioritization factors. Then, all participants must agree on which initiatives to prioritize.

At this point, your team should also discuss how they will settle any disagreements in prioritization. If you can establish how to resolve disputes before they come up, you can help prevent those disagreements from holding up progress.

Finally, you’ll also want to reach a consensus on what percentage of resources you’d like to allocate to each category.

With the groundwork complete, you may begin determining which category is most appropriate for each initiative. But, first, let’s further break down each category in the MoSCoW method.

Start prioritizing your roadmap

Moscow prioritization categories.

1. Must-have initiatives

As the name suggests, this category consists of initiatives that are “musts” for your team. They represent non-negotiable needs for the project, product, or release in question. For example, if you’re releasing a healthcare application, a must-have initiative may be security functionalities that help maintain compliance.

The “must-have” category requires the team to complete a mandatory task. If you’re unsure about whether something belongs in this category, ask yourself the following.

If the product won’t work without an initiative, or the release becomes useless without it, the initiative is most likely a “must-have.”

2. Should-have initiatives

Should-have initiatives are just a step below must-haves. They are essential to the product, project, or release, but they are not vital. If left out, the product or project still functions. However, the initiatives may add significant value.

“Should-have” initiatives are different from “must-have” initiatives in that they can get scheduled for a future release without impacting the current one. For example, performance improvements, minor bug fixes, or new functionality may be “should-have” initiatives. Without them, the product still works.

3. Could-have initiatives

Another way of describing “could-have” initiatives is nice-to-haves. “Could-have” initiatives are not necessary to the core function of the product. However, compared with “should-have” initiatives, they have a much smaller impact on the outcome if left out.

So, initiatives placed in the “could-have” category are often the first to be deprioritized if a project in the “should-have” or “must-have” category ends up larger than expected.

4. Will not have (this time)

One benefit of the MoSCoW method is that it places several initiatives in the “will-not-have” category. The category can manage expectations about what the team will not include in a specific release (or another timeframe you’re prioritizing).

Placing initiatives in the “will-not-have” category is one way to help prevent scope creep . If initiatives are in this category, the team knows they are not a priority for this specific time frame. 

Some initiatives in the “will-not-have” group will be prioritized in the future, while others are not likely to happen. Some teams decide to differentiate between those by creating a subcategory within this group.

How Can Development Teams Use MoSCoW?

  Although Dai Clegg developed the approach to help prioritize tasks around his team’s limited time, the MoSCoW method also works when a development team faces limitations other than time. For example: 

Prioritize based on budgetary constraints.

What if a development team’s limiting factor is not a deadline but a tight budget imposed by the company? Working with the product managers, the team can use MoSCoW first to decide on the initiatives that represent must-haves and the should-haves. Then, using the development department’s budget as the guide, the team can figure out which items they can complete. 

Prioritize based on the team’s skillsets.

A cross-functional product team might also find itself constrained by the experience and expertise of its developers. If the product roadmap calls for functionality the team does not have the skills to build, this limiting factor will play into scoring those items in their MoSCoW analysis.

Prioritize based on competing needs at the company.

Cross-functional teams can also find themselves constrained by other company priorities. The team wants to make progress on a new product release, but the executive staff has created tight deadlines for further releases in the same timeframe. In this case, the team can use MoSCoW to determine which aspects of their desired release represent must-haves and temporarily backlog everything else.

What Are the Drawbacks of MoSCoW Prioritization?

  Although many product and development teams have prioritized MoSCoW, the approach has potential pitfalls. Here are a few examples.

1. An inconsistent scoring process can lead to tasks placed in the wrong categories.

  One common criticism against MoSCoW is that it does not include an objective methodology for ranking initiatives against each other. Your team will need to bring this methodology to your analysis. The MoSCoW approach works only to ensure that your team applies a consistent scoring system for all initiatives.

Pro tip: One proven method is weighted scoring, where your team measures each initiative on your backlog against a standard set of cost and benefit criteria. You can use the weighted scoring approach in ProductPlan’s roadmap app .

2. Not including all relevant stakeholders can lead to items placed in the wrong categories.

To know which of your team’s initiatives represent must-haves for your product and which are merely should-haves, you will need as much context as possible.

For example, you might need someone from your sales team to let you know how important (or unimportant) prospective buyers view a proposed new feature.

One pitfall of the MoSCoW method is that you could make poor decisions about where to slot each initiative unless your team receives input from all relevant stakeholders. 

3. Team bias for (or against) initiatives can undermine MoSCoW’s effectiveness.

Because MoSCoW does not include an objective scoring method, your team members can fall victim to their own opinions about certain initiatives. 

One risk of using MoSCoW prioritization is that a team can mistakenly think MoSCoW itself represents an objective way of measuring the items on their list. They discuss an initiative, agree that it is a “should have,” and move on to the next.

But your team will also need an objective and consistent framework for ranking all initiatives. That is the only way to minimize your team’s biases in favor of items or against them.

When Do You Use the MoSCoW Method for Prioritization?

MoSCoW prioritization is effective for teams that want to include representatives from the whole organization in their process. You can capture a broader perspective by involving participants from various functional departments.

Another reason you may want to use MoSCoW prioritization is it allows your team to determine how much effort goes into each category. Therefore, you can ensure you’re delivering a good variety of initiatives in each release.

What Are Best Practices for Using MoSCoW Prioritization?

If you’re considering giving MoSCoW prioritization a try, here are a few steps to keep in mind. Incorporating these into your process will help your team gain more value from the MoSCoW method.

1. Choose an objective ranking or scoring system.

Remember, MoSCoW helps your team group items into the appropriate buckets—from must-have items down to your longer-term wish list. But MoSCoW itself doesn’t help you determine which item belongs in which category.

You will need a separate ranking methodology. You can choose from many, such as:

• Weighted scoring
• Value vs. complexity
• Buy-a-feature
• Opportunity scoring

For help finding the best scoring methodology for your team, check out ProductPlan’s article: 7 strategies to choose the best features for your product .

2. Seek input from all key stakeholders.

To make sure you’re placing each initiative into the right bucket—must-have, should-have, could-have, or won’t-have—your team needs context. 

At the beginning of your MoSCoW method, your team should consider which stakeholders can provide valuable context and insights. Sales? Customer success? The executive staff? Product managers in another area of your business? Include them in your initiative scoring process if you think they can help you see opportunities or threats your team might miss. 

3. Share your MoSCoW process across your organization.

MoSCoW gives your team a tangible way to show your organization prioritizing initiatives for your products or projects. 

The method can help you build company-wide consensus for your work, or at least help you show stakeholders why you made the decisions you did.

Communicating your team’s prioritization strategy also helps you set expectations across the business. When they see your methodology for choosing one initiative over another, stakeholders in other departments will understand that your team has thought through and weighed all decisions you’ve made. 

If any stakeholders have an issue with one of your decisions, they will understand that they can’t simply complain—they’ll need to present you with evidence to alter your course of action.  

Related Terms

2×2 prioritization matrix / Eisenhower matrix / DACI decision-making framework / ICE scoring model / RICE scoring model

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• Product Management

MoSCoW Method: How to Make the Best of Prioritization

Prioritization played a significant role in the success of most feature-rich apps, such as Slack and GitLab . Initially, they offered a limited set of functionalities that were essential for their users. With time, this set was supplemented with other features. Railsware is going to share its own style of prioritizing and show you how we use the MoSCoW method to get long lists of tasks done.

Why do you need prioritization?

As a rule, the daily routine includes a bunch of tasks. Ideally, you’ll have enough time and energy to cover all of them – but it just might happen that the number of tasks is immense and the resources available are not in abundance. That’s where prioritization comes in.

This term denotes a process to filter what you have to do in order of importance or relevance. For example, if you’re building a house, you are not likely to begin with the roof or walls until your foundation is done. Of course, things are much more complicated in the web development industry, and this example cannot reveal the full-scope value of setting priorities.

Complex projects and numerous startups make use of advanced prioritization techniques. These usually consist of frameworks known for specific requirements or rules that improve decision-making. Success in prioritization often determines the success of the company itself. Getting caught up in pending and undone tasks is a straight road to failure. That’s why businesses pay particular attention to which prioritization methods to use. There are quite a few of them, but they all have some common characteristics, such as orientation towards input (internal or external) and quantitative or qualitative tools.

By the way, we are hiring. Check out our job openings.

External orientation means that you need to involve stakeholders outside the development team to set priorities, while the internally-oriented methods can be executed purely in-house. Quantitative methods entail a deeper focus on numeric metrics in prioritization, and the qualitative one rests on expert opinions, votings, classifications to a greater extent. In view of this, they are traditionally divided into the following categories:

You can read about different Agile prioritization techniques in detail here . If you need, we’ve also gone more in depth on what Agile product development is in a separate article.

Railsware prefers a technique developed by Dai Clegg way back in 1994. Initially, it was named MSCW, but two o’s were added to improve pronounceability. This also made it sound like the capital city of Russia. Let’s see how it works.

What is MoSCoW?

To understand the gist of the MoSCoW method, we need to look at its origin – the dynamic systems development method (DSDM). It is a framework for Agile project management tailored by practitioners with the aim of improving quality in rapid app development (RAD) processes. A hallmark of DSDM projects is strictly determined quality, costs, and time at an early stage. In view of this, all the project tasks have to be allocated by importance. The need for managing priorities triggered the invention of a specialized prioritization mechanism.

This mechanism was implemented via MoSCoW – a simple yet powerful solution to set priorities both with and without timeboxes. However, it shows better efficiency if you have a certain deadline for a task, feature, subfeature, functionality, etc. The framework is applicable to all levels of project prioritization from top to bottom, as well as to all functions and focus areas.

The MoSCoW abbreviation (except for the o’s) is carved with first letters of the priority categories it works with. These are Must-haves, Should-haves, Could-haves and Won’t-haves. And that’s how you can define which task falls into which category.

Prioritization rules

These rules or requirements estimate the importance of any task/process/feature/etc. Each company or work team uses its own approach to setting requirements, but, in general, they do not differentiate much and look as follows.

These are top-priority requirements, which shape the foundation of the major pipeline. Avoiding them means blocking the entire project or further activities. As a rule, product ideation depends entirely on defining must-haves using such pointers as ‘required for launch’, ‘required for safety’, ‘required for validation’, ‘required to deliver a viable solution’, etc.

• Can we move forward with the project if this task is undone? – if NO , it’s MUST .

Should-haves

This type of requirement is of secondary priority. Should-haves do not affect the launch and, traditionally, are considered important but not crucial. They differ from must-haves by the availability of a workaround. Therefore, the failure of a should-have task is unlikely to cause the failure of the entire project. If you’re building a product, it will still be usable even if these requirements aren’t met.

• Will we move forward with the project if this task is done a bit later? – if YES , it SHOULD .

Could-haves

The next requirement is less important than the two previous ones but still wanted. If we compare could-haves with should-haves, the former is defined by a lower degree of adverse effect if omitted. Traditionally, the third-level priority requirements in the Agile framework MoSCoW are realized if a project is not highly constrained in time. Within the product development, we can call them low-cost tweaks.

• Can we sacrifice this task till the deadline? – if YES , it’s COULD .

Won’t-haves

You can also encounter this type of requirement under the name of would-have or wish-to-have, but these variants are not recognized by the Wiki . However, regardless of the chosen name, these requirements define the lowest priority for tasks that are unviable to implement with a particular budget and deadline. Won’t-have does not mean a complete rejection of something. It envisions reintroduction under favorable conditions in the future.

• Can we get back to it when things are going better? – if YES , it’s WON’T .

In search of the perfect tools and techniques, our team often modifies some well-known approaches and tailors them to our needs. This constant search and improvement led us to brand new product ideation and decision-making framework: BRIDGeS . BRIDGeS is a flexible approach for multi-context analysis suitable for building effective product strategies, solving operational and strategic problems, making day-to-day decisions , and more. Find out how to use BRIDGeS and what advantages BRIDGeS can bring to your team .  

MoSCoW is another tool that we modified to make it even more flexible and versatile. Below, we share our findings to help your team nail prioritization in a more efficient way.

How the Railsware team modified MoSCoW

The main difference between the classical MoSCoW and our version of this technique is that we added another level of prioritization within such groups as Must, Should, and Could. Each of these groups of requirements got another 4 complexity categories :

• 3 – most heavy and unclear requirements
• 2 – heavy complexity
• 1 – normal complexity
• 0 – easiest and the most urgent tasks within the group

This way, when a requirement gets, let’s say, the priority Must, we can also add a numeric matter to the letter M. For instance, our sprint can include several M2 tasks, one M1 task, and three S1 tasks.

When the task is marked with the priority “3” (M3/S3/C3), it most likely means that its scope is too large and complex to be fulfilled fast. You need to decompose it into smaller, manageable chunks and prioritize them as well. This way, from one M3 requirement, you can get a bunch of M2, S1, and C1 tasks, for example.

Sometimes, M, S, C, and W letters are not enough and we may also need an Urgent Must (UM) mark. UMs are the most critical things, such as hotfixes, bug fixes, and patches, which block the work of the whole team. From our experience, we recommend you to fix these tasks ASAP, as they hinder the team’s productive work. So if you set any task as UM, you should ignore all other tasks until the UM task is fixed. In normal situations, your bug tracking system shouldn’t have UMs.

Why do Urgent Must tasks appear? Often, UMs are the Must-haves that your team ignored before the deployment phase or missed during the QA phase. Pay attention to these tricky cases, and try to solve them before they become an obstacle.

Advantages of the modified MoSCoW approach

When we got an additional level of priorities within the MoSCoW system, we felt the following improvements:

• No need to run several rounds of task prioritization . When you have six Must-have requirements, you can’t understand which of them are the most critical or complex and run another round of prioritization. Our approach allows us to set priorities and clearly understand the importance and complexity of each task from the first round.
• Saved time . The ability to set all priorities at once saves time for all the team members who take part in the prioritization process.
• More balanced sprints. A sprint that consists only of Must-have tasks has little chance of being fulfilled. Must-haves are usually more complex requirements that guarantee the viability of a product, meaning their implementation takes more time and concentration from a developer. To dilute high-importance work with some low-hanging tasks, you can add some S0, C0, or S1 tasks to the sprint so that users get a bit more full-featured functionality of the main Must-have flows.
• More pleasant products for end users . While M3 and M2 tasks are usually crucial things necessary for the product viability, Could- and Should-haves may represent more pleasant things (changing a theme, additional filters, notifications, etc.) 

How to use MoSCoW

Everything looks simple in theory, but is it in practice? Let’s check out how a traditional MoSCoW analysis of functionality prioritizing works through the example of a regular web application. As a sample, we’re going to use basic functions taken from one of the Railsware products .

List all tasks

Prioritize cards.

Based on particular requirements for budget and time, we can single out the most fundamental features to be implemented in the minimum viable product . After the priority analysis, we’ve got the following:

• A user MUST sign up.
• A user MUST log in.
• A user MUST reset password.
• A user MUST open a time-tracking page.

The top-priority tasks are followed by important, though not vital,functionalities for the app. These are:

• A user SHOULD choose the billing system.
• A user SHOULD delete an account.
• A user SHOULD choose time-tracking options.

The evolution of the app does foresee its availability on mobile devices. However, this task is only nice-to-have at this point.

• A user COULD install a mobile app version.

And now the least-priority feature. It aims at enhancing the user experience once the app is on track. Theme selectability is definitely not what we’re going to make now, so this feature is saved for later.

• A user WON’T choose the app’s visual theme THIS TIME.

Restructure cards according to their priority

This step allows you to see the quantitative ratio of high and low priority tasks.

The most difficult thing about prioritization is to be icily intelligent and focus on the essential tasks to be done. Otherwise, you can get into the EVERYTHING-IS-MUST trap , according to which any feature like the billing system option or mobile app availability turns into the must-have.

And that’s why the MoSCoW Agile method is cool. It allows you to define a basic feature set, which has top priority and emphasizes that you do not need to abandon anything. The healthy balance of must-haves + should-haves is 50% of the entire scope. All (or almost all) of the tasks will be implemented later but in the order of their importance to your goal. The goal of this example is to build an MVP , and the categorization above shows the expected progress of the app’s functionality.

How to use modified MoSCoW

We took the same example with all the tasks listed above to showcase how we apply our version of this prioritization technique.

Set priorities using the extended MoSCoW model

The main priority (Must, Should, Could, and Won’t) are still the same, however, we dived deeper to make a more precise priority estimation of each task. Here’s what we came up with:

• “A user can sign up” got an M2 mark. It is a complex task, but it’s not critically urgent.
• “A user can log in” got an M1 mark. The task is important but not that complex.
• “A user can reset password” got an M1 mark. 
• “A user can choose the billing system” got an S3 mark. It’s an important feature, but its scope is large and should be split.
• “A user can delete the account” got an S2 mark. 
• “A user can open a time-tracking page” got an M2 mark. 
• “A user can choose time-tracking options” got an S1 mark. This is a low-hanging feature that can be taken to a sprint to balance the workload.  
• “A user can install a mobile app version” got a C3 mark. This epic is too large to be implemented in one sprint. Its scope should be split into smaller tasks and prioritized as well.
• “A user can choose the app’s visual theme” got the same priority mark – Won’t, which we do not decompose.

Our modified approach provides a better understanding of the task’s priority and complexity and shows the parts that need to be reconsidered. This way, it’s easier to plan a balanced sprint, taking only tasks that can be implemented (all cards with the priority “3” should be split into smaller tasks) and some small tasks that allow your team to reduce the workload. 

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MoSCoW pros and cons

The framework is quite popular among Agile projects with fixed timeboxes since it allows for managing the requirements for a specific release of a product. This prioritization method has proved its efficiency and reliability within our company as well, and we do recommend it to our clients. However, it is not perfect of course, and an unbiased look can reveal some flaws associated with MoSCoW technique. Let’s take a look at its strengths and weaknesses.

MoSCoW prioritization at Railsware

Let’s take a look at how we set priorities within the company.

Product development: we rest upon a roadmap where the product features and the order of their implementation are specified. As a rule, we leverage MoSCoW to define which feature goes first, which comes second, and so on, taking into account their importance and the interdependence of features. Must-haves and Should-haves are meant for the product release. Could-haves and Won’t-haves are postponed for the future.

HR and recruitment: prioritization rests upon such requirements as the demand for particular expertise, budget availability, timebox (how urgently we need this expertise), and so on. We leverage the similar patterns of setting priorities in other focus areas including on-boarding, branding, marketing, etc.

The biggest challenge of the methodology is that all stakeholders must be familiar with enough context to estimate features correctly. Besides, stakeholders that represent different functions like sales, development, marketing have their own vision of setting priorities, which not always works towards correct prioritization. Investors usually treat all features as Must-haves from their broad-based perspective and need them done without any respect of their implementation order.

Railsware has a Holacratic organizational structure . We take advantage of collective leadership based on the RASCI model and make decisions on different things including prioritization through voting. Team members can choose from several options like really want, want and don’t want. Each option implies a particular point. The option with the biggest point total has the highest priority. For small contexts, a responsible role (team leader, project manager, etc.) can be in charge of setting priorities on his/her own.

MoSCoW alternatives you may find useful for your project

Railsware uses Agile framework MoSCoW heavily and is pleased with it. However, it does not mean that we are closed to other solutions. Besides, a good product manager must consider the key product metrics and build the prioritization according to them. So here are some other worthwhile techniques that you may benefit from.

With this framework, you can define how happy the users are with product features. The Kano Model rests on a questionnaire, which is used to learn users’ attitude to a particular feature (like, expect, dislike, neutral, etc.). Visually, the model can be expressed via a two-dimensional diagram where the vertical axis is responsible for the level of user satisfaction (from totally frustrated to incredibly happy) and the horizontal one shows either how much was invested in the feature (Investment), how well was it implemented (Implementation), or how much users benefit from it (Functionality).

Categorization of requirements includes four types that are prioritized in the following order: must-be, performance, attractive, and indifferent. Must-bes are some basic things that users generally expect. Performance (also known as One-Dimensional) requirements are the golden mean and allow you to increase the satisfaction level. Attractive requirements are those that improve user experience. These are nice-to-haves or could-haves according to MoSCoW. Indifferent ones are less prioritized and sometimes even entirely omitted.

Value vs. Complexity

This prioritization technique is one of the simplest. You can encounter it under the names of Value vs. Cost or Value vs. Effort as well. The method feels intuitive and is aimed at maximizing value delivery. Estimation of features’ importance rests upon how much effort is invested to implement them and how much value they will bring. Here is how it looks visually:

Wrapping up

The art of setting priorities shows the efficiency of your workflow. Railsware’s choice is the MoSCoW project management framework, which has made a good showing in versatile functionalities and products. However, it might be less useful for immense projects with multiple teams involved in the pipeline. We advise you to find an effective prioritization solution that fits your unique needs, and to always avoid getting caught up in countless pending tasks.

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Martin Mull, beloved actor known for "Fernwood 2 Night," "Roseanne" and "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," dies at 80

Updated on: June 29, 2024 / 12:40 AM EDT / CBS/AP

Martin Mull, whose droll, esoteric comedy and acting made him a hip sensation in the 1970s and later a beloved guest star on sitcoms including "Roseanne" and "Arrested Development," has died, his daughter said Friday. He was 80. 

Mull's Daughter, TV writer and comic artist Maggie Mull, said her father died at home on Thursday after "a valiant fight against a long illness."

Mull, who was also a guitarist and painter, came to national fame with a recurring role on the Norman Lear-created satirical soap opera "Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman," and the starring role in its spinoff, "Fernwood 2 Night," on which he played the host of a satirical talk show.

"He was known for excelling at every creative discipline imaginable and also for doing Red Roof Inn commercials," Maggie Mull said in an Instagram post . "He would find that joke funny. He was never not funny. My dad will be deeply missed by his wife and daughter, by his friends and coworkers, by fellow artists and comedians and musicians, and —the sign of a truly exceptional person— by many, many dogs."

Melissa Joan Hart, who acted alongside Mull in the series "Sabrina the Teenage Witch,"  paid tribute to him on Instagram on Friday, calling him "a wonderful man who I am better for knowing."

"I have such fond memories of working with him and being in awe of his huge body of work," she wrote.  

Fellow "Sabrina" actress Caroline Rhea described Mull  as "brilliantly funny and kind" in her own social media post.

"Your impact on the world will never be forgotten," Rhea wrote. "What a gift it was to know you Martin." 

Known for his blonde hair and well-trimmed mustache, Mull was born in Chicago, raised in Ohio and Connecticut. He studied art in Rhode Island and Rome. He combined his music and comedy in hip Hollywood clubs in the 1970s.

"In 1976 I was a guitar player and sit-down comic appearing at the Roxy on the Sunset Strip when Norman Lear walked in and heard me," Mull told The Associated Press in 1980. "He cast me as the wife beater on 'Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman.' Four months later I was spun off on my own show."

In the 1980s he appeared in films including "Mr. Mom" and "Clue," and in the 1990s had a recurring role on "Roseanne."

He would later play private eye Gene Parmesan on "Arrested Development," and would be nominated for an Emmy in 2016 for a guest turn on "Veep."

"What I did on 'Veep' I'm very proud of, but I'd like to think it's probably more collective, at my age it's more collective," Mull told the AP after his nomination. "It might go all the way back to 'Fernwood.'"

Other comedians and actors were often his biggest fans.

"Martin was the greatest," "Bridesmaids" director Paul Feig said in an X post . "So funny, so talented, such a nice guy. Was lucky enough to act with him on The Jackie Thomas Show and treasured every moment being with a legend. Fernwood Tonight was so influential in my life."

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The New Rules of Marketing Across Channels

• Joshua Bowers,
• Denise Linda Parris,
• Qiong Wang,
• Danny McRae,
• Francisco Guzmán,
• Mark Bolino

Strategies for navigating a new kind of communication landscape: the “echoverse.”

The Internet and AI tools are transforming marketing communications within a complex, interactive landscape called the echoverse. While marketing has evolved since the proliferation of the Internet, in the echoverse, a diverse network of human and nonhuman actors — consumers, brands, AI agents, and more — continuously interact, influence, and reshape messages across digital platforms. Traditional one-way and two-way communication models give way to omnidirectional communication. The authors integrated communication theory and theories of marketing communications to create a typology of marketing communication strategies consisting of three established strategies — 1) promotion marketing, 2) relationship marketing, and 3) customer engagement marketing — and their proposed strategy, 4) echoverse marketing. The authors also recommend three strategies for marketers to make the shift from leading messaging to guiding messaging: 1) Enable co-creation and co-ownership, 2) Create directed learning opportunities, and 3) Develop a mindset of continuous learning.

Today, companies must navigate a new kind of communication landscape: the “ echoverse .” This new terrain is defined by a complex web of feedback loops and reverberations that are created by consumers, brands, news media, investors, communities, society, and artificial intelligence (AI) agents. This assemblage of actors continuously interact, influence, and respond to each other across a myriad of digital channels, platforms, and devices, creating a dynamic where messages circulate and echo, being amplified, modified, or dampened by ongoing interactions.

• JB Joshua Bowers is Co-CEO of Pavilion Intelligence, a marketing science consultancy and upcycled timber operation. He has a Ph.D. in Marketing from the University of Oklahoma and is a leader in new product development for enterprise and marketing technology.
• DP Denise Linda Parris is Co-CEO Pavilion Intelligence, a marketing science consultancy and upcycled timber operation. She has been a professional athlete, entrepreneur, and academic with research focused on servant leadership, societal impact, and marketing technology.
• QW Qiong Wang is the Ruby K. Powell Professor of Marketing and Associate Professor of Marketing and Supply Chain at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business. Her research focuses on the processes and boundaries of inter-organizational issues, including the development and management of strategic partnerships, marketing strategies, and supply chain management.
• DM Danny McRae is a technology professional with over 20 years of experience in information architecture.
• FG Francisco Guzmán is Professor of Marketing at the University of North Texas’ G. Brint Ryan College of Business. His research focuses on how brands can drive social transformation.
• MB Mark Bolino is the David L. Boren Professor and the Michael F. Price Chair in International Business at the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business. His research focuses on understanding how an organization can inspire its employees to go the extra mile without compromising their personal well-being.

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Apple confirms iphone upgrade with 2 key new features is here in days.

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The next developer beta of iPhone software, iOS 18 is coming soon: Monday, June 24, to be exact. And, unusually, we have this release schedule from Apple itself, made in a statement that also talked about Apple Intelligence—and how it won’t be released in the EU this year. And now new information has emerged about exactly why the biggest beast of iOS 18, Apple Intelligence is only available on the very latest iPhones, the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max, plus devices with Apple M1 or more recent chips on board.

iPhone Mirroring coming to iOS 18.

Updated June 14 with new details of the problems running Apple Intelligence on older iPhones.

The usual route for Apple, as pointed out by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in his latest Power On newsletter is that Apple’s latest features work on “a wide range of existing hardware.” But only two current iPhones will handle Apple Intelligence. In an interview with the excellent John Gruber from Daring Fireball, John Giannandrea, Apple’s head of AI, said ““You could, in theory, run these models on a very old device, but it would be so slow that it would not be useful.”

Hmm. An Apple iPhone 15 isn’t really very old, but it seems that the processor and memory on board the iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max are enough to run Apple Intelligence, even if the older can’t do justice to it.

According to MarkGurman again, it may come down to how Apple chose which processors to put in its latest models. “When the iPhone 14 line rolled out in 2022, Apple shifted its processor strategy. Instead of giving the Pro and non-Pro models the same chip, the company only put the new processor into the iPhone 14 Pro. That continued last year, with the iPhone 15 Pro getting the A17 Pro and the iPhone 15 standard models keeping the A16 and less memory (six gigabytes versus 8 gigabytes). The tech giant determined internally months ago that 8 gigabytes is the minimum needed to run Apple Intelligence.”

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And maybe the neural engine, the part of the chip that looks after AI concerns, is less of an issue than was expected. As Gurman says, “The size of the neural engine is actually less of a factor. That component is practically the same on M1 Macs and iPads, which do support Apple Intelligence, as it is on the iPhone 13, 14 and 15, which do not. It’s almost entirely about memory. This is why Apple is boosting the memory on the regular iPhone 16 this fall: to support Intelligence and frame it as a key selling point. Every version of the 16 lineup will support the AI features.”

While Apple Intelligence will be available to test in beta this summer in the U.S., for instance, it’s coming much later in some places, such as the EU, according to the same Bloomberg newsletter. Gurman points out that Apple will withhold Apple Intelligence in the EU, “along with iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing — because it’s afraid of running afoul of new regulations. At issue is the Digital Markets Act, a law aimed at reining in Big Tech that took effect this year.”

Apple cited interoperability requirements and for now EU users will miss out on iPhone Mirroring and SharePlay Screen Sharing—discussed below. Gurman asks how consumers will respond. “Will European customers put pressure on lawmakers if they resent not having the new features? With Apple already making other changes to accommodate the new law, most notably to its App Store, this year could be a testy one for its relationship with European regulators.” Back to the timetable of software releases.

Apple almost never gives the kind of detail as a release date, though the timing, two weeks after the first beta release is not surprising and fits with the usual cadence of beta releases at this stage. Here’s what’s coming.

The statement was made by Apple to The Verge on Friday, June 21, as part of the explanation of why Apple Intelligence will be delayed in the EU because of the recent Digital Markets Act.

Apple said again that Apple Intelligence will be available for beta testing in the summer, for users with U.S. English as their language, and with the EU caveat. But this Monday’s update will have two key features.

iPhone Mirroring

This is plenty cool. If your iPhone is in your bag, you can still use it on your Mac, for instance, and interact with it as easily as if it were in your hand. Notifications from the iPhone appear on the Mac and when you click on one, the iPhone appears on your Mac display.

You can then control it with your keyboard or the trackpad on the Mac, swiping between home screens or interacting with apps. And you’ll be able to drag and drop files between devices, though that is coming later.

SharePlay Screen Sharing

This is also very interesting. It already exists in iPadOS 17 but it’s being upgraded. In the new iPadOS 18 version, you’ll be able to draw on your iPad screen and what you draw will appear on your friend’s device. That’s relevant to iPhones because you can draw on their iPhone screen as well as iPad. And, even cooler, you can request permission to remote-control their device. This is something I’ve been wanting for a long time, especially to help friends or family members who aren’t quite sure about how to do something on their Apple device.

Apple Intelligence is not coming on Monday, but will be with us in the summer, and the public beta for the new OS versions will likely land in July.

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Beyond Ozempic: New GLP-1 drugs promise weight loss and health benefits

The next wave of obesity drugs is coming soon.

Drug companies are racing to develop GLP-1 drugs following the blockbuster success of Novo Nordisk’s Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro and Zepbound.

Some of the experimental drugs may go beyond diabetes and weight loss, improving liver and heart function while reducing side effects such as muscle loss common to the existing medications. At the 2024 American Diabetes Association conference in Orlando, Florida, researchers are expected to present data on 27 GLP-1 drugs in development.

“We’ve heard about Ozempic and Mounjaro and so on, but now we’re seeing lots and lots of different drug candidates in the pipeline, from very early-stage preclinical all the way through late-stage clinical,” said Dr. Marlon Pragnell, ADA’s vice president of research and science. “It’s very exciting to see so much right now.”

A large portion of the data presented comes from animal studies or early-stage human trials. However, some presentations include mid-to late-stage trials, according to a list shared by the organization.

Approval by the Food and Drug Administration is likely years away for most. Some of the drugs showcased could be available for prescription in the U.S. within the next few years.

“We’ve witnessed an unprecedented acceleration in the development of GLP drugs,” said Dr. Christopher McGowan, a gastroenterologist who runs a weight loss clinic in Cary, North Carolina. “We are now firmly entrenched in the era of the GLP.”

While the existing drugs are highly effective, new drugs that are more affordable and have fewer side effects are needed, McGowan added.

There aren’t just GLP-1 drugs in the pipeline. On Thursday, ahead of the diabetes conference, Denmark-based biotech firm Zealand Pharma released data that showed a high dose of its experimental weight loss drug petrelintide helped reduce body weight by an average of 8.6% at 16 weeks.

The weekly injectable medication is unique because it mimics the hormone amylin, which helps control blood sugar. The hope is patients will experience fewer side effects like nausea commonly associated with GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound.

Can glucagon hormone help with weight loss?

GLP-1 medications work, in part, by slowing down how quickly food passes through the stomach, leading people to feel fuller longer. In several of the upcoming weight loss drugs, a different hormone called glucagon is in the spotlight. Glucagon is a key blood-sugar-regulating hormone that can mimic the effects of exercise.

One of the drugs featured at the conference on Sunday is called pemvidutide, from Maryland-based biotech firm Altimmune .

The drug contains the GLP-1 hormone, a key ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, in addition to glucagon.

Altimmune released data from a phase 2 trial of 391 adults with obesity or who are overweight with at least one weight-related comorbidity such as high blood pressure. Patients were randomized to either get one of three doses of pemvidutide or a placebo for 48 weeks.

Researchers found that patients who got the highest dose of the drug lost on average 15.6% of their body weight after 48 weeks, compared to the 2.2% body weight loss seen in patients who got a placebo. In similar trials, semaglutide was shown to reduce body weight by around 15% after 68 weeks.

These are not direct comparisons because the drugs weren’t compared in a head-to-head clinical trial.

Dr. Scott Harris, Altimmune’s chief medical officer, said the drug has been shown to help people lose weight, as well as provide health benefits to the liver and heart. What’s more, the drug has shown benefits in preserving lean body mass. Some studies have suggested that semaglutide, the active ingredient in Ozempic and Wegovy, can cause muscle loss.

“If people take the drugs long term, what’s going to be their long-term health? What’s going to be the long-term effects on their body composition, their muscle, their ability to function?” he said.

Harris said that people who got pemvidutide lost on average 21% of their lean body mass, which is lower than the around 25% of lean body mass people typically lose with diet and exercise.

“We’re the next wave of obesity drugs,” Altimmune President and CEO Vipin Garg said. “The first wave of mechanisms was all driven by appetite suppression. We are adding another component.”

Altimmune expects to begin a phase 3 trial soon. The company hopes the drug will be available in the U.S. sometime in 2028.

Competition could drive down costs

Expanding the number of weight loss drugs available is important for several reasons, experts say.

More options could also help alleviate the shortages seen in the U.S. with Novo Nordisk’s and Lilly’s weight loss drugs.

Latest news on weight loss medications

• Amid shortages, WHO warns about safety risks from fake versions of Wegovy and Zepbound.
• How one state is trying to make weight loss drugs cheaper.
• Weight loss drugs like Wegovy are meant for long-term use. What happens if you stop taking them?

Increased competition could drive down the high cost of the drugs over time. A month’s supply of Wegovy or Zepbound can cost more than $1,000, often financially untenable for many patients, experts say.

Patients can also respond differently to treatments, said Dr. Fatima Cody Stanford, an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In fact, some have found the existing GLP-1 options ineffective.

“Different GLP-1 drugs may have varying levels of efficacy and potency,” she said. “Some patients may respond better to one drug over another, depending on how their body metabolizes and responds to the medication.”

Since starting Ozempic in June 2022, Danielle Griffin has not seen the results her doctor predicted. “She really expected to see a huge difference in my weight, and I just never saw it,” said the 38-year-old from Elida, New Mexico. Griffin weighed about 300 pounds and has lost only about 10 pound in two years. She said her “expectations were pretty much shattered from that.”

Amid insurance battles and shortages, she has also tried Wegovy and Mounjaro, but didn’t see a difference in her weight.

“I don’t feel like there are options, especially for myself, for someone who the medications not working for.”

The prospect of new medications on the horizon excites Griffin. “I would be willing to try it,” she said, adding that “it could be life changing, honestly, and you know that alone gives me something to look forward to.”

More drugs in the pipeline

Eli Lilly, which makes Zepbound and the diabetes version Mounjaro, has two more GLP-1 drugs in development.

On Sunday, Lilly released new data about retatrutide, an injectable drug that combines GLP-1 and glucagon , plus another hormone called GIP. GIP is thought to improve how the body breaks down sugar.

In an earlier trial, retatrutide helped people lose, on average, about 24% of their body weight, the equivalent of about 58 pounds — greater weight loss than any other drug on the market.

New findings showed the weekly medication also significantly reduced blood sugar levels in people with Type 2 diabetes.

On Saturday, there were also new findings on the experimental mazdutide, which Lilly has given permission to biotech firm Innovent Biologics to develop in China. The drug combines GLP-1 and glucagon.

In a phase 3 study of adults in China who were overweight or had obesity, researchers found that after 48 weeks, a 6-milligram dose of the drug led to an average body weight reduction of 14.4%.

The drug also led to a reduction in serum uric acid — a chemical that can build up in the bloodstream, causing health problems, and has been associated with obesity, according to Dr. Linong Ji, director of the Peking University Diabetes Center, who presented the findings.

That was “quite unique and never reported for other GLP-1-based therapies,” he said in an interview.

The drug could be approved in China in 2025, Ji said.

Improving metabolic conditions

An estimated 75% of people with obesity have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease and 34% have MASH, or metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis, according to researchers with the German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim. Fatty liver disease occurs when the body begins to store fat in the liver . It can progress to MASH, when fat buildup causes inflammation and scarring.

In a phase 2 trial of people who were overweight or had obesity, Boehringer Ingelheim’s survodutide, which uses both GLP-1 and glucagon, led to weight loss of 19% at 46 weeks. Another phase 2 study in people with MASH and fibrosis found that 83% of participants also showed improvement in MASH.

Survodutide “has significant potential to make a meaningful difference to people living with cardiovascular, renal and metabolic conditions,” said Dr. Waheed Jamal, Boehringer Ingelheim’s corporate vice president and head of cardiometabolic medicine.

On Friday, the company released two studies on the drug. One, in hamsters, found that weight loss was associated with improvements in insulin and cholesterol. The second, in people with Type 2 diabetes or people with obesity, found the drug helped improve blood sugar levels.  

The company is looking to begin a phase 3 trial.

CLARIFICATION (June 24, 2024, 2:31 p.m. ET): Innovent Biologics has entered into an exclusive licensed agreement with Eli Lilly for the development of mazdutide in China, not a partnership.

Berkeley Lovelace Jr. is a health and medical reporter for NBC News. He covers the Food and Drug Administration, with a special focus on Covid vaccines, prescription drug pricing and health care. He previously covered the biotech and pharmaceutical industry with CNBC.

COLLEGE FOOTBALL 25 Rankings Week Showcase

Who are the best teams in ea sports™ college football 25.

Hey College Football Fans,

Welcome back to the Campus Huddle! This week, we have a special “living” edition of the Campus Huddle, centered around Rankings Week.

So what is Rankings Week? 

It’s a time to celebrate various EA SPORTS™ College Football 25 rankings, from the Toughest Places to Play, to the Top Offenses and Defenses, to our final Team Power Rankings before the worldwide launch on July 19. Plus, we’ll have our Sights and Sounds Deep Dive coming Wednesday, showcasing the incredible and unique presentation features coming to EA SPORTS™ College Football 25.

The full Rankings Week schedule can be seen here:

TOUGHEST PLACES TO PLAY

We laid out the significant impact that Homefield Advantage can have on the outcome of games in EA SPORTS™ College Football 25 during our Gameplay Deep Dive Campus Huddle . Audio and in-game modifiers such as blurred routes, incorrect play art, confidence and composure affects, and screen shaking are some of the immersive impacts away teams and players will be forced to contend with. 

But not all Homefield Advantages are created equal. The Development Team worked to compile a list of the Top 25 Toughest Places to Play, factoring in historical stats such as home winning %, home game attendance, active home winning streaks, team prestige, and more.

Rankings are subject to change in future updates.

• Kyle Field - Texas A&M
• Bryant-Denny Stadium - Alabama
• Tiger Stadium - LSU
• Ohio Stadium - Ohio State
• Sanford Stadium - Georgia
• Beaver Stadium - Penn State
• Camp Randall Stadium - Wisconsin
• Gaylord Family Oklahoma Memorial Stadium - Oklahoma
• Doak S. Campbell Stadium - Florida State
• Ben Hill Griffin Stadium - Florida
• Autzen Stadium - Oregon
• Memorial Stadium - Clemson
• Neyland Stadium - Tennessee
• Jordan-Hare Stadium - Auburn
• Williams-Brice Stadium - South Carolina
• Michigan Stadium - Michigan
• Lane Stadium - Virginia Tech
• Rice-Eccles Stadium - Utah
• Darrell K. Royal - Texas Memorial Stadium - Texas
• Kinnick Stadium - Iowa
• Notre Dame Stadium - Notre Dame
• Spartan Stadium - Michigan State
• Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium - Arkansas
• Albertsons Stadium - Boise State
• Davis Wade Stadium - Mississippi State

SIGHTS AND SOUNDS DEEP DIVE

In case you missed it, Kirk Herbstreit is back with our next Deep Dive, taking a look at the sights and sounds featured in EA SPORTS™ College Football 25. The Development Team spent years capturing countless traditions, mascots, fight songs, and more to the game, ensuring all 134 schools and fan bases were represented with pride. These elements make College Football special and unique, bringing the unmatched feeling of game day to your fingertips.  

For even more on the presentation elements and how they come to life, check out the latest Campus Huddle hosted by Senior Game Designer Christian Brandt.

OFFENSIVE/DEFENSIVE POWER RANKINGS

The Development Team meticulously examined hundreds of thousands of data points to arrive at our team power rankings. With help from our friends at Pro Football Focus (PFF), the team analyzed all 134 rosters, thousands of players, years worth of game film, and mountains of stats, ultimately arriving at our Team Power Rankings.

Here are the Top 25 offenses in EA SPORTS™ College Football 25: 

• Georgia - 94 OVR
• Oregon - 94 OVR
• Alabama - 91 OVR
• Texas - 91 OVR
• Ohio State - 89 OVR
• LSU - 89 OVR
• Miami - 89 OVR
• Colorado - 89 OVR
• Missouri - 89 OVR
• Clemson - 87 OVR
• Utah - 87 OVR
• Penn State - 87 OVR
• Ole Miss - 87 OVR
• Kansas - 87 OVR
• Arizona - 87 OVR
• NC State - 87 OVR
• Notre Dame - 85 OVR
• Texas A&M - 85 OVR
• Memphis - 85 OVR
• SMU - 85 OVR
• UCF - 85 OVR
• Florida State - 83 OVR
• Oklahoma - 83 OVR
• Virginia Tech - 83 OVR
• USC - 83 OVR

As the old saying goes, “Defense wins championships.” Here are the Top 25 defenses in EA SPORTS™ College Football 25:

• Ohio State - 96 OVR
• Oregon - 90 OVR
• Alabama - 90 OVR
• Clemson - 90 OVR
• Notre Dame - 90 OVR
• Michigan - 90 OVR
• Texas - 88 OVR
• Penn State - 88 OVR
• Utah - 88 OVR
• Florida State - 88 OVR
• Oklahoma - 88 OVR
• Iowa - 88 OVR
• Virginia Tech - 86 OVR
• Wisconsin - 86 OVR
• USC - 86 OVR
• Auburn - 86 OVR
• LSU - 84 OVR
• Texas A&M - 84 OVR
• Colorado - 84 OVR
• Oklahoma State - 84 OVR
• Louisville - 84 OVR
• North Carolina - 84 OVR
• Kansas State - 84 OVR
• Florida - 84 OVR

TEAM POWER RANKINGS

And the moment you’ve all been waiting for! Here are the Top Teams in EA SPORTS™ College Football 25.

• Georgia - 95 OVR
• Ohio State - 93 OVR
• Oregon - 93 OVR
• Alabama - 92 OVR
• Texas - 92 OVR
• LSU - 90 OVR
• Michigan - 88 OVR
• Miami - 88 OVR
• Texas A&M - 88 OVR
• Ole Miss - 88 OVR
• Colorado - 87 OVR
• Oklahoma - 87 OVR
• Wisconsin - 87 OVR
• USC - 87 OVR
• Virginia Tech - 87 OVR
• Oklahoma State - 87 OVR
• Iowa - 87 OVR

Let us know what you think! Join the conversation today by following EA SPORTS™ College Football 25 on social media and rep your school. Next week, we’ll have even more information to share including our Dynasty Deep Dive where we explore the ins and outs of the mode, recruiting, and more! 

College Football 25 launches worldwide on July 19th, 2024. Pre-order the Deluxe Edition* or the EA SPORTS™ MVP Bundle** and play 3 days early. Conditions and restrictions apply. See disclaimers for details. Stay in the conversation by following us on Facebook , Twitter , Instagram , YouTube , and Answers HQ .

Pre-order the MVP Bundle*** to make game day every day, and get both Madden NFL 25 and College Football 25 with exclusive content.

FOLLOW US @EASPORTSCollege

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College football 25 sights and sounds deep dive, college football 25 gameplay deep dive, welcome to college football 25.

Formation Bio raises $372M to boost drug development with AI

Formation Bio, a startup focused on applying AI to drug development with backing from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, has raised over a quarter-billion dollars to support its ambitious product roadmap.

Formation announced Wednesday that it raised $372 million in a Series D funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz with participation from drug maker Sanofi, Sequoia, Thrive, Emerson Collective, Lachy Groom, SV Angel Growth and FPV Ventures. The new tranche brings Formation’s total raised to more than $600 million ( according to PitchBook), which the company says is being put mainly toward partnership acquisition efforts and R&D.

Formation declined to reveal its new valuation. But a spokesperson told TechCrunch that it’s a “material step up” from $1 billion, Formation’s Series C valuation.

The company, which previously went by the brand TrialSpark, was co-founded by Benjamine Liu and Linhao Zhang in 2016. Liu has a background in computational biology, having conducted neuroscience research at Oxford and UPenn. Zhang is a software developer by trade and worked at Salesforce before joining Oscar Insurance as a product engineer.

Formation builds tech-forward solutions for clinical trials and drug development. The company licenses drug IP from and co-develops drugs with biotech and pharma companies, and develops these drugs past clinical proof-of-concept.

Drug development is a notoriously expensive and challenging endeavor. It takes 10 to 15 years on average to take a drug from initial discovery through regulatory approval, with the cost per drug reaching up to $5.5 billion. And an estimated 90% of drugs fail to reach the market. 

Formation claims it’s able to run clinical trials more efficiently by streamlining processes such as study startup, participant recruitment and data management. For example, the company is currently deploying AI to generate patient recruitment materials and reports for “adverse events.” It’s also fine-tuning AI models to provide drug development teams recommendations for R&D decisions and better predict drug toxicity, tolerability and efficacy.

Last month, Formation announced a collaboration with OpenAI and Sanofi to jointly design and develop customized AI solutions for drug development. OpenAI said it would contribute access to AI capabilities and expertise, and Sanofi said it would bring proprietary data for developing AI models.

OpenAI’s involvement gives the appearance of conflict of interest, given that Altman was involved in Formation’s Series C fundraising. OpenAI PR told TechCrunch the deal was led by OpenAI COO Brad Lightcap and OpenAI’s board of directors but didn’t indicate whether Altman, who’s on the board, recused himself.

“At Sanofi, we’re all in on AI,” Sanofi CEO Paul Hudson said in a press release. “And we are proud to partner with and invest in Formation Bio, whose AI-driven drug development vision and capabilities will help lead our industry forward in the shared ambition to accelerate and improve how we bring more new medicines to patients.”

Formation has three drug candidates in its clinical pipeline, including treatments for chronic hand eczema, sensory neuropathy and knee osteoarthritis. The furthest along is the eczema treatment, which recently reached phase 3 — the last stage of testing before a drug is submitted to regulatory authorities.

A number of startups are attempting to pioneer AI-powered tech for drug development , including EvolutionaryScale , which emerged from stealth this week with investments from Amazon and Nvidia. Market research firm Markets and Markets anticipates that the market for AI in drug discovery will be worth $4.9 billion by 2028. Major players in the space include Xaira (which launched with $1 billion), DeepMind spin-off Isomorphic , Insilico , Jeff Dean-backed Profluent , Enveda and Causaly .

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