Notes contemporary models of human development have expanded to address a wider set of issues underlying personal change. Discusses the social cognitive model of self-regulatory development. Emphasizes the crucial development of self-regulatory competence: the point at which the processes of development become fully and reciprocally interactive…

Piaget's theory is identified as a branch of structuralism concerned with the concept of truth, in distinction from French structuralism, which is focused on meaning. The two branches are compared and contrasted, and relations between logic and language are explored. Similarities and differences in the theories of Piaget, Levi-Strauss, and Chomsky…

Argues that developmental psychology can profit by incorporating ideas from recent philosophies of knowledge. Delineates three "families" of philosophies of knowledge: the contemporary German critical-theoretical thinking of Holzkamp and Habermas; postmodern French thought; and North American multiple-voices approaches that emphasize the…

Notes alternative visions of the relationship between developmental psychology and three theoretical approaches described by Teo. Highlights four such visions: positivism or exclusivism, which rejects alternate viewpoints; inclusivism, which assimilates elements of alternate viewpoints; detachment or relativism, which sees different viewpoints as…

Comments on Moshman's discussion, in this issue, of reasoning as self-constrained thinking, arguing that differences in type of reasoning constraint probably reflect different knowledge bases but do not necessarily imply different processes. The fact that different tasks require different kinds of knowledge does not mean that different processes…

Reviews Karmiloff-Smith's "Beyond Modularity," suggesting that her work highlights phenomena that seem counter intuitive when regarded from current developmental frameworks, and advocates that understanding them requires more complex perspectives than can be supported by either extreme nativist or domain-general models of cognitive…

Because developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura are far more complex than much of the empirical work based on them, researchers have concentrated on relatively narrow aspects of each man's ideas, in the process magnifying the differences between them. Nevertheless, basic differences do exist in each theorist's conceptualization of…

Agrees with proposition of Tudge and Winterhoff in the previous article that the differences between the developmental theories of Vygotsky, Piaget, and Bandura have been exaggerated over the last 30 years. Perceived differences that distinguished these theories in the early 1960s have diminished dramatically, due in part to the later work of the…

Historically, cognitive-developmental and behavior-analytic approaches to the study of human behavior change and development have been presented as incompatible alternative theoretical and methodological perspectives. This presumed incompatibility has been understood as arising from divergent sets of metatheoretical assumptions that take the form…

Proposes a theory of reasoning and outlines four general types of reasoning (case-based, law-based, coherence-based, and dialectical) based on the constraints the reasoning seeks to honor. The development of reasoning is presented as a continuing construction and reconstruction of self-constraints and justifications for those constraints,…

Reviews Jessor, Colby, and Shweder's "Ethnography and Human Development: Context and Meaning in Social Inquiry." Maintains that the book invites reflection on the appropriate epistemology of contemporary social sciences, and significantly advances the integration of ethnography and developmental psychology research. Argues that concerns…

Reports a two-year longitudinal study of 55 adolescents and young adults who were divided into three groups and given Reflective Judgment Interviews and the Concept Mastery Test to investigate sequentiality of reflective judgment stages. Results indicate support for seven hypothesized shifts in epistemic assumptions over time.(Author/RH)

Delineates the continuing controversy between development and learning, and notes the evidence accumulating for some type of continuum in the processes. Introduces 10 research papers on reconceptualizing the intersection of the two processes and states the arguments for debate and presentation. (ET)

There are several legitimate ways of conceptualizing and studying wisdom. One is largely informed by Western philosophy and treats wisdom as an analytic theory of expert knowledge, judgment, and advice about difficult and uncertain matters of life. Another is more consistent with Asian philosophical nonsecularized traditions and treats wisdom as…

Discusses two related problems generated by Piaget's psychology of decentered knowing. Subjectivity, consciousness, and self-consciousness are ruled out; the dynamic transformation of society through history is reduced to triviality. (Author/DB)