It is common to encourage people to envision life as a process of fulfilling their potential. But what exactly does this mean? Traditionally, this question has been addressed by way of 'complementarity'; dividing the human into biological and cultural components. Fulfilment is placed on the side of the cultural; an acquisition of encoded secondary…

Historically, the potential of a person has been perceived as fixed and primarily inherited, thus, different from achievement. Current thinking broadens our view of human potential, not as a fixed capacity, but as malleable and incremental, depending on multiple factors, exogenous as well as endogenous, facilitative or inhibitive. This conception…

Socialization is the process of learning to be a human being that is born with the potential to be human. In this process, the person learns the basic values and norms of the society in which he lives, as well as the skills necessary to sustain his life. This learning takes place through parents, siblings, relatives, neighbors, peers, teachers,…

The author, a psychology instructor at an American university, describes the internationalization of his course in Human Growth and Development. The author argues that human development cannot be easily summarized by nature (i.e., biological and evolutionary predisposition) or nurture (i.e., learning through environment and experience).…

When truly spectacular events occur in the performing arts or in team sports, when the sets of artists or athletes respectively creating these events are discussed, a common phrase used in America to explain the "good fortune" that was involved in such unique occurrences is that "the stars aligned." In this commentary on:…

Background: The development of Bronfenbrenner's bio-social-ecological systems model of human development parallels advances made to the theory of resilience that progressively moved from a more individual (micro) focus on traits to a multisystemic understanding of person-environment reciprocal processes. Methods: This review uses…

Research on the development of reading skills through the primary school years has pointed to the importance of individual differences in initial ability as well as the growth of those skills. Additionally, it has been theorized that reading skills develop incrementally. The present study examined the genetic and environmental influences on 2…

Gifted education is leading an interdisciplinary paradigm shift moving education out of its historic role of entrenching systemic inequities. It is a crucible for pioneering investigations of optimal human development and provides a vehicle for increasing social equity. We review changing conceptions of intelligence, motivation and creativity, and…

The various ways "nature" and "nurture" interact to shape school pupils' lives are examined from the perspective of recent biologically informed studies. The idea of a highly predictive, genetically based inheritance is strikingly upheld by research in infancy and early childhood. Research evidence also shows how pupil…

Gilbert Gottlieb's theory of probabilistic epigenesis is a fertile ground for further theoretical construction in developmental science. It fills the gap in the domineering empiricism and honoring of inductive generalization that dominates psychology in the beginning of the 21st century, by offering a basic deductive framework for guiding the…

Some arguments are presented why Developmental Science should be seen as integrative part of a general anthropology. This is the reason that developmental science is a boundary opening framework for anthropology, history, cultural sciences and philosophy. The relation between a more culturalistic and naturalistic orientation of developmental…

Physical environments are a major contributor to human health, cognitive development, and social wellbeing but, until recently, these roles have largely been ignored. Historically the nature-nurture dichotomy divided understandings of human growth, learning and behaviour but the recent epigenetic research and the emergence of gene-environment…

In the wake of his death, it is a fair tribute to Gilbert Gottlieb to recognize him as a central figure in the creation of conditions that permitted the introduction of developmental thinking in developmental psychology. These included exposing the sterility of the nature-nurture debate and the adoption of a biological framework that conceives of…

Recounts the career of William L. Stern. Stern developed a personalistic psychology emphasizing the individual's role and the importance of context in development. Stern's contributions to developmental psychology concerned: (1) the tension between activity and reactivity in the developing individual; (2) the exchange between a person and the…

In an attempt to accommodate each of two perspectives (nature versus nurture) in the formulation of a developmental framework, two complementary approaches to developmental theory are presented. First, consideration is given to what is now known about the developmental process in general (thought out in terms of the question "Where is the…