This is the most comprehensive and in-depth overview of the foundational theoretical contributions to understanding human development and the influence of these contributions for contemporary research and application in developmental science. It is an essential resource for graduate students and professionals.

Richard M. Lerner is the Bergstrom Chair in Applied Developmental Science and the Director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development, in the Eliot Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development, at Tufts University.

Foreword. Preface. 1. On the Primacy of Concepts and Theories 2. Concepts and Theories within Contemporary Developmental Science: An Overview 3. Philosophical and Scientific Roots of Contemporary Developmental Science 4. Metatheoretical Models of Development 5. Theoretical Roots of Contemporary Developmental Science: Nomothetic (Stage), Differential, and Idiographic (Ipsative) Approaches 6. Toward Resolving the Nature-Nurture Controversy: Contributions and Implications of the Scholarship of Anne Anastasi 7. Toward Resolving the Nature-Nurture Controversy: Contributions and Implications of the Scholarship of T. C. Schneirla 8. Contributions and Implications of the Scholarship of Heinz Werner: The Orthogenetic Principle and the Resolution of the Continuity-Discontinuity Issue 9. Relational Developmental Systems-Based Theories: Comparative, Evolutionary, and Ontogenetic Conceptions 10. Relational Developmental Systems-Based Theories: Sample Cases 11. Genetic Reductionism in Developmental Science: Sample Cases from the 20th Century 12. Genetic Reductionism in Developmental Science: Sample Cases from the 20th and 21st Centuries 13. Some Implications of Relational Developmental Systems-Based Theories for Research Methods and for the Application of Developmental Science