Arguably, the key task of developmental scientists is to describe and explain developmental change. Changes may occur within an individual across the life span, and there may be between-person differences in such intraindividual change. The description and explanation of intraindividual change involves the concepts of developmental continuity and discontinuity, whereas the description and explanation of interindividual differences in intraindividual change involves the concepts of stability and instability.
关于连续性和不连续性,对发展的描述或解释可能涉及定量或定性变化。描述性地,定量变化涉及在存在多少(或数量)的差异。例如,在青春期,由于有青春期生长突变,因此在诸如高度和体重之类的区域发生了定量变化,并且这些变化通常是由于生长刺激激素的生产产生的定量增加而解释的。
反过来,描述性的定性变化涉及存在哪种现象的存在差异。The emergence in adolescence of a drive state never before present in life—that is, a reproductively mature sexual drive—and the emergence in adolescence of new and abstract thought capabilities not present in younger people—that is, in Jean Piaget’s terms, formal operations—are instances of changes interpreted as arising from qualitative alterations in the person. It is believed that the person is not just “more of the same”; rather, the person is seen as having a new quality or characteristic.
Explanations of development also can vary in regard to whether one accounts for change by positing quantitative changes (e.g., increases in the amounts of growth hormone present in the bloodstream) or by positing a new reason for behaviors (e.g., an infant’s interactions in his or her social world are predicated on the need to establish a sense of basic trust in the world, whereas an adolescent’s social interactions involve the need to establish a sense of identity, or a self-definition). In other words, it is possible to offer an explanatory discontinuous interpretation of development involving either quantitative or qualitative change.
例如,当据说特定类型的解释性不连续的定性变化涉及发展时,通常会提出关键时期假设,就像埃里克·埃里克森(Erik Erikson)的工作一样。关键是,基于遵守特定的发展理论(例如,在吉尔伯特·戈特利布(Gilbert Gottlieb)的奖学金中所谓的,一种预定的表观遗传或自然的奖学金),定性变化被认为是个体发育的特征,并且是因为是因为需要对变革的不连续解释。
Thus, virtually any statement about the character of intraindividual development involves, explicitly or implicitly, taking a position in regard to three dimensions of change: (1) descriptive continuity-discontinuity, (2) explanatory continuity-discontinuity, and (3) the quantitative versus the qualitative character of one’s descriptions and explanations—that is, the quantitative-qualitative dimension pertains to both description and explanation. In essence, then, one may have descriptive quantitative discontinuity coupled with explanatory qualitative continuity, or descriptive qualitative continuity coupled with explanatory quantitative discontinuity, and so forth.
例如,随着时间的流逝,个性的特征(例如,气质的组成部分,例如情绪)可能保持相同的描述性。它可以在两个不同的时间点上表示或同构表示(例如,积极的情绪可以由每单位时间时间的面部表情百分比表示,这些表达式被评分为微笑的表明)。因此,这种情况可能是描述性,定性连续性的一个实例。但是,更多的定性不变现象可能在时间2中存在(例如,每单位时间可能会有更多的笑容),因此描述性的定量不连续性可能与描述性定性连续性相结合。
Moreover, both descriptive quantitative discontinuity and descriptive qualitative continuity may be explained by the same ideas, such as by continuous explanatory principles. For example, smiling may be assumed to be released across life by biogenetically based physiological mechanisms. Alternatively, descriptive continuity or descriptive discontinuity may be explained by different ideas, such as by discontinuous explanatory principles. For instance, smiling may be assumed to be biogenetically released in early infancy and mediated by cognitively and socially textured processes across subsequent developmental periods. Indeed, if different explanations are, in fact, invoked, they may involve statements that constitute either quantitatively or qualitatively altered processes.
In short, the particular couplings that one posits as involved in human life will depend on the substantive domain of development one is studying (e.g., intelligence, motivation, personality, or peer group relations) and, as we shall see, primarily on one’s theory of development. That is, any particular description or explanation of intraindividual change is the result of a particular theoretical view of development. This implies that commitment to a theory that focuses only on certain variables or processes will restrict one’s view of the variety of changes that may characterize development. Indeed, theory, not data, is the major lens through which one “observes” continuity or discontinuity in development.
亨氏沃纳的贡献
海因兹·沃纳(Heinz Werner)认为,人类发展主义者之间存在着相当大的混乱,因为连续性案例问题,这种混乱的症结不足是对变化的两个不同方面(即定量和定性)缺乏了解。他认为,在对描述性和解释性连续性遗传的讨论中,必须始终考虑这两个方面。但是,沃纳(Werner)解释了变化的定性定量维度的上级概念重要性。
量变
关于发展的定量方面,我们注意到,关于存在多少事物的发展特征存在变化。定量变化是发展变量或过程的数量,频率,幅度或幅度的改变。例如,想象一下一个人的体重在8至13年中的每一个中都得到了衡量。当他在8、9、10、11和12中测量时,他重125磅;但是当他在13时测量时,他的体重150磅。因此,在12岁和13岁时的测量时间之间存在数量的变化。
Alternatively, the child’s change in weight could have been gradual. By gaining 5 pounds per year, the child gradually goes from 125 to 150 pounds between his 8th and 13th years. With gradual quantitative changes, the rate of change stays the same—is continuous— from one measurement time to the next. This is quantitative continuity.
Thus, quantitative change may be abrupt. There are no intermediate steps by which the person’s weight gradually moved from one level (amount) to the next. In measuring this change, there is a gap between one point in the measurement curve and another; that is, a curve representing the different measurements is not smooth but has an abrupt change in its direction. There is a “gappiness” in the curve—a lack of an intermediate stage between the earlier and later levels of a variable. The occurrence of an abrupt change is quantitative discontinuity.
Qualitative Change
The second aspect of change that Werner specifies is the qualitative one. Here we are primarily concerned not with how much of something exists but with what exists—what kind or type of thing exists. Thus, we are concerned with whether or not a new quality has come to characterize an organism, whether something new has emerged in development. When we are considering qualitative change we are dealing with epigenesis, or emergence.
In distinguishing between quantitative and qualitative aspects of change, Werner highlights a core conception of the organismic position. Some of the types of changes that comprise development are emergent changes. These are changes in what exists rather than in how much of something exists. Something new comes about in development, and because it is new— because it is qualitatively different from what went before—it cannot be reduced to what went before. Hence, if at time 1 we can be represented by 10 oranges and at time 2 we can be represented by a motorcycle, we cannot reduce our time 2 motorcycle status to our time 1 orange status.
举一个例子,在青春期之前,一个人可能被描述为(部分)由多个驱动器组成,例如,饥饿驱动,口渴,避免疼痛的动力,也许是好奇心的驱动器。然而,随着青春期的出现,新的驱动器出现(或者至少以成熟的形式出现) - 性欲。随着这种出现,青少年开始产生新的感觉,新思想,甚至是新的行为,根据安娜·弗洛伊德(Anna Freud)的说法,这可能被解释为这一新驱动力的结果。这种新驱动器的出现是定性不连续性的一个实例。例如,性欲不能减少到饥饿和口渴。
因此,定性的变化本质上是不连续的。定性的,紧急的表观遗传变化始终是不连续性的一个例子。此外,不仅出现了不可约束的变化,而且是一种以粘度感为特征的变化。如上所述,当早期发展和更晚的发展水平之间缺乏中间水平时,就会发生发育性。应该很明显的是,粘度也必须是紧急变化的一部分。时间1时存在的中间步骤与时间2出现的新质量之间存在中间步骤,这表明可以通过参考中间步骤来降低时间2的新质量。由于我们刚刚看到,出现的变化是根据其前所未有的发展性不可约性来定义的,因此很明显,Gappense也必须是任何出现的特征。
结论
需要出现和粘度的特征来描述发展中不连续的变化;另一方面,单独的气味(突然)的特征似乎足以表征定量不连续的变化。因此,引用Heinz Werner的话:
似乎在定性变化方面的不连续性可以通过两个特征来定义:“出现”,即后期阶段到更早的阶段的不可约性;和“熟悉度”,即早期和后期形式之间缺乏中间阶段。另一方面,定量不连续似乎是第二个特征足以定义的。
。。。为了促进区分和减轻混乱,我建议将“突然性”代替定量不连续性,仅保留“不连续性”一词,仅用于变化的定性方面。(第133页)
What Werner has provided us with, then, is a clarification of the concepts involved in appropriately considering the continuity-discontinuity issue. He has given us the conceptual means with which to discriminate between quantitative continuity-discontinuity and qualitative continuity-discontinuity in developmental change.
参考:
- Erikson,H。(1959)。身份和生命周期。心理Issues, 1, 18–164.
- Gottlieb,G。(1997)。综合自然核:本能行为的产前根源。Mahwah, NJ:
- Lerner,R。M.(2002)。人类发展的概念和理论(3rd ). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
- Piaget,J。(1972)。从青春期到成年的智力发展。人类发展,15, 1–12.
- Werner,(1957年)。从比较和有机体的角度来看的发展概念。在D. B. Harris(编辑)中,The concept of development(pp. 125–148). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.