Baltes 1980

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Ann. Rev. Psychol 1980. 31;65-110 ,

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LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL +321
PSYCHOLOGYl
Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1980.31:65-110. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
Paul B. Baltes2
by Fordham University on 04/10/13. For personal use only.
Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences,

Stanford, California 94305
Hayne W. Reese
Department of Psychology, West Virginia University,

Morgantown, West Virginia 26506
Lewis P. Lipsitt
Department of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION ...................................................................... 66

HISTORICAL OVERVIEW .......................................................................................... 67
MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS AND PROPOSITIONS OF LIFE-SPAN
DEVELOPMENTAL PSyCHOLOGy........................................................ 69
(This is the first chapter in the Annual Review 0/Psychology on this subject. Therefore, the
primary focus is on identifying the conceptual orientation of life-span developmental psy
chology, with selective illustrations in a small number of substantive areas, and on providing
for entry into the literature via review articles whenever possible.
IThis chaper was written while the first author, whose permanent affiliation is with the
College of Human Development, Pennsylvania State University, was a Fellow at the Center.
This fellowship was supported in part by grants from the National Science Foundation (BNS
76-22943 A02) and from the National Institute on Aging to the Social Science Research
Council. Many helpful suggestions and comments from CASBS fellows (particularly James E.
B irren, Margaret Clark, David L. Featherman, Nannerl O. Keohane, Matilda W. Riley) and
from Margret M. Baltes, Steven W. Cornelius, Glen H. Elder, Jr., Richard M. Lerner, and
Carol A. Ryff are gratefully acknowledged.
6S
0066-4308/80/0201-0065$01.00
66 BALTES, REESE & LIPSITT
Development as Lifelong Process............................................................................... . 69

Development as Expression of Ontogenetic and Evolutionary Principles ................. . 70
Pluralistic Conceptions of Development ................................................................... . 72
Life-Span Developmental Psychology as Integrative Framework .............................. 79
ILLUSTRATIVE RESEARCH TOPICS ..................................................................... . 82
Memory ...................................................................................................................... 82
Psychometric Intelligence ........................................................................................ .. 86
·
IMPLICATIONS AND INTERSECTS ........................................................................ 93
Infant, Child, and Adolescent Development ............................................................ .. 93
Adult Development and Aging .................................................................................. 97
Other Psychological Specialties .................................................................................. 98
Life-Span Research in Neighboring Disciplines ...................................................... . . 99
CONCLUDING COMMENTARY ............................................................................. . 101
INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION

It was a happy circumstance that the decision to invite the first review
chapter on life-span developmental psychology coincided very closely with
the bicentennial anniversary of this field. It was in 1777 when J. N. Tetens,
a German philosopher-psychologist, published the first major work on
human development from a life-span developmental perspective (Groff
mann 1970, Reinert 1979). Although Tetens referred to no empirical re
search in the strict sense, he stated with fair precision many of the basic
propositions of a life-span approach to the study of behavior. Moreover, his
work and that of Carus (1808) present a lucid introspection and common
sense-based account of many behavioral changes associated with individual
ontogeny from birth to death. Another important publication, marking the
birth of an empirically founded account of life-span human development,
is Quetelet's book, A Treatise on Man and the Development ofhis Faculties,
published in 1835 in French and 1842 in English. Quetelet's book is a
remarkable accomplishment deserving much attention because of its sub
stantive comprehensiveness and methodological quality (Baltes 1979, Hof
statter 1938).
Life-span developmental psychology is concerned with the description,
explanation, and modification (optimization) of developmental processes in
the human life course from conception to death. Like other developmental
specialties such as child development or gerontology, life-span developmen
tal psychology is not a theory but an orientation. It implies a certain
conceptual and methodological framework for the study of behavioral de
velopment (Baltes, Reese & Nesselroade 1977, Lern�r 1976, Runyan 1978,
WohlwillI973). Whether the study of behavior necessitates a short-span or
life-span developmental orientation-or indeed any kind of developmental
orientation-is largely a function of the questions asked. In our view, a
developmental orientation is needed whenever the behavior identified in
volves a change process and is better understood if placed in the context of
chains and patterns of antecedent and subsequent events.
LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 67
Note also that the term life-span is not intended to imply that chronologi
cal age is the only organizing variable for life-span developmental work. As
in other developmental specialties such as child development and geron
tology (Baer 1970, Birren 1959), it is important not to commit the fallacy
of equating life-span developmental work with age-developmental work,
because the result would be an extremely limited model of life-span develop- .
ment (Baltes 1979).
HISTORICAL OVERVIEW
The last decade has seen a massive increase in research and theory related
to life-span developmental psychology, particularly in the United States and
German-speaking countries. This trend suggests a kind of paradigm shift
in the way developmental psychology is conceptualized ( Rauh 1978). The

explosion oflife-span developmental work is evident across a wide spectrum
of publications from textbooks and readers (Baltes et al 1977, Charles &
Looft 1973, Craig 1976, Goldberg & Deutsch 1977, Kaluger & Kaluger
1974, Lugo & Hershey 1974, Mussen et al 1979, Newman & Newman 1975,
Oerter 1978, Rebelsky 1975, Trautner 1978), to conference proceedings
such as those from West Virginia University and Pennsylvania State Uni
versity (Baltes & Schaie 1973, Datan & Ginsberg 1975, Datan & Reese
1977, Goulet & Baltes 1970, Lerner & Spanier 1978, Nesselroade & Reese
1973), to the recent establishment of an annual Advances series entitled
Life-Span Development and Behavior (Baltes 1978), to coverage in various
handbooks particularly in gerontology (e.g. Binstock & Shanas 1976, Birren
& Schaie 1977), and to the increasing vitality of researchjournals, such as
Human Development and the International Journal/or Behavioral Develop
ment, which are explicitly intended to treat behavioral development in a
life-span framework. Life-span developmental psychology is beginning to be
covered even in introductory psychology textbooks (Zimbardo 1979). Thus,
in terms of quantitative indicators, a life-span approach to the psychological
study of human development has "arrived."
The historically minded observer does not see this recent attention to a
life-span view as a new event. As alluded to earlier, a life-span approach has
a tradition spanning at least 200 years (Baltes 1979, Charles 1970, Groff
mann 1970, Havighurst 1973, Hofstiitter 1938, Reinert 1979)., What is
perhaps surprising is that this tradition did not result in an identifiable field
until recently. Aside from isolated contributions, such as an essay on life
span mental development by Sanford in 1902, it was not until the 1920s and
1930s that the life span reemerged as a framework for the study of human
development.
Because of his stature as a developmental psychologist, G. Stanley Hall's
( 1922) book on senescence was an important precursor for the growing
68 BALTES, REESE & LIPS ITT
attention devoted to the second part of the life cycle during the midcentury
decades, as was perhaps Jung's (1933) stimulating essay on the stages of life.
However, in our view, the three major works setting the stage for possible
subsequent attention in developmental psychology were Hollingworth's
(1927) Mental Growth and Decline: A Survey ofDevelopmental Psychology,
Charlotte Biihler's (1933) Der menschliche Lebenslauf als psychologisches
Problem, and perhaps most importantly Pressey, Janney & Kuhlen's (1939)
Life: A Psychological Survey.
Yet it is our impression that even these publications did not generate
much immediate interest. For example, the excellent book by Hollingworth

was the first major life-span work, but was not cited by his successors
(Biihler, Pressey et al) or by more recent historians. We await a careful
historical analysis to understand why the life-span movement of the 1920s

and 1930s did not catch fire. Possible reasons lie in the strong interest in
childhood during the middle decades of the twentieth century, and perhaps
in the predominant focus in psychology on behavioristic-experimental re
search paradigms during this period. These paradigms were not among the
primary vehicles used by early leaders of the life-span movement (e.g.
Biihler, Erikson, Havighurst, Neugarten, Thomae), who judged internal
personological processes as most salient for adult development and aging.
Such research questions and associated subjective-phenomenological me
thodologies were not in the zeitgeist of the epoch in psychology.
Three trends seem to underlie the more widespread articulation and
acceptance, in the 19608 and 19708, of a life-span developmental approach.
The first trend began with the historically earlier commitment to the ap
proach in at least one major university each in the United States (University
of Chicago: Havighurst, Neugarten) and Europe (University of Bonn:
Thomae). At other universities, such as West Virginia University, Syracuse
University, Pennsylvania State University, Wayne State University, and the
University of Southern California. a similar posture was adopted. Second,
several longitudinal studies on child development were begun before World
War II (Charles 1970, Kagan 1964), and the children who served as subjects
reached adulthood in the 19608 and 1970s, thereby stimulating thinking
about later periods of the life course. This influence is evident in the work
of such scholars as Bayley, the Blocks, Eichorn, Elder, Haan, Honzik,
Kagan, McCall. Moss. Terman, and the Sears. who have reported on re
search dealing with life-span trajectories based on childhood-originated
longitudinal data. Indeed, Bayley (1963) published an important article on
the use of the life span as a framework for the study of human development,
and several others involved in childhood-based longitudinal research con
tributed to a symposium volume on Relations of Development and Aging
edited by Birren (1964a).
The third line of inBuence, and perhaps the strongest, is associated with
the emergence of the field of gerontology (Birren 1959, Birren & Schaie
1977). As documented by Riegel (1977) and Looft (1972), for example, the
1950s to 1970s was a period of rapid development of a psychology of aging.
The study of aging is easily placed in the context of life-long processes
because aging is in part the result of what has happened in earlier segments
of the life course. It is not surprising, therefore, that at one point or another
most eminent gerontologists have argued for and contributed to the ad
vancement of life-span developmental psychology, including Birren, Ha
vighurst, Kuhlen, Neugarten, Pressey, Riegel, Thomae, Schaie, and others.
Furthermore, "life-span" gerontologists (Baltes et al 1977, Nesselroade &

Reese 1973, Schaie 1973) have participated in general methodological dis
cussions of developmental design issues (e.g. measurement equivalence,
age-cohort confounds) and have proposed innovative solutions (e.g. study

ing changes in factor structure, use of cohort-sequential designs) which have
led many childhood investigators to become interested in life-span work.
The convergence of these and other trends makes the current scene
friendly to a life-span developmental approach. In addition, a larger sup
portive context is provided by parallel developments in other disciplines,
particularly sociology (Brim & Wheeler 1966, Cain 1964, Clausen, 1972,
Elder 1975, Riley 1979, Riley et al 1972). Moreover, largely because of
demographic and other changes, the design and delivery of health and
economic services are based increasingly on life-span conceptions. There
fore, understanding the foundations of behavioral development from con
ception to death and its role in the Bow of biocultural change is an important
cornerstone not only for psychology but also for many issues facing society.
MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS AND PROPOSITIONS

OF LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Because life-span developmental psychology is not a particular theory but

an orientation to the study of behavioral development, the number of as
sumptions and propositions is not fixed. However, the following asumptions
and propositions about the nature of life-span development have received
some primacy (e.g. Baltes 1973, 1979; Baltes & Goulet 1970, BUhler &
Massarik 1968; Clausen 1972; Lerner & Ryff 1978; Neugarten & Datan
1973; Riegel 1976b, Thomae 1979).
Development as Lifelong Process

The first assumption is that behavior-change processes that fall under the
rubric of development can occur at any point in the life course from concep-
tion to death. Often this proposition is contrasted with the traditional

biological growth orientation.
The orientation in terms of growth and maturation is to assume a certain
state of maturity (usually attained in early adulthood) as the endstate of a
developmental change process (Harris 1957). Subsequent change, as a cor
ollary, is often seen as decline or aging rather than development (Birren
1 964b, Strehler 1 977). In such an approach, development and aging would
represent processes of behavior change which are conceptually distinct
though temporally related and interactive. While a life-span orientation to
the study of behavioral development does not deny the important role of
biological factors as explanatory determinants, it does not take the descrip
tive conception of biological growth and aging as the primary guiding
framework. In the life-span orientation, no special state of maturity is

assumed as a general principle, and therefore development is seen as a
life-long process. The task is to identify the form and course of these
behavioral changes as they occur at varying points in the life course, and
to establish the pattern of their temporal order and interrelationships.
Let us use death as an extreme illustration for salient developmental
change in the later part of life. When death is "natural" rather than acciden
tal, it is associated with a number of developmental objectives and processes
(Kastenbaum & Aisenberg 1972, Lieberman & Coplan 1969, Riegel &
Riegel 1972, Schulz 1978). They include adaptation to finitude (Marshall
1975, Munnichs 1966), adaptation to a process of physical debilitation, the
continual restructuring of social environments because of the loss of signifi
cant others, the task of life review (Butler 1 963), and the phenomenon
labeled predeath terminal drop (Riegel & Riegel 1 972). The propositions of
a life-span developmental psychology are that (a) these themes of the dying
process are properly identified and investigated as developmental phenom
ena; (b) the processes involved exhibit some regularity; (c) these death
associated behavior-change processes are not necessarily decline or "aging";
(d) the course of predeath changes is at least in part regulated by antecedent
life history. In short, the general proposition illustrated by the example of
predeath change is that no particular period of the life span (such as
infancy) possesses primacy for the origin or location of important develop
mental processes.
Development as Expression of Ontogenetic

and Evolutionary Principles
Because life-span development extends over substantial periods of time, it
is necessary to view it in the framework not only of ontogeny but also of
biocultural (historical) change. The ontogenetic posture implies that factors
associated with age-related biological and socialization processes account
for regularities and differences in human development. This general onto

genetic orientation, though variable in implementation, is self-evident for
developmentalists, and no further discussion of that assumption is neces
sary. However, as will be discussed later, one must recognize that the
general impact of ontogenetic principles might vary for different aspects of
behavioral development and for different periods of the life span.
The 1970s have witnessed a revival of evolutionary or biocultural change
perspectives (Alexander 1974, Barash 1977, Campbell 1975, Quadagno
1979, Wilson 1978). Life-span developmental psychologists have offered
similar suggestions (e.g. Bengtson & Black 1973, Brent 1978, Gergen 1977,
Riegel 1976b), although for different empirical reasons and not necessarily
related to the type of evolutionary perspectives expressed in sociobiology.
Two lines of research are particularly relevant in this context.
A first line of research deals with the existence of strong cohort (genera
tional) differences in the nature of life-span development, as demonstrated,
for example, by Schaie and his colleagues in the area of intelligence and by
other researchers in such fields as personality and socialization (for reviews
see Baltes, Cornelius & Nesselroade 1978, Bell & Hertz 1976, Elder 1979,
Weisz 1978). These findings on cohort effects indicate that ontogeny does
not always proceed in a stable biosocial context, that the life course of
cohorts differs markedly from epoch to epoch, and that life-long develop
ment occurs in and interacts with a changing macro-ecology (Baltes et al
1978, Neugarten & Hagestad, 1976, Riegel & Meacham 1976, Riley 1976,
1979).
The second line of research suggesting a need for evolutionary perspec
tives in life-span developmental psychology is related to the theme of inter
generational constancy and change (Bengtson & Black 1973, Bengtson &
Cutler 1976, Clausen 1972, Eisenstadt 1956, Featherman 1980, Featherman
& Hauser 1978, Mannheim 1952, Riley 1979), and the role of ontogeny in
a given cohort for generational transmission or for the subsequent "fate"
of society (Brent 1978, Campbell 1975, Wilson 1978). Considerations of the
life-course (ontogenetic) goals of human development lead easily to the
acknowledgement of behaviors involved in the processes associated with
cultural and genetic transmission. Illustrative behavior systems involve
fertility, parenting, and grandparenting, but also intergenerational (and
interage) dynamics associated with the transmission of socialization (cul
tural) objectives and the distribution of societal resources. Indeed, as early
as 1933, C. G. Jung (1933, 1960) emphasized the unique role that the elderly
might play in the development and transmission of human culture (see also
Erikson 1959, 1963). Thus, life-span researchers have joined forces with
researchers from other disciplines (such as biology and sociology) in ar
ticulating goals of individual life-span development which are important not
72 BALTES, REESE & LlPSITT
only for the life course of particular individuals alone, but also as anteced
ents for the life course and adaptation of subsequent cohorts. Such an
approach is, of course, a variation on the Darwinian theme of species
survival (Brent 1978, LeVine 1969, Strehler 1977).
The form of life-span development in behavior, then, attains its structure
from the processes both of ontogeny and biocultural (evolutionary) change.
This recognition has important theoretical and methodological perspec
tives, and also makes it apparent that the field of developmental psychology
can be seen as part of a larger conceptual orientation associated with
comparative and historical sciences (Baltes & Goulet 1970, Tobach &
Schneirla 1968, Werner 1948).
Pluralistic Conceptions of Development

A third set of propositions associated with the emerging orientation of a

life-span developmental psychology involves a particular view of what con
stitutes development and what its determinants are.
DESCRIPTION OF DEVELOPMENT Particularly in the United States,

much of what childhood-oriented developmental psychologists have identi
fied in the past as development is similar to the biological concepts of
growth or maturation. In a strict sense (Harris 1957), this growth version
of development implies a number of defining features for classifying behav
ioral change as development. For example, a change is classified as develop
mental if it is qualitative, sequential, irreversible, endstate-oriented, and
universal (Kohlberg & Kramer 1969, McCall 1977, Wohlwil1 1973). This
conception of development has been called a "strong" or biological growth
model of development (Baltes & Willis 1977, 1979a; Reese & Overton
1970). A "weak" model of development would involve fewer defining prop
erties. Note, however, that a "weak" descriptive model of development does
not imply a parallel "weak" position regarding explanation of development.
In fact, as Lerner (1978) has argued, a "strong" explanatory model involv
ing dynamic interactions can suggest "weak" developmental change as
outcome.
Life-span research on human development contributes to the conclusion
that a restricted and perhaps monolithic definition of the nature of develop
ment (as evidenced in a strong model) is inappropriate. In a number of
research areas, life-span changes have been found to take many forms in
terms of time extension, directionality, degree of interindividual variability,
and plasticity (Baltes & Willis 1979a, Brim & Kagan 1980, Labouvie-Vief
& Chandler 1978, Lerner & Ryff 1978, Neugarten 1969, Siegler 1979,
Thomae 1976). For example, life-span development does not necessarily
consist of a unidirectional and cumulative change function extending from
birth to death, such as the unfolding of Piagetian states of cognitive func-
tioning. This is one important class of developmental change, but it is not

the only one. Researchers interested in life-span changes conceptualize
developmental processes as not only linear but also multilinear and discon
tinuous.
Perhaps the most general example of multilinear process is the central
theme of acquisition of cognitive and social behaviors in childhood develop
ment, and maintenance, transformation, and extinction of many child
hood-originated behaviors in later life, combined with the acquisition of
new behaviors salient for aging. For attachment behavior, Lerner & Ryff
(1978) have discussed such a life-span trajectory in more detail. Similarly,
Brim (1976) and Kohli (1978) have speculated about discontinuous life
span trajectories involving the acquisition, maintenance, transformation,
and extinction of achievement behavior, and Schaie (1977-1978) has con
ceptualized five stages of cognitive behavior, only the first two of which
resemble the traditional Piagetian model of acquisitions in childhood
adolescence.
On a descriptive level, Figure 1 illustrates such a pluralistic conception
of development. Without any claim for comprehensiveness and with the
added recognition that not all developmental change is age-related (Baer
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LIFE SPAN OR DEVE,LOPMENTAL TIME
Figure 1 Hypothetical examples of life-span developmental processes. Developmental func

tions (behavior,change processes) differ in terms of onset, duration, termination, and direction
ality when charted in the framework of the life course. Moreover, developmental change is
both quantitative and qualitative, not all developmental change is related to chronological age,
and the initial direction is not always incremental (see also Baltes, Cornelius & Nesselroade
1980).
1970, Baltes 1979) or of the quantitative "more or less" kind, Figure 1

suggests that developmental change can take many forms: in terms of onset,
duration, termination, and directionality. Behavior-change processes asso
ciated with life-span development do not always extend across the entire life
span; novel behavior-change processes can emerge at many points in the life
course including old age. One way to give substance to the life-span trajecto
ries presented in Figure I is to link them to the work of Havighurst (1948,
1972), Neugarten (1969), and Clausen (1972). All have emphasized the role
of developmental tasks associated with developmental progression from
birth to death. Some of these tasks are age-graded and continue throughout
life. Others are unique to restricted age segments or developmental settings,

and still others emerge as salient tasks at later points in life with little
reference to earlier events, etc.
Figure 1 also needs to be seen in the context of the notion that individuals
exhibit much heterogeneity or interindividual variability in life-span devel
opment. In fact, interindividual variability apparently increases with in
creasing age, particularly in adulthood and aging. Consequently, the
organizational power of chronological age per se decreases as life-span
development unfolds. Moreover, many important behavior-change pro
cesses are not easily studied or conceptualized if they are seen primarily in
relationship to the temporal order provided by chronological age. This
age-irrelevant view of development has also been promoted for certain
dimensions of child psychology (Baer 1970), but in life-span research the
need to consider age-alternative temporal orders and dimensions becomes
paramount. "
EXPLANATION OF-DEVELOPMENT A pluralistic posture is also taken

in causal, explanatory analyses of life-span developmental change. This
posture is evident in a number of propositions. One is related to the fact that
much life-span research is intrinsically tied to interactive, contextual princi
ples of behavioral development (Datan & Reese 1977; Elder 1975; Gergen
1977; Labouvie-Vief & Chandler 1978; Riegel 1976a,b, 1977; Runyan
1978). For instance, because of the apparent dynamic relationship between
a developing individual and a changing society, it has become a widespread
belief that intraorganismic, personological explanations of life-span devel
opment are insufficient-a belief also espoused in shorter-span developmen
tal psychologies (Bronfenbrenner 1977, Hartup &, Lempers 1973, Lerner
1976).
The expanded (pluralistic) approach to the causes of development is also
evident in efforts by life-span researchers to define a taxonomic multicausal
set of influences. For this purpose, Baltes and his colleagues (Baltes, Cor
nelius & Nesselroade 1980; Baltes & Willis 1979b) have formulated the
multicausal and interactive model shown in Figure 2. This model is not a

theory, but a methodological paradigm potentially useful in the search for
causal relationships and determinants that yield the complexity of life-span
development summarized in Figure 1. Figure 2 identifies three sets of
influences which, mediated through the developing individual, act and in
teract to produce life-span development.
A first set of influences, normative age-graded (ontogenetic) influences,
is identical with what most child psychologists (but also gerontologists)
have considered in the past as the major source of influence on development.
Normative age-graded influences are defined as biological and environmen
tal determinants that have (in terms of onset and duration) a fairly strong
relationship with chronological age. Examples are biological maturation
and age-graded socialization events, including many aspects of the family
life cycle, education, and occupation. Age-graded events are normative if

they tend to occur in highly similar ways (timing, duration) for all individu
als in a given culture or subculture.
Normative history-graded (evolutionary) influences are defined as biologi
cal and environmental determinants associated with historical time (Neu
garten & Datan 1973) and historical contexts related to cohort (Baltes et
al 1978). They are normative if they occur to most members of a given
cohort (generation) in similar ways, although the events may differ for
different age-cohorts living at the same time. Examples of normative histo
ry-graded influences are economic depressions, wars, major epidemics, the
social-change events associated with movement toward modernity (Inkeles
BASIC DETERMINANTS INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT
-------l.� TIME
Figure 2 Representation of the operation of three major influence systems on life-span

development: normative age-graded, normative history-graded, and non-normative life events.
These influence systems interact and differ in their combinatorial profile for different individu
als and for different behaviors.
& Smith 1974, Luria 1976), and changes in the demograhic and occupa
tional structure of a given society (Huston-Stein & Higgins-Trenk 1978,
Neugarten & Hagestad 1976, Uhlenberg 1979).
The third set of influences, non-normative life events, refers to biological
and environmental determinants that do not occur in any normative age
graded or history-graded manner for most individuals. Following earlier
work by the Dohrenwends and by Holmes and Rahe, Hultsch & Plemons
(1979; see also Bourgue & Back 1977; Sarason, Johnson & Siegel 1978) have
recently discussed the role of such "significant" life events in the explana
tion of life-span development. Examples are antecedent patterns associated
with career changes, relocation, medical traumata, accidents, temporary

unemployment, divorce, institutionalization, and the death of significant
others. Their impact may depend on specific conditions of timing, pattern
ing, and duration. The attribute of being "non-normative" refers to the lack
of interindividual homogeneity in occurrence and patterning; the attribute
of being a "significant life event" refers to impact on human development.
The joint impact of influences of the three types, mediated through the
developing individual, accounts for the nature of life-span development, for
its regularity, and also for its differential properties in terms of interin
dividual differences, multidirectionaIity, and multidimensionality. The mul
ticausal model outlined can also be used, in a heuristic manner, as a scheme
for integrating existing data and for generating new questions about the
causes of life-span development.
LIFE-COURSE PROFILES OF INFLUENCES Although it might be prema
ture from an empirical point of view, it is useful to speculate about the

possibility that the three classes of influences exhibit distinct life-course
profiles in their independent and interactive effects. Figure 3 illustrates a
tentative proposition (Baltes 1979) suggesting a prototypical pattern of the
overall role of age-graded, history-graded, and non-normative life events.
In general, when measured by relative strength of effect on development,
the life course of normative age-graded influences might exhibit a primary
peak in childhood and perhaps a second lesser peak in advanced old age.
As to childhood, the primacy of age-graded influences is supported by the
existence of nomothetic developmental functions (WoWwill 1973) which
are fairly robust across environmental and biological variation. Similarly,
Waddington's concepts of canalization and epigenetic landscape (Kitchener
1978, Scarr-Salapatek 1976), involving species-typical developmental paths,
suggest such a relative primacy of age-graded genetic influences in early life.
In fact, placing the concept of canalization in a developmental framework
led McCall (1979) to conclude that normative canalization progressively
weakens as child development unfolds. A similar view of the progressive
LIFE-SPAN PROFILE OF INFLUENCES

(prototypical)
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T CHILDHOOD ADOLESCENCE ADULTHOOD OLD AGE
Figure 3 Hypothetical life-course profiles representing the relative impact of normative

age-graded, normative history-graded, and non-normative influences on life-span develop
ment. (profiles shown are illustrative only; for example, the interaction among the systems of
influence is shown as linear and additive, but a transactional representation may tum out to
be more useful.)
weakening, with increasing age, of genetic control over the life course is
contained in evolutionary considerations of development and aging
(Strehler 1977, Wilson 1978). The reasoning is that evolutionary-based
genetic control over the postreproductive phase of life is less strong, because
principles of evolutionary selection apply primarily to the prereproductive
stages of the life course. A decrease in importance of age-graded effects in
the last part of life is also consistent with views of socialization across the
life span. Rosow (1974), for example, emphasized the apparent absence of
age-graded socialization for the later periods of the life course.
The secondary peak postulated for advanced old age, while intuitively
reasonable, is not easily justified on the theoretical grounds outlined. There
are two possible rationales, both based on evolutionary-genetic consider
ations. One relates to Birren's (1964b) counterpart model of aging, the other
to the notion that death might have species-survival characteristics and
therefore a genetic program (Strehler 1977). As a larger and larger segment

of the human population reaches the maximum life span typical for a given
species, we could then observe a genetically based program of dying and,
therefore, an increasing impact of age-graded influences in advanced old
age. This is similar to the terminal drop hypothesis discussed in the litera
ture on intelligence (Riegel & Riegel 1972).
The probable life-course profile for normative history-graded influences is
less clear at this time, in part because models of historical (biocultural)
change do not include life stages as an important component. As shown in
Figure 3, we speculate that the role of history-graded influences is particu
larly strong in adolescence and early adulthood. Adolescence and early

adulthood are the periods in which the society/individual (Buss 1 979,
Nesselroade & Baltes 1974) and intergenerational dialectics (Bengtson &
Black 1973, Eisenstadt 1956, Mannheim 1952) are salient, and in which
much of one's foundation for adulthood (family life, career, life style, etc)
is located and mediated by the nature of the current socioenvironmental
climate. Yet, as Schaie's (1979) cohort-sequential work on intelligence in
advanced adulthood and Porges's (1976) discussion of cohort effects in
infancy indicate, marked cohort effects can also appear in other age groups.
As to the life-course profile for non-normative' life events, the current
evidence is extremely scarce. To illustrate, we speCUlate that their relative
impact may increase as life-span development progresses. Significant life
events take on a more and more important role in determining the course
of human development. This proposition is based on two major lines of
reasoning. First, as mentioned earlier, evolutionary-based genetic control
probably declines with age, thereby permitting individual life experiences
to become more prominent. Second, development in adulthood and old age
appears to be more multidirectional and to exhibit larger intra- and interin
dividual variability than in childhood. Such a finding of heterogeneity and
plasticity correlates well with the notion that non-normative life events
become more salient contributors to development and developmental varia
tion. It is of theoretical concern whether the proposition of increasing
saliency of non-normative life events negates, in principle, the general use
fulness of developmental paradigms for the second part of life. If one were
to take an extreme organismic position on what constitutes development
and on what constitutes proper developmental explanation (such as Wohl
will 1973), it could be argued that it is development, in the strong sense of
the word, which dies out as individuals move into adulthood and old age.
This latter position if further accentuated by the notion that it might not
be possible to formulate useful time-ordered conceptions of non-normative
events.
The existence of different life-course profiles for the three influence sys
tems would account for the differential emphasis on these systems in differ
ent age-specific developmental specialties. On the one hand, if normative
age-graded influences play a pivotal role in childhood, child-development
researchers have been correct in emphasizing age-graded factors of matura
tion and socialization. Adulthood development researchers, on the other
hand, after exploring age-graded models and being frustrated when not
finding chronological age to be a powerful organizer and search variable,
have quite properly looked into alternative kinds of influences, such as
history-graded ones and particularly non-normative life events.
Life-Span Developmental Psychology as Integrative

Framework
The fourth major assumption of life-span developmental researchers is that

viewing behavioral development in the framework of the life course pro
vides an integrated account of human development (Baltes & Goulet 1970,
Bayley 1963, Buhler & Massarik 1968, Neugarten 1969).
COMBINATORIAL APPROACH Life-span developmental psychology is

integrative in that it is combinatorial in both a descriptive and a theoretical
sense. Descriptively, it is combinatorial in that it consists of the combined
knowledge bases provided by age-specific developmental specialities such as
infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and aging. The critical task is
to articulate the combinatorial principles and linkages. Theoretically, the
life-span approach is combinatorial in that certain themes in human devel
opment become meaningful when this approach is taken. An example is
Erikson's ( 1959, Clausen 1972) eight-stage model of tasks and solutions
dealing with self-identity and integrity.
One approach to life-span developmental psychology, then, is simply to
ask the same questions for different age ranges, as though life-span develop
ment can be described simply as an additive combination of age-specific
changes. Another approach assumes that life-span developmental psy
chology requires alternative ways of organizing and construing reality. In
our view, both approaches are useful and should supplement each other. If
both approaches are taken, life-span developmental psychology can be
viewed as an integrating framework, not only for age-,and process-specific
specialities, but also as a body of data and theories in its own right.
THEMES AND CONCEPTS IN LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

Because life-span changes are often complex (multidirectional, multidimen
sional), involve strong contextual and interactive effects, and accentuate the
80 BALTES. REESE & LIPSITT
dynamic relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny, a number of life

span researchers have questioned the elementaristic and analytic approach
of traditional developmental psychology and have asked metatheoretical
and paradigmatic questions aimed at integrative solutions ( Overton & Reese
1973, Reese & Overton 1970, Riegel 1976b). Initially the distinction be
tween mechanistic and organismic paradigms, or world views, was at center
stage. Recent years have seen a growing commitment to exploring the
usefulness of contextualistic-dialectical paradigms ( Datan & Reese 1977;
Labouvie-Vief 1979; Lerner, Skinner & Sorell, in press; Reese, in press;
Rychlak 1976) and systems paradigms ( Overton 1975, Urban 1978). Ger
gen ( 1977), for example, 'distinguished between three models of life-span
development: the stability model, the ordered-change model, and the flexi
ble "aleatory" model. The stability model is exemplified by trait theory in

which patterns of individual differences in behavior are seen as being con
stant over time. In the ordered-change model, development is represented
by "patterned or orderly change across time . .. invariant both across the
human species and throughout history" ( Gergen 1977, p. 144) in the sense
of Wohlwill's (1973) developmental functions and as exemplified in the
theories of Freud, Erikson, and Piaget. In the flexible ( dialectical) model,
life-span development is the result of interaction among age-graded,
history-graded, and non-normative life events as described in earlier sec
tions.
The world view of contextualism ( and associated dialectical paradigms)
is being promoted as the one most useful for understanding the propositions
of life-span development advanced in the opening sections of this chapter.
It will be particularly useful if dialectical models can either resolve the
contradictions between a stability model (Bloom 1964, Cohen 1977) and
ordered-change models ( McCall 1977, Wohlwill 1973) or integrate them in
a way that specifies the conditions under which each is applicable. However,
it is important to acknowledge that acceptance of contextualistic-dialectical
paradigms as world views for understanding life-span development does not
result in rejection of empirical methodology and the scientific method in
principle. Such rejection is not necessary (Baltes & Cornelius 1977; Labou
vie 1974, 1975; Lerner, Skinner & Sorell, in press). The world view of
contextualism is a theoretical orientation which suggests a new set of coor
dinated questions and possible answers in the process of discovery; it does
not substitute for general principles of scientific investigation.
Another integrative theme for understanding the nature of life-span de
velopment is that of life-span tasks and life-span contexts. As mentioned
earlier, life-long development involves the mastery of successive tasks in a
series of contexts. The dialectical conception suggests that tasks and con-
texts derive from the interplay between age-graded, history-graded, and

non-normative influences and events.
Historically the tasks and contexts were formulated within an ontogen
etic, age-graded framework of an orderly progression of exchanges (con
frontations) between developing individuals and the social environment.
Havighurst ( 1 948, 1972), for example, specified life-span tasks that are
jointly determined by physical maturation, society, and the individual's own
developing personality, but with varying weighting of these determinants.
In general, however, the tasks and contexts for the second half of life are
less well formulated than for the first half. Also, it is evident that the tasks
and contexts associated with history-graded and non-normative events (Da

tan & Ginsberg 1975, Hultsch & Plemons 1979) await further specification.
This enterprise should be aided by the increasing use of contextualism as
a paradigm as well as by the strengthening of ecological perspectives on

human development (Bronfenbrenner 1977, Hultsch & Hickey 1978,
Labouvie-Vief 1979, McGurk 1977).
The nature of the relationship among life-span tasks and life-span trajecto
ries involving distinct behavior is another theme. There are two issues here.
A first is the one of sequence and transition within behavioral categories
(e.g. cognition). While the mechanisms of transition are not always clear
(Brainerd 1978), there is agreement that exposure to new intra- and extra
personal information, experiential paradoxes, and disturbances are the sine
qua non for developmental movement and interstage transition. A life-span
approach suggests that the relationship is dialectical and encompasses not
only linear and facilitative cumulation but also alternative relationships
such as seen in interference, perturbation, crisis, tension, and conflict (Mor
gan 1979, Riegel 1975). Although these concepts are not yet fully devel
oped, they are salient features of major theories (Freud, Erikson, Piaget),
and therefore they are likely to be with us as intrinsic components of
developmental theory (Lerner 1976).
In addition to the question of within-behavior sequencing and transition
(e.g. in cognition), a wholistic view of life-span development focuses atten
tion on the relationships among classes of behavior, developmental pro
cesses, and networks (e.g. marriage) of codeveloping individuals (Clausen
1972, Morgan 1979). For example, especially for modem women, family
and occupational careers are not always coordinated and mutually enhanc
ing, particularly because of current changes in women's roles (Huston-Stein
& Higgins-Trenk 1978). Similar views apply to life-span developmental
processes involving other members of the family and friendship systems
(Lerner & Spanier 1978). Specifying the nature of the relationship among
distinct developmental trajectories (both within and among individuals) is
critical for advancing the field. Again, contextualistic-dialectical paradigms

are expected to facilitate such an approach, at least on a conceptual level.
ILLUSTRATIVE RESEARCH TOPICS
Space limitation does not permit coverage of life-span research in a variety

of areas. Therefore, we decided to restrict primary illustration of the life
span approach to two topics: memory and psychometric intelligence. This
decision reflects largely our competencies and interests. However, other
substantive domains are covered in the section on implications and inter
sects, where the reader interested, for example, in social development,

personality, and the family life cycle will find a collection of pertinent
references.
Memory
This section deals with experimental research on human memory develop
ment. We decided to be selective here rather than overly superficial, and
have arbitrarily limited our survey to four topics: sensory memory, short
term memory, recognition versus recall, and memory strategies. Our survey
focuses on the facts already known or strongly suspected in these areas,
rather than on the major unanswered questions.
Our approach has necessitated omission of many topics of developmental
interest, such as memory for prose, the effects of external memory aids
(Brown & DeLoache 1978), "prospective remembering" (Meacham 1977a,
pp. 290-91), the development of "metamemory" (Flavell 1977), the relation
between memory tasks and memory types (Brown 1975, Nelson & Brown
1978), and attempts to adapt experimental memory tasks for individual
differences assessment (Hom 1978). We also ignore the issues of ecological
validity (Bronfenbrenner 1977) and external validity (Cook & Campbell
1975, Hultsch & Hickey 1978) of the research, in spite of the artificiality
of most of the memory tasks that are used (see Kvale 1977); and we do not
consider the issue of whether memory development is continuous or discon
tinuous in a metatheoretical sense (Reese & Overton 1970), even though
both positions have been espoused (continuity: see Kvale 1977, Meacham
1977b, Reese 1976; discontinuity: see Flavell 1970, Reese 1973).
Three additional introductory points need to be made, although we can
not elaborate upon them here. First, no life-span research on memory has
been done, to our knowledge, but the major findings are robust across many
procedural variations and therefore cross-study comparisons are legitimate.
Second, almost all of the research has been cross-sectional [the major excep
tion is the Baltimore Longitudinal Study (Arenberg & Robertson-Tchabo
1977)], and therefore future longitUdinal research may reveal some of the
trends we identify as developmental to be actually generational. Finally,

psychometric research has shown that the validity, or meaning, of an exper
imental memory task may change over trials, and the nature of the change
may vary with age (see Baltes et a1 1977, Hultsch, Nesselroade & Plemons
1976). Relevant research is scarce, but the implication is that the age
differences obtained may depend on the stage of learning reflected in the
performance measure (Goulet 1973).
SENSORY MEMORY In the prototypical information-processing model,

the sensory register receives stimulation, which remains relatively untrans
formed until further processed. The capacity ("volume") of the sensory

register is very large, but decay is very rapid. Research has shown that the
visual and auditory systems do not operate identically, and therefore a
distinction is made between iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) sensory

memory. For both of these systems, however, it is generally agreed that
capacity and duration do not change during childhood (Kail & Siegel 1977),
but that processing time decreases (Hagen, Jongeward & Kail 1975, Kail
& Siegel 1977). The older child might therefore perform more accurately
than the younger child, but only because the older child transfers more
sensory material to the short-term store, or "working memory," before the
material decays from the sensory register.
The evidence on the effect of old age is sparse, but seems to indicate that
the capacities of the sensory systems do not change. The evidence about
decay rates is more ambiguous, especially for echoic memory, but the
general conclusion is that decay rates are also invariant with age in adult
hood (Craik 1977), or they increase slightly but not enough to interfere with
further processing (Smith & Fullerton, in press).
Deficits in further processing are found, however, and a formerly popular
hypothesis, which has now generally been rejected (Craik 1977), is that the
deficit reflects greater vulnerability to interference in the elderly. The cur
rently popular hypothesis, given that the evidence comes from tasks that
require divided attention and given that attention is the mechanism as
sumed to transfer material from the sensory register to "working memory,"
is that the elderly are less able to divide their attention effectively (Craik
1977, Hom 1978).
SHORT-TERM MEMORY The number of items that can be held in short

term memory increases during childhood, reaches a peak in early adult
hood, and declines thereafter. These facts are well established but their
interpretation is in some dispute. The minority view is that the capacity of
the short-term store, or its theoretical analog in other models, changes
developmentally (e.g. Pascual-Leone 1970); but by far the majority view is
that capacity changes little if at all across the life span (childhood: Case
1978, Hagen et a1 1975, Naus, Ornstein & Hoving 1 978; aging: Botwinick
& Storandt 1 974, Craik 1 977). The latter view is supported, for example,
by the relative invariance of the "recency effect" with age (e.g. Hagen &
Stanovich 1 977, Hom 1979). However, some of the other support for this
view has been challenged on methodological grounds (Rohwer & Dempster
1 977). In both views, the effectiveness and efficiency of information process
ing change with age; the disagreement is in whether the changes in perfor
mance are explained in whole or only in part by these changes.
RECOGNITION VERSUS RECALL Recognition memory competence de

velops early in life (Hagen et aI 1975), and cross-cultural evidence (Cole &
Scribner 1977) suggests that it is strongly "canalized" (Perlmutter & Lange
1978). It improves somewhat during childhood, but the improvement has

been attributed to the acquisition of deliberate techniques that aid recogni
tion rather than to change in recognition competence per se (perlmutter &
Lange 1978). In contrast to the small age differences found in childhood,
large differences are sometimes found in adulthood (e.g. Mason 1977),
although the more usual is that recognition memory declines little if at all
during adulthood (Craik 1 977, Mason 1977).
Under most conditions, recall is inferior to recognition at all ages. Unlike
recognition, recall exhibits large age differences in both childhood (Brown
1975) and adulthood (Craik 1 977, Perlmutter 1978). These findings have
been interpreted to mean that children imd old persons use less effective or
less efficient retrieval strategies than young adults (Craik 1 977), but other
interpretations are possible (Horn 1978; Smith & Fullerton, in press). We
cannot go into complexities here, but one consideration is that when mem
ory is the goal at the time of an individual's interaction with episodes or
events, recall is more likely than recognition to require the use of suitable
deliberate memory strategies.
MEMORY STRATEGIES The young child does not spontaneously use

complex processing strategies, such as deliberately categorizing or organiz
ing the material to be learned (Lange 1978, Moely 1 977). In fact, the young
child's memory is generally nonstrategic, in the sense that it does not
involve deliberate memorizing (Myers & Perlmutter 1 978, Paris 1978b).
The elderly are also deficient in the use of organization (Craik 1 977;
Smith & Fullerton, in press) and other complex memory strategies (Eysenck
1974, Mason 1977, Perlmutter 1978; Treat & Resse 1 976; for review see
Smith & Fullerton, in press). However, unlike children, who sometimes fail
to benefit from training (see Lange 1978), the elderly often benefit markedly
(e.g. Hultsch 1 974, Treat & Reese 1976).
Age differences in recall are interpretable as reflecting differences in the

use of suitable strategies. The differences could be in the availability of
suitable strategies, or in the likelihood that they will be used spontaneously
even if available, or in the likelihood that they will be used effectively or
efficiently even if used spontaneously (see Flavell & Wellman 1977, Hagen
et a1 1 975, Paris 1978a, Perlmutter & Lange 1 978). Still another possibility
is that a suitable strategy is not used because an unsuitable strategy is used
instead (Denney & Wright 1976, Paris 1978b, Reese 1976). For example,
the young child may fail to use complex memory strategies spontaneously
because he/she has a different goal; "the young child's memory may not be
inefficient, incorrect, or deficient by the child's standards" (Paris 1 978b, p.

1 54). Similarly, the old person, like the young child and unlike the young
adult, tends to use concrete rather than abstract approaches to problems,
and tends to prefer simple to complex approaches. Perhaps, however, the

approach favored by the elderly is more adaptive for them than would be
the approach of young adults (Denney & Wright 1 976, Horn 1979, Labou
vie-Vief 1 979).
In this connection, it has been suggested that deliberate memorizing is
more characteristic of the classroom than of life outside (Ornstein & Naus
1978, Reese 1976), although hard data are lacking. The memory require
ments imposed in school are surely not entirely different from those im
posed in the broader environment; but nevertheless, memory for factual
information is emphasized in school, and it seems that nowhere except at
the card table and in the classroom is the use of external memory aids
prohibited so thoroughly. Thus, the school seems to be characterized by a
demand for deliberate memorizing. Consequently, children should acquire
suitable memorizing skills for use in school, but after the end of schooling
new kinds of memory needs are encountered, and adults should gradually
learn new skills suitable for the new tasks.
Thus, whatever memory decline is seen in older adults may well reflect
the use of strategies that are unsuitable for the task presented but suitable
for the old person's goals (Reese 1976, Smith & Fullerton 1980). As in
childhood (Paris 1 978b), then, memory changes in old age may reflect
difference rather than deficit. This consideration is related to the issues of
intraindividual plasticity and competence vs performance, which are dis
cussed in more detail in the section on Psychometric Intelligence.
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS The life-long nature of memory

development is clearly evident. One of the most important conclusions
about this development is that it is not a waxing and waning of the capacity
of memory repositories, but rather reflects changes in information process
ing.
Moreover, memory growth and decline do not reflect merely increasing

and decreasing efficiency of performing a fixed set of encoding, storing, and
retrieving processes, but rather reflect the development of qualitatively
different processes (operations) for encoding, storing and retrieving. Their
development in tum reflects qualitative changes in other cognitive realms
such as motivation, which in tum reflect social interactions with others of
various ages (Flavell 1 970), experiences with the physical environment and
with formal and informal educational demands, and self-discovery, all sub
ject to physiological "permissions." That is, social, cultural, and environ
mental determinants are integrated with self-determination within limits set
by maturation in childhood and physiological decline in old age.

In summary, the evidence on memory development across the life span,
and the currently popular theories about it, provide a strong example of the
utility of the life-span approach to psychological development. Memory

development is life-long, pluralistic, evolutionary as well as ontogenetic,
and integrated with development in other psychological realms. Further
more, in emphasizing the interrelatedness of person and environment, in
cluding the social and cultural environment, the life-span approach repeats
the call for more naturalistic memory research because this interrelatedness
is obscured in artificial laboratory research. Finally, in emphasizing the
effect of the historical context of the person-environment interaction, the
life-span approach emphasizes the need for longitudinal memory research
with a design permitting assessment of cohort effects.
Psychometric Intelligence
Psychometric intelligence refers to cognitive behavior as indexed by test
based measurement of abilities in the tradition of Spearman, Thurstone,
Cattell, and Guilford. Reviews and evaluative discussions of life-span re
search in other intelligence-related topics, such as Piagetian cognition, are
provided by Denney (1979), Hooper and his colleagues (Hooper 1 973,
Hooper & Sheehan 1978, Muhs, Hooper & Papalia-Finley 1 979), Labouvie
Vief (1979), and Looft (1972).
Research on psychometric intelligence has captured early (Hollingworth
1927, Sanford 1 902) and much attention in life-span developmental psy
chology, in part because psychometric measures of intelligence have been
included in most major longitudinal work suitable for life-span analysis.
The area of psychometric intelligence has also produced a series of debates
about the relative merits of viewing life-span development of intellectual
performance as consisting of an overarching sequence of incremental and
decremental functions associated with childhood and aging, respectively
(Baltes & Schaie 1 976; Hom & Donaldson 1 976, 1 977; Schaie & Baltes
1 977). In this and other aspects involving life-span methodology, research
on psychometric intelligence has become the testing ground for articulating

and evaluating the life-span developmental approach in general. Therefore,
the area of psychometric intelligence is given a disproportionate amount of
coverage in this chapter.
At least three groups of researchers have contributed extensively, though
fairly independently, to the literature. One group is associated primarily
with longitudinal research on intelligence in childhood (Bayley 1 970;
McCall 1977 , 1979; Wohlwill 1980), a second with the period of adulthood
and aging (Baltes & Labouvie 1973; Baltes & Willis 1 979a,b; Botwinick
1977; Hom 1 970, 1978; Jarvik & Cohen 1973; Jarvik, Eisdorfer & Blum
1973; Labouvie-Vief & Chandler, 1 978; Labouvie-Vief 1978; Riegel 1973,

Schaie 1970, 1977-1978, 1979), and a third with the role of intelligence and
education in the achievement of worldly accomplishments such as scientific
productivity, occupational success, and status attainment (Cole 1979, Pea

therman 1980, Jencks et al 1972). Occasionally, a special effort is made to
link these lines of research into a corpus of life-span theory of intelligence,
most notably by Hom (1970, 1978).
ISSUES IN MEASUREMENT The study of life-span development of intel

ligence requires attention to a number of methodological issues involving
assessment of intellectual functioning and design (Baltes & Willis 1979b;
Botwinick 1977; Kuhlen 1963; McCall 1979; Schaie 1973, 1978; Wohlwill
1 980). A first issue is about ontogenetic changes in the nature of intellectual
behavior, as perhaps most explicitly stated in Piagetian stage theory of
childhood cognition. The domain of psychometric intelligence has themes
analogous to the Piagetian stage concept: the question of measurement
equivalence and the question of structural vs quantitative change.
The question of measurement equivalence and age-appropriateness of
intellectual content is well recognized in the child literature (Bayley 1970,
McCall 1979, Wohlwill 1 980). However, a model of measurement invari
ance has been practiced in adulthood and aging research (Labouvie-Vief &
Chandler 1978, Schaie 1977-1978). Thus, a major problem of existing
intelligence tests for life-span research is that they have been constructed
with a primary focus on the young and with a primary concern for one set
of predictive validity criteria, those associated with success in youth-ori
ented settings such as education and occupation (Baltes & Willis 1 979b).
Schaie (1977-1978) has responded to this lack of life-span fairness in intel
lectual assessment and has formulated a protomodel oflife-span intelligence
which specifies five succesive periods of intelligence: acquisitive, achieving,
responSible, executive, reintegrative. He argues that traditional intelligence
tests are restricted largely to the first two of these periods (acquisitive,
achieving), thereby neglecting salient dimensions of adult and aging life.
Similarly, Clayton & Birren ( 1980) have discussed the emerging behavioral
concept of wisdom as a salient dimension of adult intellectual life.
The changing quality of intelligence through the life course is also repre
sented in research on the multivariate structure of intelligence ( Anastasi
1970, Hom 1978, Reinert 1970). This approach is largely reflected in factor
analytic work aimed at identifying systems of abilities ( number, intercorre
lation, levels of organization) and demonstrating that the structure of intel
lectual abilities is not invariant in life-span development. Thus, simple
age-comparisons of level of performance on a set of fixed abilities is limited
in usefulness because intellectual development reflects not merely quantita
tive change, but also qualitative change in structure.

A second major set of issues in intellectual assessment across the life span
deals with the competence vs performance distinction, or the question of
ability-intrinsic vs ability-extrinsic factors or processes (Baltes & Willis

1979b, Bearison 1974, Botwinick 1977, Flavell & Wohlwill 1969, Furry &
Baltes 1973, Hooper & Sheehan 1978). The question involves two subissues.
One is whether intellectual performance indexes a genotypic "deep-struc
ture" capacity or competence, or is the phenotypic product of multiple
antecedents, only some of which are related to intellect per se. In the
life-span developmental literature (Baltes & Labouvie 1973, Botwinick
1977, Goulet 1973), many developmental changes or differences are argued
to be joint outcomes of changes in competence and ability-extrinsic perfor
mance factors such as fatigue, test familiarity, and lack of performance
enhancing motivational conditions. The general expectation is that persons
of different age may exhibit levels of intellectual performance which differ
entially approximate their optimal ( possible) levels. Consequently, any
given performance is a potentially biased sample from an unspecified popu
lation of possible performances.
The second subissue is related to this argument and is about intrain
dividualplasticity (Baltes & Willis 1979b). Most developmental assessment
strategies have been aimed at indexing average performance in the sense of
abilities as traits. However, such factors as pretest history, life space, and
commitment to performance vary considerably for individuals of different
ages in a given testing situation. Therefore, assessment of trait-like proper
ties should be supplemented with assessment of intraindividual variability
in performance. These assessments should be made under different perfor
mance conditions rather than in one standard setting ( see also Wohlwill
1980). Recognition of this issue has produced a growing amount of life-span
research on conditions yielding differential performance in various age
groups ( e.g. Baltes & Willis, 1979a,b; Denney 1979; Goulet 1973; Hooper
& Sheehan 1978; Labouvie-Vief 1976; Plemons, Willis & Baltes 1978; Sand
ers & Sanders 1978). The conclusion is that a developmental concept of
psychometric intelligence cannot be comprehensive unless it encompasses

information about both average performance and variability in performance
(inter- and intraindividual). Indeed, the relative degree of inter- and intrain
dividual plasticity of intellectual performance has become a salient theme
of current life-span developmental research and places the observation of
average age functions (a la Hom 1 970, 1 978) in a larger context.
A third major set of issues in intellectual assessment and experimental
design relates to the importance of the historical context for the proper
identification of life-span changes in intelligence. This concern has resulted
in the development of cohort-sequential strategies involving cross-sectional
and longitudinal sequences (Baltes 1968, Schaie 1 965, Schaie & Baltes
1 975). The use of sequential strategies has revealed that the life course of
intelligence can differ markedly for successive cohorts in twentieth century
Western societies. The nature of intellectual change through the life span,
therefore, needs to be placed in the context of historical change and the
specific intelligence-related circumstances to which individual cohorts are
exposed as they move through life.
DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH ON STRUCTURAL CHANGE As to the ques

tion of constancy or change in structure, it appears that structural changes
in psychometric intelligence are most dramatic in early life and perhaps
again late in life.
As documented by McCall ( 1979) and Wohlwill ( 1 980), the accuracy of
longitudinal predictions ofinterindividual differences (ranks) in intellectual
functioning from one age to another stabilizes fairly early in life, usually
around 10 years of age (see also Bloom 1 964). McCall (1 977), for example,
reported data from the Child Guidance Study (Eichorn 1 973; Honzik &
MacFarlane 1 973) showing a systematic increase in the predictability of
adult IQ (in this case IQ at age 40) from ontogenetically earlier measures
of intellectual functioning. Longitudinal coefficients were in the .20s for
prediction from early childhood (3-4 years of age) and in the .70s for
prediction from early adolescence. Such findings on average interindividual
stability during development parallel the results of factor analytic studies.
Although the recent factor analytic literature has not yet been reviewed,
reviews of the older literature (Anastasi 1 970, Baltes & Nesselroade 1 973,
Reinert 1 970) suggest the following life-span sequence of structural change
in psychometric intelligence: The first ontogenetic process involves the
formation and structural integration of abilities in early childhood, followed
in later childhood and adolescence by a process of differentiation into a
complex system of abilities (as originally postulated by Garrett 1 946 and
Burt 1954). During most of adulthood, the dominant finding is a fair degree
of structural invariance. Finally, although data are scarce, late adulthood
and aging appear to exhibit a process of neointegration combined with

further structural transformation involving primarily such abilities as mem
ory and speed (Cunningham & Birren 1 979, Willis et al 1 978). The term
"neointegration" is used rather than reintegration or regression because the
transformational changes in old age are not necessarily identical with a
regression toward earlier structural states.
The recent advent of confinnatory factor analysis and the availability of
large-sample longitudinal studies makes it likely that the question of struc
tural changes in life-span intelligence will be addressed at a new level of
methodological rigor (see also Bentler, this vol�me). At present we know
little about the antecedents and mechanisms responsible for structural con
stancy and change in psychometric intelligence through the life course. It
is reasonable to assume that both genetic and environmental conditions
interact (Brody & Brody 1 976, McCalI 1 979), although the available litera
ture on the development of intellectual structure has emphasized primarily
the role of learning and environmental settings (Buss 1 973). For heuristic
purposes, Baltes, Nesselroade & Cornelius ( 1978) have used computer
simulation to show that structural changes of the integration-differentia
tion-neointegration type can be produced by interindividual differences in
environmental inputs during ontogeny.
EVIDENCE ON QUANTITATIVE CHANGE Quantitative life-span change

has been studied extensively. Bayley'S (1 970) chapter continues to be an
outstanding summary for the first 30 years of life, and Schaie's ( 1979)
2 1-year cohort-sequential study of adulthood and old age has revolutionized
our thinking about the topic. The interpretation of quantitative life-span
change is, however, a matter of debate for a number of reasons (Baltes &
Willis 1 979a,b, Botwinick 1 977, Horn 1 978, Labouvie-Vief 1 978, Mata
razzo 1 972, Schaie 1 979).
First, psychometric intelligence is not a unitary construct such as would
be indexed by a global IQ (see also Bayley 1 970, Wohlwill 1980). Intelli
gence is usefully conceived as a multidimensional (structural) construct
with different abilities showing different developmental functions. The best
known example is that of the Cattell-Horn model of fluid-crystallized intel
ligence (Hom 1 978), in which fluid intelligence exhibits a peak in early
adulthood followed by gradual decline, while crystallized intelligence re
mains fairly stable or increases into late adulthood. Another example deals
with differences in the life course of verbal vs nonverbal abilities (Bayley
1 970, Botwinick 1 977), with verbal abilities exhibiting more and earlier
developmental continuity and being maintained longer during adulthood
and old age.
Second, the evidence is fairly strong that the life-span function for psy
chometric intelligence is not universally (across abilities and individuals) an
increment-stability-decrement sequence. Very large interindividual and be
tween-cohort (history-graded) differences in the course of intellectual devel
opment have been reported at all stages of life (Bayley 1970; Jarvik,
Eisdorfer & Blum 1 973; Schaie 1 970, 1979; Thomae 1 976). Consequently,
relatively little interindividual universality or generality is found in the
developmental function of intelligence as the life course unfolds. Differences
within age groups are usually larger than differences between age groups,
at least if the first 1 5 years of life are excluded from the comparison.
Moreover, in current United States history and for most of adulthood,

differences between cohorts of the same chronological age (time-lag com
parison) are larger than those between age groups, at least up to the age of
70 (Schaie & Parham 1977). Exceptions from the primacy of cohort differ
ences in adulthood are perhaps measures of psychomotor intelligence show
ing negative age changes for speeded tasks, the negative age changes
reported for periods preceding aging-related death (Lieberman & Coplan
1969, Riegel & Riegel 1 972, Siegler 1 975), and the effect of selective survival
(Siegler & Botwinick 1 979) which suggests that findings on "longitudinal"
survivors overestimate the level of intellectual functioning in more represen
tative samples.
The evidence showing large interindividua1 variability in the course of
life-span intelligence and general stability of intellectual performance for a
large share of the population during adulthood is supported by indirect
testimony collected on the relationship between age and scientific produc
tivity. Cole (1979) has recently revisited that forum and shown, contrary
to Lehman's ( 1 953) widely quoted earlier data, that there is little evidence
for an age-related decline in scientific productivity during adulthood. Cole
carefully noted, however, that such an outcome is regulated not only by
standing on intellectual performance but also by other features of the scien
tific system including the availability of resources and the distribution of
rewards.
Third, there is growing evidence for large intra individual plasticity or
modifiability in intellectual performance, particularly in late life. Although
cognitive intervention in childhood has often led to equivocal outcomes,
intervention research in late adulthood and old age presents generally a
rather consistent pattern of positive outcomes. Relatively short-term inter
ventions are successful in increasing intellectual performance, including its
maintenance and transfer to other related abilities (Denney 1 979; Labouvie
Vief 1 976; Plemons, Willis & Baltes 1 978; Sanders & Sanders 1 978). Such
results suggest not only that many older persons function below their
maximal level of performance but also that a life-long capacity for intellec
tual change exists. Brim & Kagan ( 1980) made the latter finding a salient
theme in their evaluation of the role of constancy and change through the
life span.
EXPLANATORY EVIDENCE Knowledge about the antecedents and

mechanisms of life-span development in psychometric intelligence is scanty,
although less so for the first part of life (Bayley 1 970) than for adulthood
and old age. Part of the problem is that psychometric models of intelligence
have focused more on product than on process (Resnick 1976). In addition,

only age-related determinants are included in traditional explanatory mod
els, and the insight that other kinds of determinants need to be considered
is so recent that little direct evidence has been collected. The available
evidence is nevertheless suggestive. In a recent review (Baltes & Willis
1 979a), the three categories of determinants discussed earlier (age-graded,
history-graded, and non-normative) were used to organize the evidence.
The major conclusion was that intra- and interindividual variability in the
course of intellectual performance during adulthood and old age is deter
mined not so much by normative age-graded factors as by history-graded
(cohort) influences and non-normative life events.
In general, one line of explanatory research has been focused on intergen
erational antecedents which are often neglected by developmental psycholo
gists. This research deals with the aggregate impact of genetic and
environmental determinants, i.e. intergenerational transmission and the
role of parents (and grandparents) in regulating the intellectual develop
ment of their offspring. Developmental psychologists are usually more fa
miliar with studies of the impact of familial environments on subsequent
intellectual performance of children as evidenced in longitudinal data (Bay
ley 1 970, Eichorn 1 973, McCall 1979) than with sociological research on
the role of intergenerational factors associated with education, social class,
and occupation of parents (Featherman 1 980, Jencks et al 1 972). Feather
man & Hauser (1978) concluded that intergenerational continuity is sizable,
but decreases both during adult life and in current cohorts. The joint impact
of genetic and environmental factors in intergenerational transmission is
further explicated in a study by Scarf & Weinberg ( 1 978), who examined
the longitudinal effects of family background on intellectual performance
during the first 1 8 years of life. They compared the intellectual similarity
of parents (biological vs adoptive) with either their biological children or
their children adopted in early infancy, thereby achieving a global separa
tion of environmental and genetic antecedents. Scarr and Weinberg con
cluded that genetic differences among families account for the major part
of the explained differences in IQ among older adolescents. It is not clear
whether such genetic effects are maintained through the life span (Brody
& Brody 1976, Jarvik 1975) and to what degree they are invariant across
historical periods.
For purposes of theory construction, a second line of explanatory work
-microanalytic research on ontogenetic processes (e.g. learning histories,
practice, etc)-is important to specify the mechanisms underlying aggre
gate effects associated with social class and education. Botwinick's (1967
1977; Siegler 1979) concept of "modifiers" is a step in that direction and
has been helpful in understanding the course of life-span development of
intelligence. In this literature, ontogenetic factors are discussed not only in
terms of the control of average developmental functions (Hom 1978), but

also in accounting for the processes leading to differential developmental
trends. Variables such as initial ability level, education, social class, health,
distance from death, longevity (selective survival), and various indicators

of the quality of the environment all have been used to explain variations
in intellectual development (Baltes & Labouvie 1973, Botwinick 1977,
Schaie 1979, Siegler 1979).
Of prime importance in future research appears to be the need to develop
a testable process theory of intellectual performance which is explicitly
oriented toward understanding differential courses of development in a
multicausal framework and toward identifying components of capacity
(competence) and intraindividual plasticity. Such an approach would per
mit transcending the past mainstream of descriptive trait-oriented research
in the area. It also appears desirable to place the validity network of psycho
metric intelligence into a life-span context in order to assess the criterion
relevance of intellectual functioning for tasks and settings reflective of
life-span ontogeny (Hultsch & Hickey 1978, Labouvie-Vief 1979, Schaie
1978).
IMPLICATIONS AND INTERSECTS
Infant, Child, and Adolescent Development

It is possible to adopt a life-span perspective without studying individuals
of all ages. However, a life-span perspective suggests different questions
even if one's research focuses on only part of the life span such as infancy
or childhood. From a life-span perspective, earlier age periods are viewed
as precursors for or contributors to later periods of development. Thus,
ontogenetically earlier behavior codetermines later ontogeny, and under
standing the role of ontogenetically earlier behavior needs to include its
long-range impact. This assumption of the developmental sciences, that
hereditary factors are of lifelong importance and that the determinants of
later behavior are in large measure to be found in earlier experience, is
deeply rooted. Models relating to the onset and course of developmental

anomalies, moreover, assume not only that causative influences may be
found in earlier aspects of the life history but even that anticipatory inter
vention is feasible (Kagan, Kearsley & Zelazo 1 978; Lipsitt 1979a). Day
care, Head Start, and "compensatory" stimulation of premature or injured
newborns are "remedial" steps based upon actuarial verities derived from
longitudinal data and life-span considerations.
Historically, this cumulative view of human development was made fa
mous by Freud, Piaget, and Erikson, all of whom (hut in different ways)
added to it the consideration that earlier structures and experiences are not
merely important but are primary in determining subsequent behavioral

development. Despite debate about the childhood-based primacy and conti
nuity view of human development (Brim & Kagan 1980, Clarke & Clarke
1976, Lipsitt 1979b, Sameroff 1975), this posture continues to have merit,
although a life-span approach suggests alternative methodological para
digms and a moderated view. For example, while some longitudinal studies
(e.g. Willerman, Broman & Fiedler 1970) have been done which illuminate
the subtle interactions occurring between early conditions of the infant and
later environmental events, the usual format of such studies is to relate
single early variables (e.g. developmental quotient, or prematurity) to some
later characteristic (IQ, or school failure). The life-span approach urges the
use of multifactorial and contextual models which take due notice of inter
stitial events connecting the presumed antecedent or precursor conditions
with the outcomes. The life-span orientation is about the community of life
events that jointly determine the future condition of the organism. Infant
crib death is a good example of how an early-life event might alter life
course-related perceptions, expectations, and emotional attachments of per
sons related to the affected infant.
A number of researchers have illuminated further life-span perspectives
on research and theory in child development. Chandler (1976), for example,
noted that the dominant view of cumulation needs to be supplemented with
considerations of multilinearity. Using the area of cognitive development as
an example, he emphasized that adolescence is not necessarily a terminal
stage of thought and that adulthood is not "a kind of perpetual late
adolescent period" (p. 226). Thus, "the course of . . . development may be
more multilinear, the end state of development more problematic, and the
nature of mature functioning more pluralistic than has commonly been
supposed" (p. 229). The recognition of life-span development as a complex
and multilinear (multiform) process is helpful in placing childhood and
adolescence in proper perspective and suggesting new research themes.
Another consideration is the continuity-discontinuity issue. At a descrip
tive level the issue is about predictability versus emergence, or quantitative
versus qualitative change (Huston-Stein & Baltes 1976, Reese & Overton
1970). This issue separates the behaviorists from the Piagetians, for exam
ple, and is presumably well known to child developmentalists. At a causal
analytic level, the issue is perhaps less well known to child developmen
talists. The issue here is whether the same explanatory principles remain
relevant across ages or new explanatory principles emerge. At this level,
the behaviorists and Piagetians agree in adopting a continuity model
(e.g. for radical behaviorists the basic explanatory principle continues
to refer to reinforcement history, and for Piagetians the basic processes
remain assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration). In contrast, the
life-span perspective leads one to expect explanatory discontinuity and
imperfect predictability (Huston-Stein & Baltes 1976, Kohlberg 1 973,

Labouvie-Vief 1979, Neugarten 1969; see also the discussion in section on
Pluralistic Conceptions of Development). Even if childhood exhibits ex
planatory continuity, as Flavell ( 1970) and others have suggested (see

Denney & Wright 1976), the life-span perspective suggests eventual dis
continuity and therefore implies that the model for childhood should
include the determinants of the discontinuity that will occur after child
hood.
To illustrate: The debate about constancy and change is not one of
absolutism, but one of relative determinism. The fact that predictions from
early to later life are not perfect (McCall 1979) is not a scientific debacle.
It is simply a reflection of the fact that later life is based, in part, on factors
and experiences that are unique to the later periods. Therefore, a life-span
view suggests that, for good theoretical reasons, developmental predictions
are always underdetermined (Baltes & Cornelius 1977, Lipsitt 1979b), al
though later outcomes are fully determined. Each ontogenetically earlier
stage is preparatory only to a degree, whether enchancing or interfering,
and the scientific task is to specify the conditions under which predictive
constancy and change occur. Thus, early-life experiences are not assumed
to prepare (optimize) the individual for all conditions of later life. In fact,
preparation for some of the settings and tasks of later life, such as those
associated with historical change and non-normative events, can only be
approximated.
Therefore, it would be a mistake to evaluate childhood and adolescence
only for their preparatory effectiveness. In dialectical paradigms and con
textualism-the world views with which the life-span approach is most
consistent-both analysis and synthesis are legitimate. It is legitimate to
examine the parts (the stages) as well as to study the whole (the life span).
However, the stages and the life span are dialectically related (Clausen
1972, Datan 1977) in the sense that full understanding of a stage (e.g.
childhood) requires knowing its life-span implications, and full under
standing of the life span requires understanding each stage as a unit. More
over, the dialectical paradigm implies that the future is not fully predictable.
Therefore, underdetermination in developmental prediction is not only

permissible but is the rule.
Two good illustrations of how a life-span approach modifies research and
theory in early-life specialties are pUblications by Dragastin & Elder (1976)
and Lerner & Spanier (1980) for the case of adolescence. Another concrete
illustration is Montada & Filipp's (1976) discussion of the goals of child
hood education from a life-span perspective. They argued that from the
life-span perspective it becomes apparent that the design of childhood edu
cation should take into account the developmental tasks of adolescence,
adulthood, and old age, instead of only those of childhood (p. 263); child
hood education should be designed, in other words, to include "anticipatory

socialization" (Ahammer 1973). It should also be designed to focus on
diversity of goals and multidirectionality of developmental sequences (p.
263) rather than cultural homogenization and individual regimentation. In

addition, childhood education should be designed to minimize negative
transfer to later stages. Thus, the possibility of long-term side effects, or
"sleeper" eff.;:cts (Birren 1979, Nesselroade & Baltes 1980b), becomes a
salient consideration, which in tum exposes a need for relevant research on
such effects.
Child and adolescent psychologists could profitably borrow three other
propositions from the life-span approach: (a) the emphasis on a changing
ecology, (b) the search for organizers other than chronological age, and
(c) the understanding that the study of parent-child and other family rela
tions involves multiple developing individuals. The first two propositions
were discussed earlier in this chapter, and they have already been identified
by child psychologists as well (Baer 1970, Bronfenbrenner 1977, Hartup
1979). A life-span approach only accentuates their role and clarifies their
importance (Baltes, Cornelius & Nesselroade 1978, Huston-Stein & Baltes
1976).
The third proposition, involving conjoint but potentially diverse develop
ment of multiple partners in a social system, is less well understood. First,
it needs to be recognized that the development of social relationships contin
ues through life (Bennett & Ahammer 1977, Hess 1972, Huston & Levinger
1978). Attachment is an example. Only recently has it become appreciated
that attachment is not limited to infancy and the parent-infant context, but
rather is salient throughout life, involving the formation, maintenance, and
dissolution of later-life networks associated with friendship, marriage, and
death (Antonucci 1976, Hartup & Lempers 1973, Kalish & Knudtson 1976,
Knudtson 1976, Lerner & Ryff 1978). The search for such life-span develop
mental sequences and linkages involving attachment behavior is just begin
ning and will require close cooperation between childhood and life-span
researchers.
In addition to simply acknowledging lifelong development of social be

havior, however, the third proposition also suggests novel perspectives on
the nature of the interaction among individuals participating in the social
ization process. While child development researchers have begun to pay
attention to interactive, bidirectional paradigms in socialization research on
parent-child relations (Be11 1968, Lerner & Spanier 1 978), they have not yet
fully incorporated the notion that development applies both to parents and
children. The question of interaction is not only a question of whether
children affect parental behavior. A life-span approach suggests that parents
undergo important adulthood- and aging-related developmental changes
themselves, which involve goals, conflicts, and transitions in their own right
and which modify their role and action in the socialization of children.
Hetherington, Cox & Cox ( 1978) have illustrated this perspective in the
context of parent-child relationships and divorce. Attending to develop

mental issues of both parents and children will result in a more forceful and
full-fledged attack on the problem of parent-child relations.
A dult Development and Aging

As mentioned before, a major impetus for the recent interest in life-span
developmental psychology originated from the field of adult development
and aging. Thus, the field of aging contains much work which is directly
related to life-span thinking (Binstock & Shanas 1 976, Birren & Schaie
1 977, Schaie & Gribbin 1975) and which has been mentioned through
out.
The study of adult development and aging, however, does not only sug
gest implementation of a life-span developmental approach, it also stretches
its conceptual and methodological boundaries. For example, if life-span
developmental paradigms imply long-term connections involving anteced
ent-consequent relationships (in the sense of continuity and predictive valid
ity of behavioral development), the periods of adulthood and old age
represent extreme testing grounds for a life-span developmental posture, at
least with regard to the long-term impact of infancy, childhood, and adoles
cence on subsequent development during the life course (Birren 1979, Jar
vik 1975). Various facets of this issue were addressed in a symposium
publication (Baltes 1973) which contains contributiqns by Baltes on para
digms of life-span research, Charles on intelligence, Kohlberg on moral
development, Looft on socialization, Reese on memory, Riegel on language
and cognition, Urban and Lago on psychiatric disorders, and Woodruff on
psychophysiology. A handbook edited by Brim & Kagan ( 1980) provides
a current view of the evidence on constancy and change in human develop
ment through the life span and on the conditions under and the extent to
which the past is a prologue to the future.
Other Psychological Specialties
It is premature to evaluate the degree to which a life-span approach is likely

to contribute to conceptual and empirical work in specialties other than
developmental psychology. However, there is evidence that viewing the
subject matter in other psychological specialties from a life-span perspective
might be useful.
In the area of clinical and communitypsychology, for example, an impor
tant contribution by the life-span perspective is seen in conferences orga
nized by the Society for the Study for Life History Research in
Psychopathology (e.g. Roff 1970, 1972). Recently, Smyer & Gatz (1 979)
and Danish, Smyer & Nowak ( 1 980) have reemphasized that a life-span
approach can assist in specifying targets, settings, and technologies of inter
vention. These authors reviewed the concepts of life skills and life crises as
primary means by which the life-span perspective can direct the focus of
clinical psychology. On a more general level, these themes were also empha
sized in two of the most recent West Virginia Conferences on Life-Span
Developmental Psychology, on normative life crises (Datan & Ginsberg
1975) and on intervention (Turner & Reese 1980). In these publications it
is evident that a developmental orientation, whether life-span or not, is
helpful in articulating the rationale for distinguishing between generic strat
egies of intervention as implied, for example, in the contrasts among
primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention (Harshbarger 1973). Develop
mental conceptions of behavior also influence the definition of what is
optimal and what is deviant, the choice and timing of intervention strate
gies, and the evaluation of intervention effectiveness in terms of both direc
tionality and ontogenetically later outcomes (Baltes & Danish 1980,
Brandtstiidter 1980).
In addition, a life-span approach makes it apparent that clinical and
community psychology should address as forcefully as possible the needs
of an increasingly large aging population. Whether such a concern will lead
to a separate field ofclinical gerontology or to a life-span clinical psychology
is a question which has many ramifications for the design and delivery of
human services. A life-span developmental approach would suggest, of
course, that the formulation of an integrated, life-span conception of clinical
and community psychology, rather than the creation of a separate subspe
cialty of clinical geropsychology, is the preferred option (Smyer & Gatz
1979).
Another example, in the areas of educational and occupational psy
chology, is a growing recognition that education goes beyond instructional
content and objectives focused on young people in school environments.
The theme of life-long learning is attracting more and more attention (Dave
1976, Dubin 1974, Houle 1974, Schaie & Willis 1978), and the role of
occupation and work is being increasingly discussed, not only as the out
come of inter- and intragenerational socialization, but also as an intrinsic
component of the developmental process across the life span (Clausen 1972,
Featherman & Hauser 1978, Fozard & Popkin 1978, Kohn & Schooler
1978, Lempert 1977, Sarason 1977). As Clausen (1972, p. 474) put it: "For
the average male, no other social role approaches the occupational role in
the saliency and pervasiveness of its influence on other aspects of the life
course."
Our final example is the area ofpersonality psychology, in which life-span
views are highly relevant. Data on long-term predictive relationships of
personality development are accumulating (e.g. Costa & McCrae 1980,

Eichorn 1973, Honzik & MacFarlane 1973, P. S. Sears 1979, R. R. Sears
1977, Sears & Barbee 1977). In addition, following the tradition of Jung
( 1933, 1960), Erikson (1959, 1963), and BUhler & Massarik (1968), a surge
of recent research has been aimed at identifying and charting phases of adult
life (Block 197 1 , Brim 1976, Gould 1972, Haan & Day 1974, Levinson et
al 1978, Lowenthal, Thurner & Chiriboga 1975, Neugarten 1977, Vaillant
1977). It is important to recognize that the aim is not only to generate a
separate body of knowledge about adulthood, but to view this period as a
component of the life-span development of personality. The concept of
self-actualization (BUhler & Massarik 1968), for example, has intrinsic
life-span features, as does the Eriksonian concept of identity, for which
Vaillant & Milofsky (1 979) have recently presented data on longitudinal
relationships from adolescence to middle adulthood.
Taking the specialties mentioned as illustrative reveals a challenge to
developmental psychology. As other specialties of psychology move toward
consideration of issues related to life-span development, the field of develop
mental psychology is asked to offer a useful body of basic knowledge.
Developmental psychologists need to respond vigorously to this challenge
by expanding their scope and interests, particularly for the task of linking
developmental psychology as a field of basic inquiry to applied psychologi
cal specialties involving persons of all ages.
Life-Span Research in Neighboring Disciplines

As mentioned before, there is interest in a life-span approach in other
disciplines as well. This is most evident in sociology.
Two precursor emphases continue to capture attention in the sociological
literature. One is the study of life histories and structures (Elder 1975,
Hogan 1978, Runyan 1978); the other is concern with the family life cycle
(Aldous 1978; Demos & Boocock 1978; Glick 1947, 1977; Hareven 1978;
Hill & Mattessich 1979; Hill & Rodgers 1964; Rodgers 1973). The literature
on the family life cycle also acknowledges the significance of historical,
cohort-related variations in family structure and functioning as they relate
to the structure of the life course (Demos & Boocock 1978, Hareven 1978,
Vinovskis 1977). In addition, the recent decade has seen a vigorous develop
ment of a more general sociological approach dealing with age and life-long
aging (Brim & Wheeler 1966; Cain 1964; Elder 1975; Kohli 1978; Maddox
& Wiley 1 976; Neugarten & Hagestad 1976; Riley 1976, 1 979; Rosenmayr
1978; Rosow 1974, 1976) and including the formulation of specific theoreti
cal models such as Riley's conception of age-cohort stratification and dy
namics (Foner 1975, 1978; Riley et aI 1972; Ryder 1965). As in psychology,
the sociological interest in a life-span or life-course approach is most pro
nounced in work on aging. For example, numerous chapters in the Hand

book of Aging and the Social Sciences (Binstock & Shanas 1 976) are
organized with the clear recognition that aging is a life-long process.
The prevalence of life-span conceptions in other neighboring disciplines

is less well documented, and therefore the following observations on an
thropology, economics, and biology are highly tentative. In anthropology,
since the early work of Boas and his students the life course has been a
regularly used scheme for ethnographic work, and chapters on age periods
and the life cycle are fairly regular in anthropological writing. However, an
anthropological theory of the life course has not evolved, although there is
evidence of a more theoretically oriented revisitation (Foner & Kertzer
1978, Stewart 1977). The life cycle also has a conceptual tradition in the
field of economics. Life-course perspectives are seen as potentially useful in
the understanding of the labor market, the allocation of time and goods, and
the role of the future life time as individuals make economic and consump
tion decisions (Engerman 1978, Estes & Wilensky 1 978, Ghez & Becker
1975, Rosen 1977). Publications in life cycle economics (Colloque Interna
tional du CNRS 1978, Heckman 1978) are of particular interest to develop
mental psychologists interested in methodological advances dealing with
the assessment and mOdeling of change (Nesselroade & Baltes 1 980a) .
The biological sciences have also participated in the formulation of a

life-span approach (Finch & Hayflick 1977; Thorbecke 1975; Timiras 1 972,
1978; Woodruff 1978). However, the distinction between development as
growth and differentiation (Lund 1978) and aging as a process of deteriora
tion and increasing vulnerability (Strehler 1977) appears to be paramount
in biology. This posture has led to fairly independent bodies of knowledge,
thereby interfering with the articulation of integrated life-span conceptions.
It will be worthwhile for developmental psychologists to keep abreast of this
discussion in biology in order to evaluate whether the distinction between
development and aging is more an historical accident than a conceptually
and empirically sound distinction.
Information about life-span research in other disciplines is not only inter
esting, but also relevant for efforts aimed at forging interfaces and elucidat
ing interdisciplinary bodies of knowledge. Elder (1975) and Riley ( 1979)
have made persuasive arguments for promoting such an integrative and

multidisciplinary view of the life course, and Spierer (1977) has edited a
summary of a multidisciplinary conference on transitions in the human life
cycle.
CONCLUDING COMMENTARY
As we evaluate the status of the emerging field of life-span developmental

psychology, we offer the following concluding observations.
The speed and intensity of the growth of the field during the last decade
has been impressive. Yet it is also obvious that much of the work has been
conceptual and methodological rather than empirical. Although this is
perhaps a natural stage in any rapidly developing field, we believe that a
stronger infusion of empirical life-span work is now imperative.

It is also apparent that the life-span movement has been carried primarily
by researchers interested in adulthood and old age rather than childhood
and adolescence. Whatever the reason for this state of affairs, we believe that
a more vigorous concern of life-span researchers with issues of infancy and
childhood will be important as life-course bridges and substantive theories
are built. There can be no satisfactory life-span developmental psychology
without a strong foundation in infancy and childhood. Equally, there can
be no comprehensive theory of child development without statements about
the role of child development in the life span.
Finally, we observe that the potential fertility of life-span developmental
psychology lies in part in its substantive richness for other psychological
specialites. These intersects with other psychological specialties need to be
identified and nurtured; in the long run, if successfully implemented, they
will permit the field of developmental psychology to continue to play a
prominent role in psychology as a whole. Consequently, we suggest that the
future role of developmental psychology in the larger context of psychology
is to a measurable degree dependent on the fate of the life-span movement.
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ANNUAL

Ann. Rev. Psychol 1980. 31;65-110 ,

LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL +321

Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences,

Department of Psychology, West Virginia University,

Department of Psychology, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912

INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION ...................................................................... 66

Development as Lifelong Process............................................................................... . 69

INTRODUCTION AND DEFINITION

in the way developmental psychology is conceptualized ( Rauh 1978). The

much immediate interest. For example, the excellent book by Hollingworth

historical analysis to understand why the life-span movement of the 1920s

Furthermore, "life-span" gerontologists (Baltes et al 1977, Nesselroade &

age-cohort confounds) and have proposed innovative solutions (e.g. study­

MAJOR ASSUMPTIONS AND PROPOSITIONS

Because life-span developmental psychology is not a particular theory but

Development as Lifelong Process

tion to death. Often this proposition is contrasted with the traditional

framework. In the life-span orientation, no special state of maturity is

Development as Expression of Ontogenetic

for regularities and differences in human development. This general onto­

Schneirla 1968, Werner 1948).

Pluralistic Conceptions of Development

A third set of propositions associated with the emerging orientation of a

DESCRIPTION OF DEVELOPMENT Particularly in the United States,

tioning. This is one important class of developmental change, but it is not

LIFE SPAN OR DEVE,LOPMENTAL TIME

Figure 1 Hypothetical examples of life-span developmental processes. Developmental func­

1970, Baltes 1979) or of the quantitative "more or less" kind, Figure 1

life. Others are unique to restricted age segments or developmental settings,

EXPLANATION OF-DEVELOPMENT A pluralistic posture is also taken

multicausal and interactive model shown in Figure 2. This model is not a

life cycle, education, and occupation. Age-graded events are normative if

BASIC DETERMINANTS INFLUENCES ON DEVELOPMENT

Figure 2 Representation of the operation of three major influence systems on life-span

with career changes, relocation, medical traumata, accidents, temporary

LIFE-COURSE PROFILES OF INFLUENCES Although it might be prema­

ture from an empirical point of view, it is useful to speculate about the

LIFE-SPAN PROFILE OF INFLUENCES

T CHILDHOOD ADOLESCENCE ADULTHOOD OLD AGE

Figure 3 Hypothetical life-course profiles representing the relative impact of normative

therefore a genetic program (Strehler 1977). As a larger and larger segment

larly strong in adolescence and early adulthood. Adolescence and early

history-graded ones and particularly non-normative life events.

Life-Span Developmental Psychology as Integrative

The fourth major assumption of life-span developmental researchers is that

COMBINATORIAL APPROACH Life-span developmental psychology is

THEMES AND CONCEPTS IN LIFE-SPAN DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

dynamic relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny, a number of life­

ble "aleatory" model. The stability model is exemplified by trait theory in

texts derive from the interplay between age-graded, history-graded, and

and contexts associated with history-graded and non-normative events (Da­

a paradigm as well as by the strengthening of ecological perspectives on

critical for advancing the field. Again, contextualistic-dialectical paradigms

ILLUSTRATIVE RESEARCH TOPICS

Space limitation does not permit coverage of life-span research in a variety

sects, where the reader interested, for example, in social development,

trends we identify as developmental to be actually generational. Finally,

SENSORY MEMORY In the prototypical information-processing model,

formed until further processed. The capacity ("volume") of the sensory

distinction is made between iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) sensory

SHORT-TERM MEMORY The number of items that can be held in short­

RECOGNITION VERSUS RECALL Recognition memory competence de­

age-cohort confounds) and have proposed innovative solutions (e.g. study

for regularities and differences in human development. This general onto

Figure 1 Hypothetical examples of life-span developmental processes. Developmental func

LIFE-COURSE PROFILES OF INFLUENCES Although it might be prema

dynamic relationship between ontogeny and phylogeny, a number of life

and contexts associated with history-graded and non-normative events (Da

SHORT-TERM MEMORY The number of items that can be held in short

RECOGNITION VERSUS RECALL Recognition memory competence de

productivity, occupational success, and status attainment (Cole 1979, Pea

ISSUES IN MEASUREMENT The study of life-span development of intel

DESCRIPTIVE RESEARCH ON STRUCTURAL CHANGE As to the ques

In addition to simply acknowledging lifelong development of social be

context of parent-child relationships and divorce. Attending to develop

nounced in work on aging. For example, numerous chapters in the Hand

Featherman, D. L., Hauser, R. M. 1978. Op

demic riage and the Family, ed. H. T. Chris

Hultsch, D. F. 1974. Learning to learn in Kalish, R A., Knudtson, F. W. 1 976. At

ment. See Baltes 1978 Matarazzo, J. D. 1972. Wechsler's Measure

tory and rationale of longitudinal re cham, Vol. 2. Chicago: Aldine

proach. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Schaie, K. W. 1973. Methodological prob

A fifty-year Perspective, ed. J. C. Stan Practice, ed. R. E. Cooke, S. Levin,