ABSTRACT
Developmentalists have a ready metaphor to hand to describe the history of their own discipline. Thus one might be tempted to pinpoint the date when developmental psychology was born, to view developmental psychology at the turn of the century as being in its infancy and to ask whether or not it has now, after travelling on through its childhood and youth, arrived at its maturity or whether it is still suffering from the sturm und drang of adolescence. I have resisted this temptation. Using the metaphor of steady, progressive development through predictable stages may always have been glib, but from the standpoint of the 1990s to write in this way would be to invite embarrassment. We have reached a different vantage point in terms of our general understanding of science and in particular of our understanding of the history of child psychology.
