ABSTRACT
Key postulates of the life-span developmental framework (Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, 2006), developmental systems theory (Ford, 1987; Overton & Lerner, 2012), probabilistic epigenesis (Gottlieb, 2007), and the bioecological framework (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006) all include the idea that human development is multiply determined. Influences at different levels (e.g., neurobiological, psychological, social, and cultural/ecological) are reciprocally interlinked to produce overall behavioral development and developmental plasticity (Lerner, 1984; Li, 2003). This complexity means that development proceeds at different rates in different behavioral domains and during different periods of the life span, and in different ways for different individuals (e.g., multidirectionality; Baltes, 1987). As such, the study of developmental phenomena, under optimal circumstances, calls for multivariate observation and analysis at multiple levels and on multiple time scales (Li, 2003; Li & Freund, 2005). Studying change inherently leads to questions about the time scale(s) on which those multivariate observations should be assessed and modeled, and, more generally, how the functional processes that manifest at different time scales are connected.
