ABSTRACT
Part One of this book provided a brief overview of the task of developmental psychology: the description, explanation, and modification (optimization) of intraindividual change in behavior and interindividual differences in such change across the life span. The preliminary conclusion of this introductory discourse was that developmental-research methodology should provide us with strategies that (1) focus on intraindividual change and regularities in change patterns, (2) are capable of identifying explanatory variable relationships of the historical type, (3) are sensitive to the production of knowledge about the range of intraindividual change patterns and the timing and form of possible intervention, and (4) view individual development in a changing biocultural ecology.
