ABSTRACT
Developmental psychology, like any other social science, offers a set of conceptual tools for understanding certain features of human life. Of the many aspects of human life that we need to understand, developmental psychology can help with only some because it focuses primarily on behavioral formation that takes place in a progressive manner over time. Consequently, developmental psychology is best suited for analyzing the aspects of human behavior that do "improve" or that can be ordered on some scale relative to other aspects of behavior. Behavior that neither advances nor is developmentally scalable according to some reasonable criteria is best understood within another conceptual framework.
