ABSTRACT
Life-span developmental theory constitutes a conceptually rich and empirically productive instance of relational developmental systems (RDS)-based theory. By the end of the twentieth century, RDS-based theories emerged as a superordinate frame for several different mid-range models of human development. The RDS-based model sought to avoid the problems of reductionism associated with neo-nativist ideas about human development. According to G. Fischer and Bidell, as well as other theorists who use RDS-based ideas to frame their developmental scholarship, all facets of human behavior develop within the system. In addition, in all cases, ideas associated with RDS-based theories provide information useful in critiquing these nature-based, reductionist models. In the context of these assumptions, Paul Baltes and colleagues noted that life-span developmental theory has several scientific goals, ones that span and integrate the basic-to-applied continuum of interest in other members of the RDS-based theory family.
