ABSTRACT
Genetic psychology is the study of the ontogenesis of cognition. The study of child development may provide an explanation, or at least additional information as to the cognitive mechanisms in the adult. In other words, genetic psychology uses developmental psychology to solve general psychological problems. In the field of cognition, the main advantage of cross-cultural studies is to allow a dissociation of the sociocultural and individual factors in development. But it is essential to distinguish which factors are to be considered. First of all there are biological factors linked to the epigenetic system, which appear especially in the maturation of the nervous system. A second group of factors must therefore be introduced: these are equilibration factors, seen as an autoregulation closer to homeostasis than to homeorhesis. When one speaks of ‘social factors’, one in fact is usually referring to these differential cultural pressures.
