Transcontextual Validity in Developmental Research

WEISZ, JOHN R. Transcontextual Validity in Developmental Research. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 1-12. Recent critiques of the generalizability of developmental principles raise an important question: Can we expect the psychological study of human development to yield durable principles, valid across changes in time, culture, and cohort? While the answer is probably yes, this answer must be qualified by an analysis of the form which enduring principles are likely to take, the limitations and strengths they are likely to display, and the process by which they are likely to be discovered. In unearthing and validating durable developmental principles, the complementarity of diverse methodologies (including lab and ecological approaches and designs of varying complexity) is a major asset. In addition, social relevance and scientific advance are potentially complementary objectives. Our discipline, it is argued, is at its best in a state of creative tension-between the pursuit of answers to contemporary social questions and the quest for firm scientific principles.