The Endogeneity Problem in Developmental Studies

Estimates of developmental models of processes involving contextual influences (e.g., child care arrangements, divorce, parenting, neighborhood location, peers) are subject to bias if, as is often the case, the contexts are influenced by the actions of ei-ther the individuals being studied or their parents or teachers. We assessed the nature of the endogeneity biases that may result, discuss the importance of such biases in practice, and suggest possible ways of avoiding them. Our primary recommendation is that developmentalists consider reorienting their data collection strategies to take advantage of real or “natural ” experiments that produce exogenous variation in fam-ily and contextual variables of interest. Individuals’livesareshapedbyarichsetof interactivegenetic, social, structural, and historical forces and processes. Consequently, developmental science places high demands on the evidence needed to separate correlation from causation. Although social science theory can commonly be invoked to limit the scope of problems and isolate key variables, a developmental perspective often does just the opposite. Be-cause a broad theoretical perspective holds great promise for advancing researchers’ understanding of human development, developmental scientists should not be sim-plifying their theories for the sake of empirical tractability. Instead, they should de-vote themselves to ensuring that their empirical work does justice to the theory.