Current Research in Ecological and Social Psychology (Jan 2023)
A space-time theory of psychological development
Abstract
One of the main initiatives in the study of psychological development is to examine how individuals change across the lifespan and in response to important life events. Indeed, life is full of transformative experiences that can change how individuals develop and how happy and healthy they are. To date, much of the work on adult development has been decontextualized with respect to these issues—despite developmental time and developmental space being inextricably linked. Here, I review the mechanisms that give rise to geographic and lifespan variability in psychological traits and present a series of axioms about how individual development is rooted within space and time. The axioms focus on how individuals live within a particular space-time (and the consequences of this), the controllability of development and geographic mobility, that places are defined by our interpretation of them within time, and that places—just like individuals—are not static entities over time. Individuals and their environments interact in complicated ways over time and gaining a broader understanding of these interactions can provide us with a more holistic perspective on psychological development.
