History and future of development in cross-cultural psychology

Our theme is that better integration of a developmental approach into cross -cultural psychology can enhance the future of cross-cultural psychology-me thodologically, theoretically, and empirically. Methodologically, developme ntal psychology contributes contextualized procedures, such as naturalistic observation, suitable for studying behavior in its cultural context. Theor etically, developmentalists point to the fact that the culturally construct ed behavior of adults can be viewed as an endpoint along a developmental pa thway and that adults provide cultural socialization to the next generation . Theoretically, development also leads to an understanding of how the biol ogically-grounded factor of maturational stage influences both the process and content of cultural learning. Empirically, a developmental approach lea ds researchers to investigate the culture-specific shape of developmental s tages. These culture-specific developmental patterns are selections from am ong a set of biologically evolved propensities. As development progresses, culture-specific stages cohere into developmental pathways. Two pathways le ading to independent and interdependent construals of the self are identifi ed.