Human development as a probabilistic process: lessons from thirty years working on child development in the Third World

Abstract

The thesis of chis paper is that the predicrions of !ater human development based on a single event during early life generally have a weak interna! validiry. These limitations are not due to problems of study design but ro un erroneous conceptualization of the very nature of development. This is not determined by main effects but by the complex relationships among domains wirhin the organism and between the organism and the physical and che social environment. The propasa! is ro model human development as a probabilistic process that gradually shapes its developmental trajectory.