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19.5: What do Maturational and Mechanistic meta-theories have in common?

  • Page ID
    9375
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    As depicted in Figure 8.5, the fact that Maturational meta-theories posit that development is the product of genes and neurophysiology (i.e., biological determinism) whereas Mechanistic meta-theories posit that development is the product of social conditioning (i.e., environmental determinism) often lead students to focus on the differences in these two meta-theories (nature versus nurture). However, these two meta-theories also have in common several underlying assumptions—that people are passive and reactive, that people are static and at rest unless moved by efficient causes, that development is driven (by either biology or environment), and that development shows great continuity with changes that are largely quantitative and in amount.

    Perhaps most fundamentally, these two meta-theories agree that nature can be understood and studied separate from nurture. Although the two meta-theories differ about the part that can be relegated to the status of background (with Maturational dismissing nature, and Mechanistic dismissing nurture), they share the core notion that person and context can be considered separate parts of the developmental equation. The view that nature and nurture can be dis-assembled and analyzed for their individual contributions reflects a basic underlying assumption that is sometimes referred to as “dualistic” or “reductionistic.” Maturational and Mechanistic meta-theories have in common that they are dualistic and reductionistic world views.