How does human development happen?
• Development occurs through mutually influential relations between individuals and the multiple levels of the ecology (context) of human development, represented as individual →← context relations. • Complex and mutually influential relationships between genes and the environment exist. • Neither genes nor environment directly cause behaviors. • History and the timing of relationships among levels or organization in the developmental system are key facets of development. • Plasticity (the capacity of humans for systematic change) is a fundamental feature of human development. • Children do not exist in a vacuum: Families, communities, politics, etc. also affect development.
