Abstract
Drawing on both evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives, the basic biological-genetic and social-cultural architecture of human development is outlined. Three principles are involved. First, evolutionary selection pressure predicts a negative age correlation, and, therefore, genome-based plasticity and biological potential decrease with age. Second, for growth aspects of human development to extend further into the life span, culture-based resources are required at ever-increasing levels. Third, because of age-related losses in biological plasticity, the efficiency of culture is reduced as life span development unfolds. Joint application of these principles suggests that the lifespan architecture becomes more and more incomplete with age. Degree of completeness can be defined as the ratio between gains and losses in functioning. Two examples illustrate the implications of the lifespan architecture proposed. The first is a general theory of development involving the orchestration of three component processes: selection, optimization, and compensation. The second considers the task of completing the life course in the sense of achieving a positive balance between gains and losses for all age levels. This goal is increasingly more difficult to attain as human development is extended into advanced old age.
During the last decade, we have witnessed a vigorous effort to strengthen the link between evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives in the study of human behavior.
In this spirit, the purpose of this article is to offer a general framework of the biological and cultural architecture of human development across the life span. With this approach, which considers both evolutionary and ontogenetic arguments, I hope to identify the foundational structure that any general theory of human development must have.
Many of the arguments presented owe their line of reasoning to theoretical propositions associated with lifespan developmental psychology (P. B. Baltes, 1979, 1987; P. B. Baltes, Lindenberger, & Staudinger, in press; Elder, in press; Featherman, 1983; Labouvie-Vief, 1982). The arguments are also consistent with more recent theoretical efforts claiming that ontogenesis is inherently a system of adaptive change involving as foundational elements the orchestration of three subprocesses: selection, optimization, and compensation (M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996; P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1980, 1990; Heckhausen & Schulz, 1995; Marsiske, Lang, Baltes, & Baltes, 1995; Nesselroade & Jones, 1991).
Especially relevant for the present article is the notion that since the classical work of Tetens (1777), life span scholars proceeded in their theoretical efforts from the basic assumption that human development essentially is incomplete. In this article, I contend that this incompleteness of what I call the biological and cultural architecture of lifespan development is less promising than an unfinished Schubert symphony. The situation is more like an ill-designed building in which inherent vulnerabilities, as old age is reached, become more and more manifest.
The incompleteness of lifespan human development results primarily from two conditions. Incompleteness results first from the fact that biological and cultural co-evolution (Durham, 1991) has not come to a standstill but is an ongoing process. Second, and most important, incompleteness results from the fact that the biological and cultural architecture of human ontogeny is relatively undeveloped for the second part of the lifespan (P. B. Baltes, 1991; P. B. Baltes & Graf, 1996). Neither biological nor cultural evolution has had sufficient opportunity to evolve a full and optimizing scaffolding (architecture) for the later phases of life. A seeming paradox exists: Historically speaking, old age is young.
To explore this incompleteness argument and its implications for the future potentials of human development, lifespan researchers have focused their work on searching for methods to study age-related changes in plasticity (potential) and for conceptualizations that permit the definition of successful or effective human development. One general approach to this topic has been to define successful development as the relative maximization of gains and the minimization of losses (M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996; P. B. Baltes, 1987; P. B. Baltes & Baltes, 1990; Brändtstadter & Wentura, 1995; Marsiske et al., 1995).
Such a gain-loss approach also permits the definition of degrees or completeness or incompleteness of the life span. Using the ratio between achieved gains and losses as a criterion for evaluation, the lifespan architecture would be the more complete, the more, in all age periods of the life course, individuals were to show relatively more gains than losses in functioning. Instead of gains and losses, it would be possible also to use desirable and undesirable states as criteria. Currently, as described below in more detail, this pattern of relative completeness does not exist for all phases of life. Beginning in late adulthood and certainly in old age, losses outnumber gains, and with age the balance becomes less positive (P. B. Baltes, 1987).
The determination of what is a gain or a loss in ontogenetic change is a topic of theoretical as well as empirical inquiry (see also M. M. Baltes & Carstensen, 1996; Brandtstadter, 1984; Hobfoll, 1989; Kahneman & Tversky, 1984; Labouvie-Vief, 1982; Schulz & Heck-hausen, 1996). Suffice it here to mention that the nature of what is considered a gain or a loss can change with age; involves objective in addition to subjective criteria; and is conditioned by theoretical predilection, standards of comparison, cultural and historical context, as well as by criteria of functional fitness or adaptivity.
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Baltes, P.B. (2003). On the Incomplete Architecture of Human Ontogeny: Selection, Optimization, and Compensation as Foundation of Developmental Theory. In: Staudinger, U.M., Lindenberger, U. (eds) Understanding Human Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-0357-6_2
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