Skip to main content

Depicting the Dynamics of Living the Life: The Trajectory Equifinality Model

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Dynamic Process Methodology in the Social and Developmental Sciences

Abstract

The study of a life course cannot exist without the notion of time. But psychologists and sociologists don't take the notion of time seriously. One of the reasons why they tend to disregard time is that their desire is to seek a depiction that focuses on stability. Actually many of them might "find" the stable structure of personality and stable trail of life course as they construct it through data analyses that are blind to variability and dynamicity. Taking the equifinality principle into account is one of the breakthrough in describing the dynamics. The Trajectory Equifinality Model (TEM) which we describe in this chapter is a new methodological device for psychology. It is based on the systemic view and takes the notion of irreversible time seriously.

The history of the organism is the organism. (Murray, 1938, p. 39)

The flow of the river never stops and yet the water never stays the same.

From “Hojoki: Written from a small square hut” (KAMO no Chomei, 1212)

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  • Abbey, E., & Valsiner, J. (2004). Emergence of meanings through ambivalence [58 paragraphs]. FQS: Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(1), Article 23, from http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0501231

  • Bertalanffy, von L. (1968). General systems theory. New York: Braziller.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Callero, P. L. (2003). The sociology of the self. Annual Review of Sociology, 29, 115–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cortés, M. (2008, August). A dialogical self—Trajectory equifinality model for higher education first year persistence/abandon study. Paper presented at the 5th International Conference of Dialogical Self. Cambridge, UK.

    Google Scholar 

  • Daaleman, T. P., & Elder, G. H. (2007). Family medicine and the life course paradigm. Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 20(1), 85–92. From http://www.jabfm.org/cgi/content/full/20/1/85

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Elder, G. H. (1985). Life course dynamics: Trajectories and transitions. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Elder, G. H. (1998). The life course and human development. In R. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology. Vol. 1. Theoretical modxels of human development (5th ed., pp. 939–991). New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank, L. K. (1939). Time perspective. Journal of Philosophy, 4, 293–312.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, L. R. (1990). An alternative “Description of personality”: The Big-Five factor structure. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 59, 1216–1229.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hermans, H. J. M. (1999). Self-narratives as meaning construction: The dynamics of self-investigation. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 55, 1193–1211.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hermans, H. J. M. (2001). The dialogical self: Toward a theory of personal and cultural positioning. Culture & Psychology, 7, 243–281.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hermans, H. J. M., & Bonarius H. (1991). The person as co-investigator in personality research. European Journal of Personality, 5, 199–216.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hermans, H. J. M., & Kempen, H. J. G. (1993). The dialogical self: Meaning as movement. San Diego: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kawakita, J. (1986). The KJ method: Seeking order out of chaos. Tokyo: Chuokoron-sha. (in Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Kido, A. (in press). Makeup behavior of the use by adolescent female students in the females in different cultural situation settings—Qualitative analysis of subjects in Japan and the USA―Qualitative analysis of interview Japan and U.S.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kullasepp, K. (2006). Identity construction of psychology students: professional role in the making. European Journal of School Psychology, 4(2), 249–280.

    Google Scholar 

  • Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lerner, R., & Busch-Rossnagel, N. (Eds.). (1981). Individuals as producers of their development: A life- span perspective. New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewin, K. (1943). Defining the “Field at a Given Time”. Psychological Review. 50, 292–310. (Republished in Resolving social conflicts & field theory in social science, Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 1997)

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewin, K. (1952). Field theory in social sciences. London: Tavistock.

    Google Scholar 

  • Macmillan, R., & Eliason, S. (2003). Characterizing the life course as role configurations and pathways: A latent structure approach. In J. T. Mortimer & M. J. Shanahan (Eds.), Handbook of the life course. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50, 370–396.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McAdams, D. P., & Pals, J. L. (2006). A new Big Five: Fundamental principles for an integrative science of personality. American Psychologist, 61, 204–217.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • McCrae, R. R., & Costa, P. T., Jr. (1996). Toward a new generation of personality theories: Theoretical contexts for the five-factor model. In J. S. Wiggins (Ed.), The five-factor model of personality: Theoretical perspectives (pp. 51–87). New York: Guilford.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNemar, Q. (1940). Sampling in psychological research. Psychological Bulletin, 37, 331–365.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McQuellon, R. P., Russell, G. B., Rambo, T., Craven, B., Radford, J., Perry, J., et al. (1998). Quality of life and psychological distress of bone marrow transplant recipients: The ‘time trajectory’ to recovery over the first year. Bone Marrow Transplantation, 21, 477–486.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Mitchell, C., Kaufman, C., & Beals, J. (2004). Equifinality and multifinality as guides for preventive interventions: HIV risk/protection among American Indian young adults. Journal of Primary Prevention, 25, 491–510.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mischel, W. (1968). Personality and assessment. New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mori, N. (2009). Methodological issues on two types of TEM study; retrospective and prospective. In T. Sato (Ed.), Starting qualitative study using the TEM as a new method. Tokyo: Seishin-Shobo. (in Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Murray, H. A. (1938). Explorations in personality. New York: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nuttin, J., & Lens, W. (1985). Future time perspective and motivation: Theory and research method. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

    Google Scholar 

  • Peirce, C. S. (1908). Collected papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. In C. Hartshorne, P. Weiss, & A. W. Burks (Eds.), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. [1931–1958 CP 6.475; the first refers to the volum, the number after the dot to the paragraph, and the last number to the year of the text]. C VOl6 of collected paper 475 paragraph, 1908 from http://user.uni-frankfurt.de/~wirth/texte/nubiola.html

  • Sato, T. (2007). Development, change or transformation: How can psychology conceive and depict professional identify construction? European Journal of School Psychology, 4, 319–332.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sato, T. (Ed.). (2009). Starting qualitative study using the TEM as a new method. Tokyo, Japan: Seishin-Shobo. (in Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Sato, T., Watanabe, Y., & Omi, Y. (2007). Beyond dichotomy—Towards creative synthesis. IPBS: Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 41(1), 50–59.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sato,T., Yasuda, Y., & Kido, A. (2004, August 12). Historically Structured Sampling (HSS) model: A contribution from cultural psychology. Paper presented at the 28th International Congress of Psychology, Beijing, China.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sato, T., Yasuda, Y., Kido, A., Arakawa, A., Mizoguchi, H., & Valsiner, J. (2007). Sampling reconsidered idiographic science and the analysis of personal life trajectories. In J. Valsiner & A. Rosa (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology (pp. 82–106). New York: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scupin, R. (1997). The KJ method: A technique for analyzing data derived from Japanese ethnology. Human Organization, 56, 233–237.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1946). On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103, 677–680.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Stevens, S. S. (1951). Mathematics, measurement and psychophysics. In S. S. Stevens (Ed.), Handbook of experimental psychology (pp. 1–49). New York: Wiley.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tanimura, S., Sato, T., & Tsuchida (2008). Gender role consciousness of the parents which let daughters aim at “The Normal Marriage (a full-time homemaker)”. Ritsumeikan Journal of Human Sciences, 17, 61–74. (in Japanese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (1986). Sequence-structure analysis study of serial order within unique sequences of psychological phenomena. In J. Valsiner (Ed.), The individual subject and scientific psychology. New York: Plenum.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (1999). Culture and human development. London: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (2001). Comparative study of human cultural development. Madrid: Fundacion Infancia y Aprendizaje.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (2007). Culture in minds and societies. New Delhi: Sage.

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J. (2009). Facing the future--making the past: The permanent uncertainty of living. In T. Sato (Ed.), Starting qualitative study on the TEM as a new method. Tokyo: Seishin-Shobo. (translated in Japanese)

    Google Scholar 

  • Valsiner, J., & Sato, T. (2006). Historically Structured Sampling (HSS): How can psychology´s methodology become tuned in to the reality of the historical nature of cultural psychology? In J. Straub, D. Weidemann, C. Kolbl, & B. Zielke (Eds.), Pursuit of meaning. Advances in cultural and cross-cultural psychology (pp. 215–251). Bielefeld: Transkript.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind and society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wheaton, B., & Gotlib, I. H. (1997). Trajectories and turning points over the life course: Concepts of themes. In I. H. Gotlib & B. Wheaton (Eds.), Stress and adversity over the life course: Trajectories and turning points (pp. 1–25). New York: Springer.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Yamada, Y. & Kato, Y. (2006). Images of circular time and spiral repetition: The generative life cycle model. Culture & Psychology, 12, 143–160.

    Google Scholar 

  • Yasuda, Y. (2005). Self-reassessment following infertility: Branching selection by couples unable to have children after infertility treatment. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 4, 201–226. (in Japanese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

  • Yasuda, Y., Arakawa, A., Takada, S., Kido, A., & Sato, T. (2008). Young women’s abortion experiences: The influence of social expectation and relationships with others. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 7, 181–203. (in Japanese with English abstract)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tatsuya Sato .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2009 Springer-Verlag New York

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Sato, T., Hidaka, T., Fukuda, M. (2009). Depicting the Dynamics of Living the Life: The Trajectory Equifinality Model. In: Valsiner, J., Molenaar, P., Lyra, M., Chaudhary, N. (eds) Dynamic Process Methodology in the Social and Developmental Sciences. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-95922-1_10

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics