A vision for a diverse, inclusive, equitable, and representative developmental science

Abstract

The fundamental goals of a well-ordered science are to describe, predict, and explain. Developmental scientists seek to apply these basic goals to the study of change over time. Developmental scientists have made momentous strides in understanding sources, mechanisms, and drivers of age-related change. Since its inception, Developmental Science has prioritized cross-cutting research with a focus on developmental mechanisms, contributing to 15 years of exceptionally high-impact and transformative research.

As our field advances, like many domains of Psychology, developmental science confronts fundamental questions about the generalizability of our empirical record. Our ability to address these critical questions significantly impacts our utility and credibility as a discipline. Essential to a generalizable science of human development is diversification of samples, populations, environments, and epistemologies that define our research endeavors. In recent years, there have been several calls for greater participant diversity given that developmental research has traditionally drawn disproportionately from geographically and socioculturally narrow samples (e.g., Nielsen et al., 2017; Singh, Cristia et al., 2023). Findings from nonrepresentative slices of the global population have often been advanced as universal even though much of the world is entirely absent from our empirical record (Henrich et al., 2010).

Efforts to diversify samples and to broaden scientific approaches have transformed our knowledge of even the most basic of developmental processes. For example, it was commonly believed that infants developed the capacity for independent locomotion in a fixed developmental sequence, reified in universal guidelines for early motor development published by the World Health Organization. However, these assumptions have been challenged by studying infants from understudied physical and social ecologies. Developmental scientists conducted studies in Tajikistan, where infants have different affordances for independent locomotion than infants in the United States (U.S). Tajik infants are bound supine in a gahvora cradle for significant amounts of time (Karasik et al., 2023). Confinement of movement at a stage of active motor exploration is contraindicated by public health advice offered in the US to caregivers (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2024). Thus, by US cultural norms, Tajik infants might be expected to lag behind U.S. infants. Indeed, Tajik infants, when assessed using U.S. norms, appear to do so. However, unlike U.S. infants, as early as 3 years of age, Tajik infants climb high ladders, sit perched on high ledges, and manipulate sharp tools, demonstrating a different set of motor abilities that do not surface on any U.S. motor assessment tool (Karasik et al., 2019). Importantly, long-term motor outcomes do not differ between US and Tajik infants (Karasik et al., 2023). This provides an example of how different sociocultural ecologies produce different affordances, which drives developmental adaptation. This example further demonstrates that investigations of varied sociocultural ecologies are critical for theoretical and empirical advancement.

In this editorial, I examine core questions of diversity, equity and inclusion and fundamentally of representation and scientific generalizability with the goal of deepening our scientific understanding of mechanisms of development. I focus on three critical areas: foregrounding context and culture in development; fostering inclusive scientific participation; and examining the intersection of open science practices and goals for a diverse, inclusive, and equitable science.

The author declares no conflicts of interest with regard to the funding source for this study.