Choosing a Paradigm to Guide Prevention Research and Practice

SUMMARY This paper examines the strengths and weaknesses of the three main paradigms that guide prevention research: organicism, mechanism, and contextualism. Organicism has prompted us to identify typical developmental sequences and to organize our prevention efforts to reduce the risk factors that contribute to problematic development. Mechanism has encouraged us to search for generalizable models of the interrelationships among behavioral variables and randomized control trials of prevention programs. Contextualism has given us a framework for working with the individual case. When contextualism is focused on the goal of prediction and influence of the phenomenon under study, it is particularly likely to identify interventions that can be used to prevent problems of concern to communities and other social units.