Rethinking age in developmental research

This position paper argues that discursive psychology (DP) challenges traditional understandings of development in developmental psychology. Developmental psychology typically views development as an individual process influenced by external context; ‘individual change over time’ and ‘context’ are approached as separate units of analysis. DP treats context as constitutive of development itself, where developmental change is co-produced in and through interaction. Here, individual change over time and context are together the unit of analysis. This raises a critical implication: observed changes cannot be assumed to reside "within" the individual if removed from the original interactional context. While DP provides theoretical and methodological tools to take the role of context more seriously, it also presents a fundamental challenge to the core aim of developmental psychologists - namely to study individual development. We propose that the solution is a shift in claims within developmental psychology regarding what ‘development’ is. Drawing from DP and practice-based ageing research, we reconceptualize development not as an internal state but as something people do in conversation; an interactional resource and an accomplishment emerging through talk and social interaction. For instance, change or stability (as aspects of ‘development’ and age-related ‘decline’) can be studied as real-time discursive resources that individuals do interactionally to achieve immediate (social) goals. An empirical case study demonstrates how DP can advance our understanding (rather than prediction) of development and change as situated, dynamic processes. We conclude by advocating for deeper integration of DP into developmental psychology to better capture the interplay between development and context.

Agency (philosophy) · Conversation analysis · Discourse analysis · Discursive psychology · Focus (optics) · Qualitative research · Aging and Gerontology Research · Ego Development and Educational Practices · Identity, Memory, and Therapy