Nature-nurture reconceptualized in developmental perspective: a bioecological model

Cast in Six Ponds and You'll Reel in Something: Looking Back on 25 Years of Research

The author describes his program of research over the past 25 years. This research falls into 6 areas that are interdependent and that inform each other. The overall program is guided by 3 bioecological principles that posit the need for proximal processes and motivation to actualize biological potential. The author presents examples of experiments that fall into each of the 6 areas and show that human potential is highly contextualized and that, consequently, the same person who fails at a task in one domain is often able to succeed at it in a different domain.

Affect and peer context interactively impact adolescent substance use

Risk factors, such as emotional distress and peer substance involvement, are often tested as competing influences on adolescent substance use. However, the current study examined how affect (both positive and negative) and peers (both in terms of relationship quality and substance involvement) are interactive influences on adolescent substance use. A sample of 398 high school juniors and seniors completed surveys assessing each of these domains. Results of hierarchical regression analyses showed strong associations between an adolescent's and his or her best friend's substance use. Complex interactions supported the study hypothesis in that relations between affect and adolescent substance use were context dependent, with some peer contexts enhancing risk for substance use and others dampening this risk. Implications of these findings for interventions and preventions concerning adolescent substance use are discussed.

A strategy to reduce cross-cultural miscommunication and increase the likelihood of improving health outcomes

Encounters between physicians and patients from different cultural backgrounds are becoming commonplace. Physicians strive to improve health outcomes and increase quality of life for every patient, yet these discordant encounters appear to be a significant factor, beyond socioeconomic barriers, in creating the unequal and avoidable excess burden of disease borne by members of ethnic minority populations in the United States. Most clinicians lack the information to understand how culture influences the clinical encounter and the skills to effectively bridge potential differences. New strategies are required to expand medical training to adequately address culturally discordant encounters among the physicians, their patients, and the families, for all three may have different concepts regarding the nature of the disease, expectations about treatment, and modes of appropriate communication beyond language. The authors provide an anthropological perspective of the fundamental relationship between culture and health, and outline systemic changes needed within the social and legal structures of the health care system to reduce the risk of cross-cultural miscommunication and increase the likelihood of improving health outcomes for all populations within the multicultural U.S. society. The authors define the strengths inherent within every culture, provide a guideline for the clinician to evaluate disease and illness within its cultural context, and outline the clinical skills required to negotiate among potential differences to reach mutually desired goals for care. Last, they indicate the structural changes required in the health care setting to enable and support such practice.

Cognitive outcomes in school-age children born prematurely

The purpose of this article is to discuss findings in the literature regarding long-term developmental outcomes of infants born prematurely, to examine potential causes of individual differences in these outcomes, and to explore directions for future research. An extensive table summarizes recent (1996-2002) international studies of developmental outcomes among children of school age and older who were born with low birth weight, especially as the studies relate to cognitive development and academic performance. The discussion then examines how characteristics of the child and the environment may interact to produce individual differences in outcomes. Processes of attention regulation within the context of the psychosocial environment are examined as an important possible direction for future research. When designing and implementing interventions aimed at improving outcomes in this and other groups of children at risk for delays and deficits, it is important to consider how various factors affect development.

Predictores de la conducta antisocial juvenil: un modelo ecológico

Este estudio pone a prueba un modelo ecológico como marco teórico explicativo de la antisocialidad juvenil. 204 jóvenes mexicanos que cursaban la educación secundaria o preparatoria contestaron un cuestionario con preguntas acerca de la violencia intrafamiliar, su conducta antisocial, la ingesta de alcohol de sus madres, los problemas de conducta escolar, algunas características del ambiente familiar, escolar y del barrio y las actitudes acerca de la violencia. Los datos fueron analizados a través de un modelo estructural en el cual las variables investigadas constituyeron factores e índices que representaban a los niveles de la teoría ecológica. Los resultados mostraron que el microsistema tuvo un efecto directo en la conducta antisocial de los menores, el exosistema mostró un efecto también directo en el microsistema y por lo tanto uno indirecto en la conducta antisocial de los menores, y el macrosistema tuvo un efecto directo en el exosistema y uno indirecto en la antisocialidad de los jóvenes. Lo anterior parece respaldar el modelo ecológico, como explicación coherente de la conducta antisocial en los menores.

Biocultural orchestration of developmental plasticity across levels: the interplay of biology and culture in shaping the mind and behavior across the life span

The author reviews reemerging coconstructive conceptions of development and recent empirical findings of developmental plasticity at different levels spanning several fields of developmental and life sciences. A cross-level dynamic biocultural coconstructive framework is endorsed to understand cognitive and behavioral development across the life span. This framework integrates main conceptions of earlier views into a unifying frame, viewing the dynamics of life span development as occurring simultaneously within different time scales (i.e., moment-to-moment microgenesis, life span ontogeny, and human phylogeny) and encompassing multiple levels (i.e., neurobiological, cognitive, behavioral, and sociocultural). Viewed through this metatheoretical framework, new insights of potential interfaces for reciprocal cultural and experiential influences to be integrated with behavioral genetics and cognitive neuroscience research can be more easily prescribed.

The moderation of adolescent-to-peer similarity in tobacco and alcohol use by school levels of substance use

Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examined the impact of school-level smoking and drinking on adolescent-peer similarity for smoking and drinking. Hierarchical linear modeling revealed that adolescent-peer similarity was significantly moderated by school-level substance use for both tobacco and alcohol use. For tobacco, similarity between adolescent and peer use increased from .18 in the lower quartile of tobacco-using schools to .44 in the upper quartile of tobacco-using schools. Corresponding similarities for alcohol use ranged from .25 to .34. These results suggest that schools with relatively few substance-using peers provide less opportunities for adolescents to pick niches that expose them to risk factors that correspond to their own substance-use behaviors.

Family contexts, individual characteristics, proximal settings, and adolescents' aspirations

This study examined relations among family contexts, individual characteristics, proximal family and school settings, and adolescents' aspirations. As part of a national longitudinal investigation of Australian secondary school students, data were collected from 1,724 boys and 1,788 girls. The results suggest (a) family contexts defined conjointly by family social status and parents' perceived aspirations have medium to large associations with adolescents' educational aspirations and small significant associations with occupational aspirations. (b) Also, relations between family contexts and adolescents' aspirations are mediated in part by measures of adolescents' individual characteristics and their perceptions of proximal learning settings. (c) There are family context differences in the nature of the linear and curvilinear relations among individual characteristics, proximal settings, and adolescents' aspirations. Further, (d) there are sex-related variations in the associations between family contexts, individual characteristics, proximal learning settings, and adolescents' aspirations.

Contemporary developmental theory and adolescence: developmental systems and applied developmental science

PURPOSE

To discuss developmental systems models of human development and explain how they offer a productive frame for research, policies, and programs aimed at understanding adolescents' development and enhancing their health and positive development. Contemporary developmental theory stresses that the multiple levels of organization involved in human life (ranging from biology through culture, the natural and designed ecology, and history) are systemically integrated across ontogeny. Relations within this developmental system are the focus of developmental analysis and application.

METHODS

The key features of developmental systems theories are reviewed, and their use for framing scholarship about and applications for improving adolescent development are assessed.

RESULTS

We demonstrate the potential of contemporary developmental theory for understanding the character and dynamics of adolescent development and for using this knowledge for the design of effective policies and programs that promote positive youth development.

CONCLUSIONS

An adequate and sufficient science of adolescent development, and one that is able to help in the development of successful policies and programs for youth, must integratively study the relations between individuals and contexts in an integrated, systemic, and temporal manner.

Postdisaster emotional distress, depression and event-related variables: findings across child and adolescent developmental stages

OBJECTIVE

Developmental approaches have not been widely used in child and adolescent posttraumatic stress disorder research, and little is known about developmental differences in response to postdisaster trauma. Our objective was to investigate postdisaster depression and emotional distress psychopathology across a broad child and adolescent developmental range.

METHOD

Six months following a bushfire disaster, 2379 grade 4-12 school students -completed an extensive self-report battery, which included the Impact of Event Scale and the Birleson Depression Inventory. Generalized linear models were constructed to model the effects of multiple covariates on continuous outcome measures of depression and emotional distress.

RESULTS

Significant independent predictors of persisting depressive symptoms were increased symptoms of emotional distress; increased symptoms of anxiety; evacuation experience; and school grade. Significant independent predictors of emotional distress were persisting depressive symptoms; perception of threat to self or to parents; evacuation experience; and school grade. Gender was not a significant predictor in either the depression or emotional distress multivariate models. Complex, non-linear relationships between depression, emotional distress and school grade were found.

CONCLUSION

This study suggests that important developmental differences in postdisaster psychological responses exist across a broad spectrum of developmental stages in children.

Social neuroscience: understanding the pieces fosters understanding the whole and vice versa

Social science and neuroscience perspectives represent two ends of a continuum of levels of organization studied in psychology. Human behavior as a whole unfolds at social levels of organization, whereas much of the research in psychology has focused on cognitive and biological pieces of this whole. Recent evidence underscores the complementary nature of social, cognitive, and biological levels of analysis and how research integrating these levels can foster more comprehensive theories of the mechanisms underlying complex behavior and the mind. This research underscores the unity of psychology and the importance of retaining multilevel integrative research that spans molar and molecular levels of analysis.

Environmental and individual influences on Australian students' likelihood of staying in school

In this longitudinal study, the author examined environmental and individual influences on the likelihood of Australian adolescents staying in school. Participants were 6,778 Anglo Australian, 350 Asian, and 472 European students (mean age = 14.7 years) who were in Year 9 when the study began. The analyses indicated that adolescents from middle social status backgrounds and Asian families were more likely to stay in school than were those from lower social status backgrounds and Anglo Australian families; academic self-concept, achievement, perceptions of environments, and aspirations had a large independent association with staying in school; and there were significant differences in relationships among the aforementioned variables for adolescents from different ethnic groups and among those who decided to stay in or drop out of school.

Interação social e responsividade em ambientes doméstico e de creche: cultura e desenvolvimento

Visando descrever e comparar os níveis de interação em ambientes doméstico e de creche, incluindo diferentes indicadores de interação, o estudo observou 148 crianças em situação de brinquedo livre, 58 em creches e 90 em ambiente doméstico, de nível sócio econômico baixo e médio. As observações foram filmadas e segmentadas em 30 intervalos de 10 segundos, registrando-se as interações com adultos e outras crianças. Os resultados encontrados sugerem que casa e creche são diferentes quanto às oportunidades de interação, a casa favorecendo mais interações corporais, uma diferença não encontrada nas interações verbais. O conceito de interação, em sua relação com um quadro teórico de referência, emerge como crucial nesse estudo. Os resultados encontrados sugerem que os estudos na área problematizem os critérios de interação adotados, no sentido de buscar uma descrição mais abrangente do ambiente de desenvolvimento, em que o papel da cultura seja equacionado.

Interval length and time-use by children with AD/HD: a comparison of four models

Predictions made by 4 competing models of time use by children with AD/HD were tested using a computerized version of the Matching Familiar Figures Test in 2 studies. In Study 1 teacher-identified AD/HD children (N = 10) and non-AD/HD controls (N = 10) completed the task under 3 different trial duration conditions (5, 10, and 15 s). In Study 2 the same task was completed by a group of children with a diagnosis of Hyperkinetic Disorder (N = 12) and controls (N = 12). In both studies AD/HD children performed poorly on trials of both 5- and 15-s duration but as well as controls on the 10-s trials. This quadratic function provided support for the State Regulation Deficit model of time use in AD/HD. The value of tailoring the temporal features of learning contexts to the conceptual style of AD/HD children is discussed.

Gene-environment interplay in relation to emotional and behavioral disturbance

The conceptual and methodological issues involved in the study of gene-environment correlations (rGE) and interactions (GxE) are discussed in historical context. Quantitative genetic findings are considered with respect to rGE and GxE in relation to emotional and behavioral disturbance. Key conceptual and substantive implications are outlined in relation to both genetic and environmental risk mediation, with a brief note on evolutionary considerations.

Caring for the involuntarily hospitalized adolescent: the issue of power in the nurse-patient relationship

TOPIC

The power relations between involuntarily hospitalized adolescents and their caregivers from the viewpoint of theory development in nursing and the concept of medicalization.

PURPOSE

To contribute to the development of nursing theories that can guide nursing care of involuntarily hospitalized adolescents by examining the power relations between the adolescents and their caregivers.

SOURCES

Published literature in medical sociology, and nursing and psychiatric ethics. Nursing and psychiatric literature, in which Michel Foucault's theories are used to explicate the disciplinary power of psychiatry.

CONCLUSIONS

To empower involuntarily hospitalized adolescents nurses must both recognize the inevitable power imbalance and seek guidance from the egalitarian ideals of nursing. Nurses can draw from postmodern thinkers who dismiss the idea that one theory can explain human relationships.

The family Re-Union initiative: a springboard for family-centered community building, locally and nationally

Family Re-Union is an ongoing conference series and family policy initiative launched in 1992 by Al and Tipper Gore. It has been the springboard for a new wave of family-centered community building efforts, including the development of an educational program to prepare a new generation of community builders. We summarize the history of this family-centered community building movement and discuss how it builds upon and differs from earlier approaches to community development. We describe Family Re-Union and some of the ongoing work it has fueled. And we suggest ways family professionals can take part in this work.

What predicts adolescent violence in better-off neighborhoods?

Predictors of repeated violent delinquency across ages 13-19 were investigated in a longitudinal sample of 420 urban adolescent males living in high- compared to low-socioeconomic status (SES) neighborhoods. Adolescents in high-SES neighborhoods were significantly less likely than their counterparts in low-SES neighborhoods to engage in serious and violent delinquency. Results indicated that risk factors for later repeated violence among adolescents in high-SES neighborhoods, such as physical aggression, may be biologically based, whereas risk factors for later violence among adolescents in low-SES neighborhoods, such as poor parent-adolescent communication and early intercourse, appeared to be context-dependent. Having positive attitudes toward problem behavior and delinquent peers increased risk for later violence regardless of neighborhood SES type. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

The social ecology of health: leverage points and linkages

The authors demonstrate the usefulness of social ecology theory for improving the treatment and prevention of poor health. The social ecology of health, unlike the topics of previous triptychs in Behavioral Medicine, is a field without a clearly defined body of literature. We begin with an overview of the ecological perspective and ecological theory as outlined by Bronfenbrenner and colleagues, provide examples of how ecological concepts have been demonstrated to influence health, and discuss how these concepts can be used by health professionals. We present a heuristic model illustrating leverage points and linkages (i.e., socioeconomic status, family, work, and school), for health, and we conclude with a consideration of the benefits of social ecology to health professionals and a summary of the limitations of the ecological model.

Heritability estimates versus large environmental effects: the IQ paradox resolved

Some argue that the high heritability of IQ renders purely environmental explanations for large IQ differences between groups implausible. Yet, large environmentally induced IQ gains between generations suggest an important role for environment in shaping IQ. The authors present a formal model of the process determining IQ in which people's IQs are affected by both environment and genes, but in which their environments are matched to their IQs. The authors show how such a model allows very large effects for environment, even incorporating the highest estimates of heritability. Besides resolving the paradox, the authors show that the model can account for a number of other phenomena, some of which are anomalous when viewed from the standard perspective.

Experimental Validity: Brunswik, Campbell, Cronbach, and Enduring Issues

Donald Campbell and Lee Cronbach had a long history of mutual respect for and fundamental disagreement with each other's ideas about experimental validity. Issues that Campbell labeled as external validity, Cronbach labeled internal validity. Issues that Campbell labeled internal validity, Cronbach suggested are trivial. Nevertheless, these methodological pioneers share much common ground, in part because of their alliance with Egon Brunswik. As science moved from a deterministic to a probabilistic paradigm, all 3 endeavored to protect behavioral science from validity-threatening practices that could result from naive use of the Fisherian approach to scientific investigation. This review shows that issues concerning the prioritization of types of validity still need to be resolved and that most social scientists do not understand internal validity. Several empirical practices for enhancing validity are suggested.

Multilevel integrative analyses of human behavior: social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches

Social and biological explanations traditionally have been cast as incompatible, but advances in recent years have revealed a new view synthesized from these 2 very different levels of analysis. The authors review evidence underscoring the complementing nature of social and biological levels of analysis and how the 2 together can foster understanding of the mechanisms underlying complex behavior and the mind. Specifically, they review the utility of considering social influences on biological processes that are often viewed as outside the social domain including genetic constitution, gene expression, disease, and autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune activity. This research underscores the unity of psychology and the importance of retaining multilevel integrative research that spans molar and molecular levels of analysis. Especially needed in the coming years is more research on the mechanisms linking social and biological events and processes.

Family and individual correlates of academic goal orientations: social context differences in South Africa

This study examined relationships between distal social contexts, parents' support for learning, self-concept, and adolescents' academic goal orientations. Data were collected from 435 female and 410 male 18-yr.-old South Africans. Multistage regression analyses indicated that family social status and rural/urban locality had unmediated relations with the adolescents' learning and performance goal orientations. In addition, parent and self-concept measures combined to have small independent associations with the adolescents' academic goal orientations.

The role of families in adolescent HIV prevention: a review

Recent research has highlighted the significant contribution families make in the prevention of HIV risk behaviors among adolescents. As the most proximal and fundamental social system influencing child development, families provide many of the factors that protect adolescents from engaging in sexual risk behaviors. Among these are positive family relations, effective communication about sexuality and safer sexual behaviors, enhancement and support of academic functioning, and monitoring of peer activities. HIV risk behaviors occur in a social context, and it is becoming clear that the earliest and most effective way to intervene is in the context where one initially learns about relationships and behavior--the family. Both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Mental Health have taken steps to support and emphasize research that will further elucidate our understanding of the role of families in HIV prevention. This article uses Ecodevelopmental Theory to guide and organize the findings of this promising research area. Within this context, and with special attention to the comorbidity of adolescent problem behaviors, this article reviews empirical research on the role of families in HIV prevention, discusses current intervention efforts that involve families and ecosystems, and addresses prospects and implications for future research and interventions.

Supportive parenting and adolescent adjustment across time in former East and West Germany

Using a 3-year longitudinal data set, we examined the effects of consistently versus inconsistently supportive parenting on several aspects of adolescent adjustment. Supportive parenting was a multidimensional construct which included parental sensitivity, predictability and involvement. The sample consisted of 283 German early adolescents (mean age=11.4 years, S.D.=1.2 at time 1) from former East (n=97) and West (n=186) Germany. As hypothesized, adolescents who reported their parents to be consistently supportive (e.g. supportive for at least two points in time) had lower levels of depression and delinquency, higher levels of self-efficacy and did better in school over the 3-year period than adolescents who reported their parents to be inconsistently supportive (e.g. supportive at only one time point or less). The results showed that there were no significant interactions between region and supportive parenting, indicating that the effects of consistently supportive parenting "worked" in a similar manner in both contexts of former East and West Germany. Results also reveal that supportive parenting is not necessarily a stable phenomenon, but may fluctuate from year to year.

O impacto do ambiente familiar nos primeiros anos de vida: um estudo com adolescentes de uma invasão de Salvador, Bahia

Medidas de ajustamento psicossocial de 56 adolescentes de um bairro popular foram efetuadas, mediante um inquérito epidemiológico, para avaliar o poder preditivo de variáveis ambientais e sócio-econômicas, avaliadas quando esses sujeitos tinham entre 0 e 5 anos. Foram consideradas variáveis relativas a três diferentes momentos no curso de vida da família. A qualidade da estimulação no ambiente familiar precoce (escores no Inventário HOME) mostrou-se mais importante do que psicopatologia parental na análise de diferenças entre escores médios para problemas (QMPI) e competências (ACQ). O único fator do HOME significativamente correlacionado ao escore no QMPI foi "punição e restrição física" (p<0,05). De maneira geral, altos escores no Inventário HOME foram associados a mais altos índices de ajustamento. Entretanto, alguns fatores que indicam adversidade nos primeiros anos predisseram níveis mais altos de competência, alertando para a complexidade inerente à determinação de vulnerabilidade ou resiliência no processo do desenvolvimento.

Perceptions about substance use among male adolescents in juvenile detention

Although adolescents in juvenile detention represent a vulnerable population who are exposed to situations that foster risk-taking behaviors, few studies have been conducted with detained adolescents to determine their perceptions regarding substance use. Ethnographic interviews and observations were conducted with 20 male adolescents who resided in a large metropolitan area juvenile detention facility, to discover their substance use beliefs and the decisions they make to continue or discontinue substance use or abuse. The participants described how they initiated substance use and said that they had rarely made active decisions about substance use until they were detained. They explained the decisions they made, while they were in detention, to stop or cut down their substance use after release. They talked about the problems they anticipated when they returned home and how they hoped to balance their resolutions with their reputations and obligations. Time-out in juvenile detention may offer nurses the opportunity to capitalize on the potential readiness of detained adolescents to make resolution decisions regarding risky behaviors. Findings from a similar study conducted with 20 detained adolescent women were reported elsewhere.

The timing of academic difficulties among maltreated and nonmaltreated children

OBJECTIVE

In this study we examined the relationship between child maltreatment and the timing of academic difficulties.

METHOD

This study uses survival analysis to investigate the timing of risk of experiencing an academic difficulty for the first time. Three types of academic difficulties were examined-grade repetitions, poor English grades, and poor math grades. The sample included approximately 300 maltreated and 300 nonmaltreated children aged 5-18.

RESULTS

Maltreated children displayed greater risk than nonmaltreated children of repeating a grade and receiving a poor English and mathematics grade for the first time across most elementary years. Maltreated and nonmaltreated children share the same peaks in risk: first grade for their first grade repetitions and kindergarten for their first poor English and math grade. The best-fitting discrete time hazards models suggested underlying temporal patterns of risk vary according to the type of academic difficulty. For instance, maltreated children were at substantially higher risk than nonmaltreated children of repeating kindergarten and first grade. From second through sixth grade, maltreated and nonmaltreated children were indistinguishable in their risk of repeating a grade for the first time. In contrast, discrete-time hazards modeling showed that while the absolute risk of receiving a poor English or mathematics grade changes across the elementary years, the relative risk by maltreatment status does not.

CONCLUSIONS

While maltreated and nonmaltreated children share the same peaks in risk, the relative risk changes across time for grade repetitions but not for the first occurrence of a poor English or mathematics grade. In summary, this study highlights the importance of time in understanding the relationship between child maltreatment and academic difficulties.

Communication disturbances and family psychiatric history in parents of schizophrenic patients

Parents of schizophrenic patients have demonstrated subtle disturbances of thought, language, and communication. The etiologic relevance of these disturbances is not clear. This study assessed levels of referential communication disturbance in the "natural speech" of schizophrenic patients, nonschizophrenic parents of patients, and control subjects matched to the patients' parents and tested for associations of communication disturbances in parents with family history of psychosis and with schizotypy scale scores. The speech of the patients' parents as a group contained high frequencies of referential failures. Those parents with first-degree family histories of psychosis and/or high schizotypy scale scores made more frequent referential failures than the rest of the parents. Family history was particularly highly associated with failures involving language structural breakdown. The results of this study suggest that referential disturbances in parents of patients may be related to genetic liability in the parents. However, such an effect does not appear to account fully for the sizable differences between parents and controls in levels of communication disturbance.

A Família enquanto Contexto de Desenvolvimento Humano: Implicações para a Investigação em Saúde

Este artigo aborda a família enquanto contexto de desenvolvimento humano e espaço privilegiado do processo saúde-doença, situando-se conceitualmente numa interseção entre Ciências do Comportamento e Saúde Coletiva. Ao mesmo tempo, assinala algumas implicações de admitir a família como objeto de investigação. A partir do contexto familiar é possível observar uma série de mecanismos (processos) de risco-proteção à saúde. A análise de práticas culturalmente estruturadas de atenção à saúde no ambiente doméstico revela expressões de subjetividade no processo saúde-doença, e, numa perspectiva bidirecional, o modo como as pessoas respondem ao contexto e o modificam.

Family capital, children's individual attributes, and adolescents' aspirations: a follow-up analysis

In this follow-up study of an earlier investigation (Marjoribanks, 1992), relationships were examined between family capital, children's individual attributes, immediate family settings, and adolescents' aspirations. There were 500 Australian adolescents (250 girls, 250 boys) and their parents in the sample. The results of this study and of the earlier investigation suggest that (a) family environmental contexts are moderately to largely associated with children's academic performances and adolescents' aspirations; (b) relationships between family contexts, children's individual attributes, and adolescents' aspirations are mediated fully or in part by adolescents' perceptions of their parents' support for learning; and (c) there are gender-related differences in the nature of the associations among family capital, individual attributes, immediate family settings, and adolescents' aspirations.

Human abilities

This chapter reviews recent literature, primarily from the 1990s, on human abilities. The review opens with a consideration of the question of what intelligence is, and then considers some of the major definitions of intelligence, as well as implicit theories of intelligence around the world. Next, the chapter considers cognitive approaches to intelligence, and then biological approaches. It proceeds to psychometric or traditional approaches to intelligence, and then to broad, recent approaches. The different approaches raise somewhat different questions, and hence produce somewhat different answers. They have in common, however, the attempt to understand what kinds of mechanisms lead some people to adapt to, select, and shape environments in ways that match particularly well the demands of those environments.