Historically, the concept of development has referred to processes that take place early in life. A basic scholarly ambition has been to provide research results that make it possible to understand and predict ontogenesis. The object of inquiry in these ambitions has been the individual and his/her path towards adulthood. It seems reasonable to assume that in complex societies, cultural and societal changes co-determine human functioning and development at all age levels, and in ways that are significant for most spheres of life. In life-span developmental psychology, the validity of the person-centered models has been questioned, and more complex perspectives, involving interaction between persons and their environments, have been suggested. In the present article, it is argued that studying development in complex societies must take the hybrid nature of human cognitive and other capacities into account. The conception of mind dominating most of life-span developmental research is too simplistic. Development does not reside solely in the individual but must be understood as the capacity to adapt to, and participate in, socio-material ecologies of communication that characterize rapidly changing societies.

从历史上看，发展的概念指的是生命早期发生的过程。一个基本的学术目标是提供研究结果，使理解和预测个体发生成为可能。这些抱负的调查对象是个人和他/她走向成年的道路。似乎可以合理地假设，在复杂的社会中，文化和社会的变化共同决定了所有年龄段的人类功能和发展，并且以对大多数生活领域都具有重要意义的方式。在终生发展心理学中，以人为中心的模型的有效性受到质疑，并提出了更复杂的观点，涉及人与环境之间的相互作用。在本文中，有人认为，研究复杂社会的发展必须考虑到人类认知能力和其他能力的混合性质。主导大多数终生发展研究的心智概念过于简单化。发展不仅仅存在于个人身上，还必须被理解为适应和参与以快速变化的社会为特征的社会物质传播生态的能力。