E. Saskia Kunnen

Development of meaning making : A dynamic systems approach

Abstract The development of meaning making can be seen as a central aspect of the development of self and identity in adolescence and adulthood. Current theories in this area offer descriptions of different developmental stages, but little is known about the factors and mechanisms involved in the developmental process. In this article a conceptual model is presented of these factors and mechanisms. Because descriptive models are too general to permit detailed descriptions of the process or the formulation of specific hypotheses for the validation of the model, the model has been translated into a quantitative dynamic systems model which allows the developmental process to be simulated. The developmental trajectories generated by the model can be compared with the theoretical ideas and empirical data concerning the development of meaning making. The simulated trajectories of the development of meaning making show a good fit with both the theory and the available data. This means that the assumptions about the factors and mechanisms in the developmental process on which the model has been based have at least some validity. In addition, the simulations generate new hypotheses about the process. It is concluded that quantitative dynamic systems models offer a useful way of exploring the validity of theoretical notions about developmental processes.

Simulating mother-child interaction: Exploring two varieties of a non-linear dynamic systems approach.

In theoretical analyses of early mother–child interaction, it has been argued that interaction should be studied in its flow over time, and that the behaviour of each interactant is likely to be non-linearly determined. The mother–child dyad can be seen as a non-linear dynamic system, the development of which is determined by the mutual relations between its elements. The present study is based on the idea that computer simulations can be used to find out what kind of empirical implication these ideas have. Accordingly, we describe two non-linear dynamic systems-based models for simulating mother–child interaction, i.e. a connectionist network model and a logistic growth model. Three determinants of the nature of the interaction, i.e. the childs irritability, the mothers sensitive responsiveness, and the intensity of an external stressor bothering the child, are varied systematically. Although the results of both simulations differed considerably, they shared the fact that small changes in stressor intensity produced abrupt changes from one type of interaction to another. In addition, increasing stressor intensity sometimes had the paradoxical effect of resulting in less, rather than more, distress on the side of the child. Though irritability and responsiveness were varied in a less fine-grained way than stressor intensity, the results suggest that similarly small differences in these dimensions at different parts of the dimensions scale range have differentially strong effects on the nature of the interaction. It is concluded that these simulations help us to specify the nature of empirically researchable phenomena that are to be expected, given the assumptions listed above. Further elaboration of the models and comparison with longitudinal empirical data is needed to answer further theoretical and practical questions. Copyright

Why computer models help to understand developmental processes

It is argued that simulating psychological processes by means of computer models is a valuable technique to increase our understanding of adolescent developmental processes. Modelling offers possibilities to test hypotheses that cannot be reached by designing empirical studies only and it allows us to investigate adolescent development as the complex and non-linear process that it is.

Theory and mathematics in building dynamic systems models: what prevails? A reply to van der Maas and Raijmakers

In their commentary, van der Maas and Raijmakers (2000) made three main points that will be discussed in this paper. The first point concerns the criticisms that they raised against our connectionist model. We discuss their second point, criticisms of the logistic growth model, in conjunction with their phase transition model. Finally, we discuss the third issue of whether it is possible to draw general conclusions with regard to the behaviour of different dynamical systems models.