Originally proposed in 1975, the transactional model has become central to understanding the interplay of nature and nurture in explaining the development of positive and negative outcomes for children. Although scientists have long acknowledged that nature and nurture work together in producing positive or negative developmental outcomes, such cooperation has been difficult to demonstrate because of inadequate conceptual models, experimental designs or statistical methodologies. This book documents the state-of-the-art research in developmental psychology for overcoming these inadequacies, and present new ideas for future work.
The book is divided into five parts. Part One introduces the transactional model and designs for transactional research. Parts Two and Three focus on the predictive power of the transactional model and the many social settings that contribute to child progress. Part Two specifically examines the relations between infants and children and their parents, focusing on the relationship between child characteristics and behaviors and parents' child-rearing beliefs and behavior. Part Three broadens the perspective on child development to include the effects of the interplay among children and parents, neighborhood, school, ethnic, and socioeconomic environments. Parts Four and Five discuss new directions in transactional psychology and examine the idea of the transaction itself.
