Is developmental psychology developing and changing to nonlinear dynamic systems?

Abstract

This paper examines the recent literature aboutnonlinear dynamic systems, oriented to developmentalpsychology studies. We review concepts asself-regulation, emergency, non-linearity, and regulatedinstability. Specifically we analyze the intraindividualvariability defined as the irregularity inprogresses and setbacks as well as the sequences ofperformances to the same situation. This variabilityis seen as expression of the same dynamic conceptand specifically as a case of relative instability, aproperty of dynamic systems, which is studied in aspatial planning task. In this case study we used methodologiesthat combine a microgenetic approachwith the minimum-and-maximum methodology ofthe dynamic systems.